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Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

latimes.com

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Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#81

Post by alistairSH »

tokai wrote: post #58
alistairSH wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could zero out the military budget and that still doesn't get us anywhere close to balanced. Even cutting 100% of discretionary spending barely does the job. We either need massive cuts in mandatory spending (fundamental changes to social contract) or increased revenue (politically not viable). There's also near zero evidence we actually need a balanced budget for a healthy economy.

>increased revenue (politically not viable) Is that really true? Seems like its just an issue of how you frame it.

The party that controls all three branches of the federal government is pushing a budget that cuts taxes and increase the deficit. There has been zero talk from them about balancing the budget. And there likely won't be, because if they do, they won't be able to use it as a cudgel to beat the Democrats when party control eventually swings the other way.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#82

Post by qualeed »

bumby wrote: post #73
hackyhacky wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a balanced budget is your goal, only two steps are required: reduce military spending, increase taxes. No need to cut research. In practice the current budget bill is wildly unbalanced and will vastly extend our debt, despite extensive cuts to important programs.

> reduce military spending…No need to cut research You do know the military spend on research dwarfs any other federal agency, right? The DoD research budget is about 5X that of NASA. This gets to the point early where it’s easy to be in favor of cuts in the abstract but much harder in practice once you see that it touches something you favor.

>You do know the military spend on research

The charitable reading of parent's comment is "reduce the spending on the parts of the military that aren't research (or research solely dedicated to killing people)".

I'm sure they were thinking more along the lines of bombing various countries (or $40MM birthday parades) rather than the next onion routing protocol coming out of the Naval Research Laboratory.

You can still disagree with that, of course, but responding to the steelman version of someone's argument is much better than a snarky "You do know XYZ, right?".

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#83

Post by pu_pe »

The US is actively choosing to become completely reliant on private providers for access to space, which at this point boils down to SpaceX and Boeing. Both seem unreliable for different reasons. I just cannot see it as anything else than a blunder.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#85

Post by tstactplsignore »

palmfacehn wrote: post #15

Wherever budget cuts are proposed, you can rely upon detractors to present the issue in apocalyptic terms. If we believed all of these claims, then it would be impossible to cut the scope of government spending. Furthermore, if we accepted the premise promoted by some commenters here, then research, which is presented as incredibly valuable - would be unable to be funded or valued in the private market. For these rea…

This is a tiny portion of government spending though. You could completely eliminate the NASA budget entirely and it'd make absolutely no difference on the federal government's bottom line. The NASA budget, the NIH budget, the NSF budget, the USAID budget, the EPA budget, the NOAA budget - all of these unbelievably useful with high ROI agencies combined do not amount to more than the margin of error in the US government's annual yearly deficit.

So even completely eliminating these agencies wouldn't put a dent in the US government's deficit. But doing so would be sighted, because these agencies and programs also have a long-term return on investment. They are economic wealth generators, not money-spenders, and they are being cut.

So there are two reasons that this debate has clearly nothing to do with cutting spending. This is simply factual. Why do you and others keep claiming it does? Especially when the Trump administration is proposing a new budget that cuts all of these things and also greatly increases the US debt?

The federal budget is not hard to balance, and there are basically three paths: (a) raise taxes, especially on the rich, (b) cut defense spending, (c) cut Medicare and Social Security spending.

I just wish we could have the actual argument. If you do not like new medicines, clean water, space travel, saving millions of lives in Africa from HIV, then say so, and let's have that debate! But can we stop pretending it is about fiscal conservation?

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#86

Post by biophysboy »

dsign wrote: post #38
whatshisface wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think you could fundraise billions of dollars for science from private sources? You're talking about a $100B (spread out over the next decade) bill on the sidewalk. I don't think there's anything less realistic than the idea that there would be that amount of money available for the asking but unclaimed...

I don't agree with the GP either, but I'm pretty sure there are more than 100 B of private capital which are, on the big scheme of things, being spent on quite frivolous things.. if at all. Which reinforces your point: some things good for society as a whole need to be funded by taxes.

The key is that they are investing in frivolous things rather than fundamental medical research because the latter is higher risk and lower reward in money terms. As you say, its precisely the opposite when the metric is future human health.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#87

Post by palmfacehn »

jasonjayr wrote: post #56
palmfacehn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a starting premise, we might define "enough" as a balanced budget.

That also assumes that a "balanced budget" is the best macro-economic policy for a country of our size.

Another consideration would be the "Economic Calculation Problem", or our inability measure (price) the utility of state allocations of capital. The deficit is only one implication of the spending program. There are also the unseen factors when these funds are removed from the private sector, not just via taxation but also by comparative valuation of scarce resources.

I.e. if there are 100 cement trucks in the economy and 95 are allocated for state projects, the private sector needs to produce additional cement trucks under the increased burden of taxation. In the near term, cement construction costs have been increased. From this point, perhaps another bureau will enter by nationalizing the cement truck industry, "To secure our vital national interests and remain competitive"

Without decentralized market price signals, we are unable to value the end goals of the state's construction project. More troubling still, we wouldn't know of how the market may have allocated those trucks or if those trucks would have been used in a more productive way. However, we can observe empirical historical examples of lowered productivity which correlates with central planning.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#88

Post by searine »

msgodel wrote: post #79
searine wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of cutting cancer research or Nasa, maybe tax the rich? Wild idea, I know.

Tariffs are a tax on luxury consumption so he's doing that too. And once again people are mad and trying to cut off their nose to spite their face.

Tariffs are a tax on the poor.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#89

Post by msgodel »

searine wrote: post #88
msgodel wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tariffs are a tax on luxury consumption so he's doing that too. And once again people are mad and trying to cut off their nose to spite their face.

Tariffs are a tax on the poor.

[flagged]

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#90

Post by hedora »

mistrial9 wrote: post #69
pstuart wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only do they not care, they actually relish destroying anything they consider to be "woke", like science. It's unfortunate, but modern American conservatism is now defined by hating everything that liberals love. This is a pity, because there should be a balance between "progress" and "government restraint" -- and that is no longer possible.

this point of view is so utterly lacking self-critical thought about "extreme social views, we demand you accept it or you are haters" .. its just a thought-blocker and dead-end. Endless polarization.

Recent polls of Trump supporter show that they expect Trump’s policies to hurt them personally, but they support the policies anyway because they think they will hurt liberals more.

It is difficult to reconcile that viewpoint with any path to a functioning democracy.

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