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White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

washingtonpost.com

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Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#71

Post by MichaelBurge »

metaobject wrote: post #43
MichaelBurge wrote: post #38

> according to a four-page budget memo obtained by The Washington Post. So somebody in the NOAA is leaking internal memos to the press. Is it so bad to cut funding to rebellious agencies? It could be a good way to catch leakers: Distribute to every agency head a memo mentioning upcoming budget cuts, and see which self-righteous agencies try to stir up trouble. Instruct the agency heads to make minor changes to the de…

"Is it so bad to cut funding to rebellious agencies?" If the agency provides a vital service to the country, I'd say it is bad to punish the country by cutting their funding just because an employee in that agency leaked a document.

The budget cut memo by itself is not that important. The memo was probably forwarded to every manager in the department, and all it takes is one disgruntled underling expecting his job to be cut.

But if it's a consistent pattern, there's risk in having the government be staffed with people who feel justified in breaking the law to preserve their jobs, even if they feel their jobs are important.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#72

Post by mirimir »

mikeash wrote: post #62
mirimir wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, "communicating to them was not an effective strategy".

"Their strategy is not effective" is quite different from "they are the problem." Anyway, what would you propose that they do?

If B is ignoring A, for whatever reason, then A can talk to others. Or more generally, do whatever it takes to workaround B.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#73

Post by blackaspen »

Yikes. But unfortunately not unsurprising.

I live in Boulder and drive past the NOAA (and NIST, and I think parts of CIRES) offices every day. I've had family and countless professors that have done joint research with them, and very, very good friends and colleagues that have started their careers there. Part of how I wound up here (in the tech sector, posting to HN) was on an eighth grade field trip there asking how they drove 'Science on a Sphere' (7 RHEL machines).

It'd obviously be terrible globally if this were to go through, but it'd be pretty awful locally too. Every year around budget approval season, most NOAA folks I know would be insanely worried...Guess that comes a little early this year.

EDIT: I guess as a follow up, I anticipate pretty substantial(proposed, at least) cuts to UCAR/NCAR and NREL as well. "We don't need no stinkin' climate research!"

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#74

Post by derefr »

dashundchen wrote: post #60
bobmno wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

17 trillion in debt, time to cut back

Not sure if you're sarcastic or trolling . Cut back on by far the largest and most expensive military in the world then. NOAA budget 2016: $5.8 billion US military budget: $600 billion And they're proposing a $54 billion increase. You could probably trim 10 NOAAs from the military industrial complex and nothing would be lost.

With the proviso that US military support and materiel has been used as trade goods for alliance-making with other countries for most of the last century. A large portion of the US military budget is "being the substitute military for US allies."

The key question of decreasing US government spending is how to get other countries to pony up for the "renting" of the US military forces that they're already doing (because the alternative is that the US withdraws military support from those countries—and then those countries build back up their own militaries. Which, undoubtedly, would put us in a very different world than the one we're in right now...)

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#75

Post by mikeash »

mirimir wrote: post #72
mikeash wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Their strategy is not effective" is quite different from "they are the problem." Anyway, what would you propose that they do?

If B is ignoring A, for whatever reason, then A can talk to others. Or more generally, do whatever it takes to workaround B.

A does talk to others. It still hasn't worked, and now B is trying really hard to make A stop telling everybody about this stuff.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#76

Post by nickthemagicman »

ra1n85 wrote: post #67
bitJericho wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The military is 60 percent of the budget.

It's not. Defense comes in at 15% of federal spending. Social security and medicare combined come in at 4x that amount. Source: http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/l/120/2017-Estimate

Better link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_Sta...

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#77

Post by findateamfirst »

ra1n85 wrote: post #67
bitJericho wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The military is 60 percent of the budget.

It's not. Defense comes in at 15% of federal spending. Social security and medicare combined come in at 4x that amount. Source: http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/l/120/2017-Estimate

Those are non discretionary and funded by totally separate channels.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#78

Post by GabrielF00 »

coss wrote: post #5

Just playing devil's advocate can someone articulate what kind of value we will lose as a society?

I was talking to someone who worked as an engineer for NASA for decades. He said the work he was proudest of was on the GOES satellites, because they save lives every year by providing data on extreme weather. It looks like weather satellite operations are going to be hardest hit by these cuts.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#79

Post by findateamfirst »

mikeash wrote: post #14
tsomctl wrote: post #12

> The biggest single cut proposed by the passback document comes from NOAA’s satellite division, .... Researchers there were behind a study suggesting that there has been no recent slowdown in the rate of climate change — research that drew the ire of Republicans in Congress. Yes, let's shoot the messenger.

When you "know" the message is wrong but the messenger won't shut up about it, these things start to sound like a good idea.

When on Earth did anti science trolls take such a prominent role in HN? It's not hard for me to imagine a misinformation campaign run against HN, because I can't really understand how someone technical could countenance anti climate change ideas.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#80

Post by mirimir »

mikeash wrote: post #75
mirimir wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If B is ignoring A, for whatever reason, then A can talk to others. Or more generally, do whatever it takes to workaround B.

A does talk to others. It still hasn't worked, and now B is trying really hard to make A stop telling everybody about this stuff.

So A has to get rid of B, or make them irrelevant.
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