'YouCut' Targets National Science Foundation Budget 760
jamie writes "As some of you may have heard, the incoming Republican majority in Congress has a new initiative called YouCut, which lets ordinary Americans like me propose government programs for termination. So imagine how excited I was to learn that YouCut's first target — yes, its first target — was that notoriously bloated white elephant, the National Science Foundation."
Drowning in the bathtub. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly the kind of framing that brings joy to those with a grudge against effective government - playing entirely in their end zone, scoring point after point when they're supposed to have the ball.
Corporations have proven that, given the option, they will simply not do basic research. Now, we're using recent tax breaks (plus extra double tax cuts for the rich) causing further massive deficits to argue that huge swaths of basic research be eliminated, because they're too luxurious for us to afford (compared to the utter non-luxury of war-time double-tax-cuts for the mega-rich).
Basic science is really our only path towards actually knowing how to solve a lot of deep, inherent, and growing problems in our world. Problems that will only get worse as more resources are pulled into the hands of the few who will never let that money out of their small investment circles and estate holdings by choice.
The rich (frequently) aren't villains - they're just those that are good at gathering resources, the natural end result of selecting for people who can best acquire resources from others. The dynamic of a glut of rich getting more controlling over more resources is an ancient dynamic - the very word Crass is an example of this - take a little time to read up on Marcus Licinius Crassus [wikipedia.org] adventures in emergency real estate acquisitions if you want a little insight into to today's real estate capitalism. Of course, he did die getting gold poured down his throat after his overreach - but he also created an empire too.
Sacrifice research on the alter of making room for tax breaks, however, and you're selling the very soul of your nation's future. You're creating an empire at the cost of drowning your future in your acquired gold.
Ryan Fenton
Ummm... (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, we don't train scientists in this country without NIH/NSF/DOE funding. It simply doesn't happen, because it is too expensive to do any other way. If those three agencies were all terminated this afternoon, grad schools across the country would suffer immediately. Eventually the number of new degrees issued would plummet and employers looking for PhDs would have to hire from abroad.
In other words, congratulations you just expressed support for accelerating the brain drain.
The amount of truly useful work to come out of academia does not justify stealing from taxpayers.
Just because you don't understand the work - or the value thereof - coming from academia does not mean it has no value.
Re:Cut YouCut (Score:5, Interesting)
The economic problem is not the central problem of mankind. Knowledge, innovation, technology is. In times like these when biz is sitting on trillions of cash, govt needs to step up to prevent suffering and encourage the continuing advance of innovation. Our creativity is what keeps our currency strong, by producing things others want.
When have predictions about the deficit causing doom and gloom ever come true in the US? Lincoln printed over $400 million greenbacks, and it worked. Under FDR the govt took over some 40% of GDP, and it worked. Reagan tripled the debt, and it worked.
Why should money creation automatically be tied to debt? Because bankers profit that way? Why can't our elected representatives create debt-free money to fund a robust safety net (or basic income [google.com]) and encourage innovation through challenges (nothing prevents private companies like Google and Netflix from holding challenges too of course)?
If you look at the figures for US foreign-owned debt [treasury.gov], you will see that we could pay off China with the recently-passed tax cut for the richest 2%. Note that the second largest holder of US foreign debt is Japan, with its 200% debt-to-gdp ratio. Also note that foreign debt totals some $4.2 trillion; most of the rest is government owing money to itself - which can be forgiven or written down. So the debt crisis is not nearly as scary as politicians focused on elections want you to believe!
Fears about the debt are a pure political ploy, an appeal to emotion and bad analogies with personal finances, designed to scare the voters with predictions about their grandchildren that have been made ever since this country was founded and Alexander Hamilton assumed the states' war debts. But govt can do things that individuals can't, like print money, and declare war. And this visualization [singularityhub.com] of the last 200 years shows that none of the predictions about grandchildren being worse off have come true.
Recognize the fears about the debt for what it is: simply a means to get attention. Everyone knows the debt doesn't matter, especially Republican presidents, who are strongly correlated with increases in the debt [wikipedia.org].
Re:Where is the budget for the Congress itself ? (Score:4, Interesting)
I always wondered what it would be like if we gave Congress a giant pie charts instead of monetary figures. Every time they wanted to spend money they were given a percentage figure by a calculator and they would have to shrink other pie pieces to make it fit...
We'd have a branch set of charts. One is simply Domestic and Foreign and the others list the subparts of those two. Any change in spending for each chart would require a 2/3 approval as well as any change in the Domestic/Foreign chart.
Congressmen would not know how many actual dollars go to each program by looking at it, but maybe the top 10 items would be listed by percentage next to it. I'm sure some will be able to use a calculator and figure out the raw dollar value, but the purpose of the pie chart is to be able to see at all times where the bulk of their spending is going. It will make the "big budget" items giant targets for allocating to new projects.
There may also be a fourth chart for average taxes taken from their citizens to remind them how much they are taking (if we had a uniform tax code, this chart may have more weight... but whatever.)
It's all up to me? (Score:3, Interesting)
The Republicans want me, an ignorant, uninformed American, to decide what to cut from the US Government budget?
I vote we cut the Republican Party.
Who's with me?