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US Federal Budget Proposal Cuts Science Funding (washingtonpost.com)
hey! writes: The U.S. Office of Management and Budget has released a budget "blueprint" which outlines substantial cuts in both basic research and applied technology funding. The proposal includes a whopping 18% reduction in National Institutes of Health medical research. NIH does get a new $500 million fund to track emerging infectious agents like Zika in the U.S., but loses its funding to monitor those agents overseas. The Department of Energy's research programs also get an 18% cut in research, potentially affecting basic physics research, high energy physics, fusion research, and supercomputing. Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) gets the ax, as does the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program, which enabled Tesla to manufacture its Model S sedan. EPA loses all climate research funding, and about half the research funding targeted at human health impacts of pollution. The Energy Star program is eliminated; Superfund funding is drastically reduced. The Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes cleanup programs are also eliminated, as is all screening of pesticides for endocrine disruption. In the Department of Commerce, Sea Grant is eliminated, along with all coastal zone research funding. Existing weather satellites GOES and JPSS continue funding, but JPSS-3 and -4 appear to be getting the ax. Support for transfer of federally funded research and technology to small and mid-sized manufacturers is eliminated. NASA gets a slight trim, and a new focus on deep space exploration paid for by an elimination of Earth Science programs. You can read more about this "blueprint" in Nature, Science, and the Washington Post, which broke the story. The Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department and Agriculture Department took the hardest hits, while the Defense Department, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Veterans Affairs have seen their budgets grow.
The federal government says our National Debt is near 20 Trillion dollars. But that is a misdirection so they can hide the fact we are almost over the edge.
Once one considers the future liabilities (promised benefits) of Social Security (SSA & SSD), Medicare and Medicad which are all off budget (hidden) we are close to 100 Trillion in debt. And those programs in 2015(maybe 2014) made up 47% of all Federal spending. Medicad alone grew at a pace of 27% in 2015!!
And consider that Interest on our National Debt made up another 19% of Federal Spending!!
I don't think this can be hidden for more than 4-5 years before the bottom falls out. Then the drastic spending spending cuts will get made.
Because the Federal level politicians and bureaucrats will need to really start making big cuts in the entitlement programs just to save their own pay checks and retirements.
One last item, this is a bi partisan problem (Dems and Repubs) they have diverted the funds paid in for 50+ year to spend on other stuff!
But it is going to happen if we don't start cutting big time now!!
Yet it adds $54 billion to defense spending, while cutting out the entire NEA and NEH for a yuge $300M savings. Clearly addressing the deficit is not uppermost in Trump's mind.
I know every budget has to be criticized by 'the opposing party' with a list of all the wonderful things that are going to be cut, but you all DO realize that the US government is nearly $19 TRILLION in debt - or more than $50k per person in the country?
Every single program that we're paying for, essentially we're living off credit cards. We are the wealthiest nation in human history, and we still cannot afford all the crap we want.
At some point, someone has to be the grownup in the room and say "you know, that would be really nice, but we simply can't afford it".
I would agree with you if the Trump government was actually proposing to reduce the budget, but that is not the case. The cuts in those agencies will mostly be used to fund a $54B increase in defense spending (which, in 2015, already accounted for more than half of the federal discretionary spending.
You can read the full WP article for more details...The link is in the summary
Democrats are just as anti science.
At some point, someone has to be the grownup in the room and say "you know, that would be really nice, but we simply can't afford it".
One if we apply this logically we would go, "do we really have to spend more on military than the next 10 nations combined, 8 of them are allies and all of them are trading partners?
We pay abysmal interest rates for our T-bills and the world still thinks it is a safer investment than anything else. World trade is dollar denominated and foreign exchange of all the countries are in dollars.
In fact it is criminal not not to borrow to the hilt and invest in infrastructure, at this low interest rates. Not merely bridges and roads, universities, research labs, data collection and archiving, everything we can think of, and then a few we can not think of too.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Trump's Budget is straight from the playbook of the Heritage Foundation. Following the money to the military, I'd say prepare for war; probably the Middle East again, seeing how things are. We'd lose a conventional war with China, and going nuclear is too much, even for Donald Trump.
You are either a complete Trump fanboy, or just hopelessly naive because this budget IN NO WAY reduces the debt. Never mind you silly argument of "living off a credit card" (if you don't know how public debt different from revolving debt, go spend some time reading or take ECON 200) let's just focus on the budget:
It includes a massive increase of $54 Billion to the military. This is the military that is already funded 3x the next highest military (in fact if you add #2-8 in spending together you don't equal it), that has spending more than transportation, education, housing, international affairs, science, labour, and agriculture COMBINED. We really need this? We need that much more money for the military?
On top of that they are also set to propose sweeping tax cuts, particularly for the rich.
This is NOT something that'll reduce the debt, not even reduce the rate of increase.
If you want to compare it to a family (which as I said, it doesn't really work like personal finances) this is a parent saying "No I'm sorry kids, we can't afford to get a new water heater even though ours isn't working well, and I can't get you new clothes, we have too much debt. In other news I'm buying myself another new car and cutting my hours to 35 per week!"
You show me a budget that cuts the military like everything else, that at the very least keeps taxes where they are if not increases them, I'll give the "we have to cut the debt" argument credit. However so long as it is "less taxes, more defense spending" you can GTFO with that crap.
Because it not only doesn't cut the military, ti increases it by $54 billion. That offsets any other cuts. Combined with them wanting big tax cuts for the wealthy (who have the most to tax) that means a higher deficit. If you thing is cutting the debt, these guys are not interested in it. This proposal does nothing in that regard.
Also cutting spending isn't the only way to balance the budget. Increasing income works too, either via raising taxes or increasing the overall economy. Well guess what? Many of the programs being cut are the kind of things that help economic growth. Science is that way. The US is rich and prosperous in no small part because of science and development. When you are on the forefront of new things, you make a lot of money. Cut that, and it cuts future growth.
There were several budgets under Obama.
He just could not get Republicans to vote for any of them.
Actually, funnily enough, of that $20 trillion in debt, $19 trillion is owed directly to the people of the United States. About 1 Trillion is for China, and a few billion here and there for other countries.
So what we should do is file a lien on the Government, and take every bit of military, CIA, FBI, and DARPA technology, gov't housing for those holding office, all of their pay raises (and accounts since they're paid by our tax money) and revoke their ability to collect taxes until their debt to us is settled.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Fuck you.
"From 1972 to today, the EPA has grown by 115%"
From https://www.epa.gov/planandbudget/budget:
1972: $2,447,565,000
2016: $8,139,887,000
So, first up, you pulled numbers from your ass. Good job. It's actually increased by a factor of 3.3. Before your stupid ass starts gloating, let's look at what inflation has done since then.
From: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1&year1=1972&year2=2017
A 1972 dollar is worth $5.83 now. So in constant inflation adjusted dollars, the EPA budget only has 57% of the purchasing power it did in 1972.
Learn to do actual research, with actual sources, and don't quote some fucking "conservative premiere media watchdog." I mean, for fuck's sake, they can't even capitalize shit correctly. Why do you think they can do math?
Well ultimately the President does not write the budget he offers a suggested one to Congress where they write the real budget, with the work spread across a number of standing Committees controlled (in the parliamentary sense and usually the majority of seats sense) by the majority party.
Under Obama/Pelosi/Reid the Democrats simply did not bother to do one of their most basic jobs of authoring a damn budget. They punted over and over again with "Continuing Resolutions" No I am not naive I know the Rs would not have voted for it either but you can't blame them for not voting on a package that never existed not really.
What was even sadder is we basically got the same CR crap once the House was back in Republican control. Would Obama have signed a Republic budget, probably not but than you can't blame him for not signing a bill that was never sent to his desk, not really.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Trump's attack on Yemen in his first few weeks in office, which cost civilian and American military lives, is not a good indication he will discontinue the Obama policy. Trump is too worried about "looking weak".
You are welcome on my lawn.