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Data.gov & 7 Other Sites to Shut Down After Budgets Cut

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Re: Data.gov & 7 Other Sites to Shut Down After Budgets Cut

#51

Post by knowtheory »

tomjen3 wrote: post #42
jdp23 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Many techies avoid politics and activism or fail to learn the skills to do it well. The learned helplessness leads to becoming the low-hanging fruit.

The solution isn't to get involved in politics, it's to put an end to this "if you haven't died by the age of 18, you get to cast a vote". At least a four year requirement of a four year STEM degree at an accredited university should prevent people who aren't used to dealing with facts from getting us all killed. Democracy is a great idea so long as you limit whom you consider "the people".

You are clearly on the wrong website.

Given the number of people employed in our industry without a university degree — many of whom are leaders in their subject matter area — i think your proposal is not just obviously discriminatory, but spitting into the wind of a gale of contrary evidence.

Get out, see the world, go talk to people in places and industries where a university education isn't paramount, and then tell me again that they should be denied a right to vote.

Re: Data.gov & 7 Other Sites to Shut Down After Budgets Cut

#53

Post by streptomycin »

Duff wrote: post #34
adammichaelc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Congress were a typical family... Income: $40k Husband and wife arguing over whether to spend $80k or $79.9k. These "cuts" are nothing more than talking points.

That analogy only works if the husband is also printing money in the basement. As long as you need dollars to buy oil, we'll continue with nonsensical debate like this.

You don't need dollars to buy oil. Oil is currently sold in other currencies as well. In fact, it doesn't matter what currency it's sold in, as you can easily exchange currencies in the market.

Re: Data.gov & 7 Other Sites to Shut Down After Budgets Cut

#55

Post by jbooth »

eli wrote: post #14

This is a misleading headline. Nothing has happened yet. From the source article: The White House requested $35 million for the e-government fund in 2011. The House allocated only $2 million in its bill, H.R. 1. The Senate, meanwhile, would provide $20 million for the e-government fund. http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=35&sid=2327798 It's a budget fight, similar to the ones going on at hundreds of agencies right…

Whatever happens, it's not going to be "common sense prevailing". The Republicans have publicly painted themselves into a corner where no matter what Obama presents, they have to demand an absurd number of cuts to domestic discretionary spending. If you figure the current proposed budget is halfway-reasonable, that means that the Republicans have to insist on cutting good, cost-effective programs like this -- playing around at the margins isn't enough.

Re: Data.gov & 7 Other Sites to Shut Down After Budgets Cut

#56

Post by jbooth »

jacoblyles wrote: post #25
VladRussian wrote: post #6

from the sources it seems to be a doing of the House. Do we have any Republican here? Can such a person elaborate on the merits of this decision, please.

I find myself voting for the GOP more and more as the US budget deficit yawns ever larger (please don't hate me for it), so perhaps I can shed some light on the issue. Most likely cuts to these programs were included in a multi-thousand page budget bill. The Republicans elected to Congress had a choice between two budget bills, one of which spent $30 billion less. Following the will of the voters who granted them a h…

Not for nothing, but the last time we had a balanced budget there was a Democrat in the oval office. Expiring the Bush tax cuts would cut the deficit in about half over the next 10 years, and we could hit up the military, farm subsidies, actually send GE a tax bill and bank on a little GDP growth for the rest. It's actually not that hard to close if you're willing to look anywhere besides "cutting domestic discretionary even though THAT ENTIRE BUDGET is less than the deficit".

And, FWIW, many individual congressional republicans may have effectively had "a choice between 2 budget bills", but one of those bills (the one we're discussing) was entirely written by Republicans. So it's not like their hands were tied here, someone made the decision to go after this.

Re: Data.gov & 7 Other Sites to Shut Down After Budgets Cut

#57

Post by jbooth »

j_baker wrote: post #16
mberning wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what you mean. I find it incredibly frustrating that we HAPPILY go after minuscule savings on things like data.gov and NPR, meanwhile it is 100% taboo to talk about cutting big budget areas like the military. In my opinion we need to be looking at the big 3 because that is where we have the best opportunity to make significant improvements. Defense Social Security Medicare/Medicaid

It sucks, but the truth of the matter is that cutting back Defense, Social Security, and Medicare are touchy issues that can't be done easily. Far easier to cut back things like data.gov, which will only upset a few Silicon Valley techies. It seems to me that at this point, they're looking for politically low-hanging fruit rather than fiscally low-hanging fruit.

Technically, SS/Medicare/Medicaid are raised and funded on their own taxes, separate from the discretionary budget. (You can see "income tax", "FICA" and "medicare/medicaid" on your tax bill).

When people talk about the deficit, they're typically talking about the operating budget deficit, which is only funded from income tax and runs on a separate budget from the SS and medicare/medicaid administrations. So it doesn't really make sense to advocate cutting entitlements to address the deficit, they have problems too but they're separate problems.

Re: Data.gov & 7 Other Sites to Shut Down After Budgets Cut

#58

Post by baconner »

maxogden wrote: post #22
DrHankPym wrote: post #5

Was Data.gov really that expensive to maintain? What is this cut really saving? $20 / month?

when released, data.gov was the largest RDF triple store in the world #funfact

I don't think that's true.. when released I don't recall any rdf data being available on data.gov. the rdf initiative came way later, no? On release it was just a list of external data sources with links and metadata.

Re: Data.gov & 7 Other Sites to Shut Down After Budgets Cut

#59

Post by Apocryphon »

Duff wrote: post #32
mberning wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what you mean. I find it incredibly frustrating that we HAPPILY go after minuscule savings on things like data.gov and NPR, meanwhile it is 100% taboo to talk about cutting big budget areas like the military. In my opinion we need to be looking at the big 3 because that is where we have the best opportunity to make significant improvements. Defense Social Security Medicare/Medicaid

Think about what those things actually are. We're a post-industrial economy, since we don't make anything anymore, your "big 3" are the American equivalent of Bread & Circuses in Rome. Defense. Job program for millions of workers. Social Security. Welfare 2.0 -- after the Clinton welfare reform, you get bumped out of welfare after a few years. So people get declared "disabled" instead. Also, checks for grandma and ch…

I wonder what the Roman equivalent to the financial industry is. I'm talking about the speculators who deal with CDOs and the other frighteningly complex finance products that led to the economic crisis. Soothsaying?
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