America set to decline in science investment

[zoogs]

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/nih-doe-office-science-face-deep-cuts-trumps-first-budget

 

President Donald Trump's first budget request to Congress, to be released at 7 a.m. Thursday, will call for cutting the 2018 budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by $6 billion, or nearly 20%, according to sources familiar with the proposal. The Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Science would lose $900 million, or nearly 20% of its $5 billion budget. The proposal also calls for deep cuts to the research programs at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and a 5% cut to NASA's earth science budget. And it would eliminate DOE's roughly $300 million Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

Woo?

 

At DOE, the department's nuclear weapons programs would grow, while science programs would shrink, reports Steve Mufson of The Washington Post (...)

Priorities for a safer and more advanced world...

[zoogs]

POPSCI dives into the NASA earth science cuts: http://www.popsci.com/federal-budget-nasa-earth#page-2

 

If Congress approves the budget in full, NASA's Earth-observing satellite programs (PACE, OCO-3, DSCOVR, and CLARREO Pathfinder), which are mostly still in development, are toast. And even if Congress doesn't make all of the suggested budget cuts, the proposal indicates the administration is shrinking away from the research that most serves to benefit our own planet. Here's what we stand to lose:

It makes sense when you consider that an ignoramus chiefly concerned with his own glamour profile is calling the shots. These budget proposals are statements, and military gud. space travel gud resonates. Popularizing science is not without its costs, and the abandonment of critical and relevant research particularly in the current climate appears to be on the horizon as a result.

[Decked]

Sad as hell.

[Whistlebritches]

POPSCI dives into the NASA earth science cuts: http://www.popsci.com/federal-budget-nasa-earth#page-2

 

If Congress approves the budget in full, NASA's Earth-observing satellite programs (PACE, OCO-3, DSCOVR, and CLARREO Pathfinder), which are mostly still in development, are toast. And even if Congress doesn't make all of the suggested budget cuts, the proposal indicates the administration is shrinking away from the research that most serves to benefit our own planet. Here's what we stand to lose:

It makes sense when you consider that an ignoramus chiefly concerned with his own glamour profile is calling the shots. These budget proposals are statements, and military gud. space travel gud resonates. Popularizing science is not without its costs, and the abandonment of critical and relevant research particularly in the current climate appears to be on the horizon as a result.

 

I think you're giving the President too much credit on the budget. The whole thing seems like a group effort by the R's to starve the beast.

[Danny Bateman]

Mick Mulvaney just created a great talking point campaign line for whomever tries to sweep this awful administration out of office in three years.

 

[Whistlebritches]

Mick Mulvaney just created a great talking point campaign line for whomever tries to sweep this awful administration out of office in three years.

 

There are so many sound bites coming out of this conference it's incredible.

[Ratt Mhule]

It makes someone my age maybe think twice about bringing kids into the world. Things might not get bad for my kids, but it might start getting bad for their kids or the next generation. Four years, possibly eight without giving a crap about our environment can have DEVASTATING effects, especially since things are already starting to slowly rear its ugly head. Sad.

[Red Five]

They're just making America great again. Science doesn't play in "real" America. It's only those damn liberal coastal elites that believe in science.

[NM11046]

And when he says, "waste of your money" he means, my money, and even more so the money of the white guys that want to make america great again.

[Ratt Mhule]

The administration cant end fast enough

[84HuskerLaw]

America is not set to decline in "science" investment. If the federal government never spent another dime of taxpayer money on 'science investment' (governments don't invest in anything in a true sense although the tax funds away from those who truly do invest in science, research and technological advancements), the amount of money invested in new science and technological development will continue to grow as it has for centuries now.

 

Federal tax dollars which are expended in so-called research grants and aids and other pork barrel projects are simply wealth transfers as government takes from those who do invest and produce and give to those who seek funds to carry out an endless variety of studies and other so-called research projects but in general fail to produce anything of real economic value or worth.

 

The vast bulk of new discoveries and other significant accomplishments derived from government funded research projects, outside of military programs which are also extremely inefficient and grossly over priced, are the result of the work product of private contractors and enterprises and not the result of the work product of government employees.

 

There is in fact good reason to expect that the less government interferes or involves itself in entreprenuerial activites, the more output would be expected.

[zoogs]

Are you familiar with NIH???

 

DOE? NOAA? NASA???? For chrissake.

[Red Five]

Federal tax dollars which are expended in so-called research grants and aids and other pork barrel projects are simply wealth transfers as government takes from those who do invest and produce and give to those who seek funds to carry out an endless variety of studies and other so-called research projects but in general fail to produce anything of real economic value or worth.

 

One of my good friends gets those so-called research grants and carries out so-called research projects trying to come up with a so-called cure for cancer.

 

I talked to him a couple a couple days ago and he (and others in his field) are very worried what this means for continuing their research.

[ZRod]

Are you familiar with NIH???

DOE? NOAA? NASA???? For chrissake.

Ignorance is bliss...

[RedDenver]

Federal tax dollars which are expended in so-called research grants and aids and other pork barrel projects are simply wealth transfers as government takes from those who do invest and produce and give to those who seek funds to carry out an endless variety of studies and other so-called research projects but in general fail to produce anything of real economic value or worth.

Here's just a few things that came from government-funded research:

• atomic bomb
• nuclear reactor
• optical digital recording (all those CD's and DVD's)
• fluorescent lights
• communications and observation satellites
• advanced batteries (every laptop and handheld device uses them)
• modern water-purification techniques
• supercomputers (which led to modern CPU's; we don't use them much, do we?)
• more resilient passenger jets
• better cancer therapies

P.S. The preceding list was just for the Department of Energy. I'll let you go look up how the backbone of the internet was funded, or what the Apollo Program led to, or how the biotech industry is largely based on the Human Genome Project.