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Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

arstechnica.com

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Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#131

Post by naasking »

graycat wrote: post #60

Budget cuts? Want to get paid, by the US Federal Government, for pursuing science or technology? From experience, in simple terms, a word: Have the work for and the funding from the US DOD, department of defense, military, for some work they really care about. This sounds like a joke, but it's 90+% real. For years early in my career in applied math and computing, far and away the best parts, funding, technically adva…

> From experience, in simple terms, a word: Have the work for and the funding from the US DOD, department of defense, military, for some work they really care about.

Arguably, national defense research is and should be a core funding target of a federal government. This will never go away, as national defense is one of the core purposes of a government.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#132

Post by msgodel »

The aggressive cutting meant we ran a budget surplus for June. This has to happen or everything gets cut. We're pretty much at the end of the road.

The Democrats had control of the white house and legislature at the beginning of Biden's presidency and could have chosen alternatives to cut but did not.

As I've said so often: if you don't like what Trump is doing you need to campaign for viable alternatives.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#133

Post by IAmBroom »

adastra22 wrote: post #84
propter_hoc wrote: post #15

> Fewer robots, more humans Exactly the opposite of what they should be funding..

Why?

IMO, because robots can replace humans in dangerous and highly undesirable jobs, while increasing overall productivity.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#135

Post by softwaredoug »

msgodel wrote: post #132

The aggressive cutting meant we ran a budget surplus for June. This has to happen or everything gets cut. We're pretty much at the end of the road. The Democrats had control of the white house and legislature at the beginning of Biden's presidency and could have chosen alternatives to cut but did not. As I've said so often: if you don't like what Trump is doing you need to campaign for viable alternatives.

The viable alternative is pretty obvious. Don’t renew the tax cuts and cut entitlements and defense. That’s what you have to do to get a balanced budget. You don’t get a balanced budget trimming random measly costs that might look nice but are infinitesimal parts of the budget.

But we tend to cut taxes, not substantive spending. Which is going to saddle my kids with a mess.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#136

Post by ceejayoz »

supertrope wrote: post #122
trostaft wrote: post #5

I hope they manage to do something similar for the NSF. The proposed cuts there are crushing. The NSF funds great science in all parts of the country, and subsequently tons of jobs to the area.

Maybe the NSF needs to geographically disperse grants to maximize Congressional Districts that benefit. Kind of like how military spending is spread around states.

They do. Any district with a college or university is likely getting some.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#137

Post by FrustratedMonky »

IAmBroom wrote: post #134
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #115

If they are going to try and backtrack, why pass it in first place?

Because: Congress has turnover; the POTUS has turnover; things change; Trump is a mercurial idiotic dictator-wannabe.

But they passed the big bill like a couple weeks ago, and now changing already. There hasn't been any turnover.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#138

Post by IAmBroom »

graycat wrote: post #60

Budget cuts? Want to get paid, by the US Federal Government, for pursuing science or technology? From experience, in simple terms, a word: Have the work for and the funding from the US DOD, department of defense, military, for some work they really care about. This sounds like a joke, but it's 90+% real. For years early in my career in applied math and computing, far and away the best parts, funding, technically adva…

That is a nice autobiographical summary, but it has almost nothing to do with the current topic.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#139

Post by supertrope »

ceejayoz wrote: post #136
supertrope wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the NSF needs to geographically disperse grants to maximize Congressional Districts that benefit. Kind of like how military spending is spread around states.

They do. Any district with a college or university is likely getting some.

What I mean is universities tend to be in cities with a few satellite branches in rural towns. Spread the “production” across as many Congressional Districts as possible to optimize for votes. When the system incentivizes pandering to rural areas that is the only winning move.

Re: Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts

#140

Post by ceejayoz »

ethbr1 wrote: post #108
elzbardico wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the stroke of a pen, a rogue billionaire could nationalize SpaceX citing some vague concerns about national security. Money is powerful, but never under-estimate the power of having the coercive apparatus of state at someone's hand.

This is drastically under-appreciating the blowback nationalizing SpaceX would generate. Both from the Republican base, to whom government is anathema and private industry the best. And to corporate interests supporting the Republican Party. Want to see where the real power is? Follow the political money.

Twenty years ago, would you have thought the religious right would accept a serial philanderer former Democrat from NYC whose favorite Bible verse is “Two Corinthians” as their idol?

The Republican base doesn’t actually care about the things they claim to.

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