Obama Says 3% of GDP Should Fund Science Research And Development 753
tritonman writes "Obama wants to set a goal that the US spend 3% of its GDP on scientific research and development. 'I believe it is not in our character, American character, to follow — but to lead. And it is time for us to lead once again. I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than 3 percent of our GDP to research and development,' Obama said in a speech at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences."
Re:So... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
2.6% [bbc.co.uk] The EU's goal is 3%, too.
Re:Administration (Score:2, Informative)
clinton had the budget balanced and in a yearly surplus by the end of his two terms
Now, now... be fair. Clinton and the Repubs were so tied up fighting that no serious new spending could occur. The economy outgrew the federal government. Not to mention, much of the surge in revenue came from the dot-com bubble.
Don't forget that one of Clinton's first acts was an attempt to socialize healthcare. Put his wife in charge :)
Re:Administration (Score:3, Informative)
Clinton had a "balanced budget" but a Republican congress.
Guess which drafts the budget?
Also notice how little difference party allegiance makes - Republicans were in congress during the Bush years as well.
More on topic... "the government and private entities combined should" as opposed to "a government taxing to spend that money" - the implications of that are absolutely scary.
Re:Administration (Score:4, Informative)
Sure why not. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Administration (Score:2, Informative)
Not to mention that the National debt divided by the GDP decreased under both Carter and Clinton.
Now, the last 3 Republicans Presidents have had a serious problem with the national debt.
http://www.political-analysis.org/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/national-debt-gdp-60-yrs.gif [political-analysis.org]
Re:What about animal hybrids in Louisiana? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Administration (Score:3, Informative)
One doesnt' exclude the other at all. First off, tech creates new jobs, that's a pretty well-known fact.
Second, government spending is only part of it, the % of GDP figure includes business spending on R&D.
Last but not least, you don't actually have a choice. Other countries are spending more, and increasingly so. Sweden already spends nearly 5% of their GDP on R&D. Do you want to be a leader or a follower? The USA is increasingly uncompetitive in an increasingly competitive game.
But sure, if your future vision of the USA is competing with China for low-end manufacturing jobs, fine.
Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object (Score:3, Informative)
It's actually a bit of a catch-22. You see, when scientists publish this basic research and make it available, we often try and put it in context of where this might possibly lead in the future. But we have to be very careful not to be over-optimistic, because these projections are often mis-interpreted by mainstream media as definitive statements. For example, there's probably several hundred or more studies done in the past decade on the various cancer-fighting potential of countless compounds. Every so often, mass media picks up on one of these, and proclaims that somebody's found a cure for cancer or something. Conversely, basic science on other, more negative things can be picked up as well; such as all those studies about cell phones and brain cancer. There's still no conclusive evidence pointing to this yet, but mass media seems to think there is.
Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object (Score:3, Informative)
Science shows lemmings don't actually dive off cliffs to their deaths. ;)
Of course, the sheep I've seen were all pretty stupid -- and (domesticated) turkeys seem too dumb to live.
Re:Administration (Score:2, Informative)
Uhh, if you look at the combined war, military, intelligence, and 'anti-terror' budget spending in the US, you should see that it makes up well over half of our annual budget. Just shy of $800 Billion a year on Military and National Security, compared to $383 Billion on everything else.
For every $1 we spend on a child's education, the DoD spends $10. For every $1 we spend on protecting the environment (EPA) we spend $12 on the "War on Terror". Heck, the DoD's Operations and Maintenance budget is over $90 Billion. That's almost double the total spent by NASA ($17B), DoE ($25B), National Science Foundation ($6B) combined!
-Rick
Re:Administration (Score:2, Informative)
Apparently whoever wrote the Constitution of the United States of America fucked up, then, since providing for the common defense and general welfare are listed as reasons for the existence of the federal government, but governing the citizens is not.
Re:What about animal hybrids in Louisiana? (Score:1, Informative)
"what do you think those mammies do with that welfare money? They spend it. So if they get that check, that means you can have more than 200,000 customers. The extra revenue and work..."
Yeah, thats all well and good until you consider the fact that the welfare came from him to begin with, so he is essentially giving his goods away.
Learn this and learn it well, money is an abstraction of goods/services. If I take 10% of Person A's goods that they created themselves, and give it to Person B, who did not create anything and say to Person A "do not worry about it, because now Person B has goods and services to trade back to you so you can flourish!" it doesn't make any sense, and neither do you.
Re:You forgot another solution (Score:4, Informative)
You do realize that a good portion of defense spending is science related right?
Your trying to overly simplify something more complex then your allowing for. Currently, we spend about 26 billion on science and technology specifically but when you take the NASA budget, the Science related defense spending, the educational grants and spending, DOE, NOAA, and several other department spending, that number grows significantly. IF you add private research to the mix, we out spend every other country in the world by at least twice as much [battelle.org] on Science R&D with a projected total for 2009 of $383,477,000,000 or about $383.5 billion.
My guess is that the Obama is talking about small increases in federal budget expenditures and increases (most likely through tax manipulation) of private expenditures.
Here's more info... (Score:1, Informative)
In this Fact Sheet [whitehouse.gov] it says:
"This goal would be met with both public and private investment." Also mentioned is the fact that in Fiscal Year 2010 this includes, on the public side: "...$75 billion to make the research and experimentation tax credit permanent..."
Re:Administration (Score:3, Informative)
Nice reference. Note that it lists debt as a fraction of GDP.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm [treasurydirect.gov] shows the national debt (in dollars) for each year from 1950 to 1999.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm [treasurydirect.gov] shows the national debt (in dollars) for each year since 1999.
Clinton gets the credit for 1993-2000. Note that every one of those years had a higher number than the year before. Note that the last time the Debt actually decreased was a two year period when Eisenhower was President (1956-1957).
Note, of course, that inflation isn't factored in to the numbers from the Treasury.
Re:Tax Nonsense (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Administration (Score:5, Informative)
We are dangerously close to the point that the rest of the world will say enough is enough and stop buying our debt.
[citation needed]
Speaking on the sidelines of an Asian central bankers' meeting in February, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China's central bank, asked: "is it time for China to consider using the reserves somewhere else, instead of concentrating too much on the United States?"
China Daily article here [chinadaily.com.cn].
Re:Administration (Score:5, Informative)
China worried about safety of U.S. debt [cnn.com]. As of January 2009, China is the owner [wikipedia.org] of the largest share of our debt, if Wikipedia is to be believed. I didn't look for articles on other countries; I'm sure you can find some on your own.
Re:Sez who? (Score:3, Informative)
Because microwave ovens, lasers, LEDs, solar cells, and satellites wouldn't be around if it weren't for pure research in the fields of physics, chemistry, and material science...Businesses don't invent things from scratch, they rework what's already known into a commercial product.
The LED is a prime example of private-industry R&D...
Electroluminescence was discovered in 1907 by the British experimenter H. J. Round of Marconi Labs, using a crystal of silicon carbide and a cat's-whisker detector.
Rubin Braunstein of the Radio Corporation of America reported on infrared emission from gallium arsenide (GaAs) and other semiconductor alloys in 1955
In 1961, experimenters Bob Biard and Gary Pittman working at Texas Instruments, found that GaAs emitted infrared radiation when electric current was applied and received the patent for the infrared LED.
The first practical visible-spectrum (red) LED was developed in 1962 by Nick Holonyak Jr., while working at General Electric Company.
Similarly, the first working laser was demonstrated on 16 May 1960 by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, the research arm of the Hughes Aircraft Company.
I'll agree that most of the R&D on microwave ovens came from for military radar work during WWII, and early satellites were mainly government-funded, although the first non-passive communications satellite, Telstar, was built by AT&T at Bell Telephone Laboratories.
Re:Administration (Score:2, Informative)
While you're somewhat right about the defense allocation with regards to other budget priorities, you're wrong in the first part because only considering "discretionary spending," which isn't even a majority of federal spending. In other words, your post is only true if you don't count:
- Social Security
- Medicare
- Medicaid
- SCHIP
- Interest payments on the federal debt
- A whole bunch of other entitlement programs.
And the second part isn't entirely accurate because that $800B "security" isn't just for the DoD, it's for DoD + Homeland + TSA + CIA + FBI + NSA + NRO etc. etc.
It's ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as you seem to think.
For references, please see table S-8 of the budget document.
Re:No more small businesses? Don't think so. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sez who? (Score:3, Informative)
Currently, their strategy is to create the same drug which is coming out of patent protection and can start being made by generics, tweak the formula slightly, whip up an ad campaign and start pushing the drug on doctors to prescribe this so-called "new and better" drug
Perhaps you are not one of the people who need a "me too" drug because of side-effects or different efficacy of an existing drug. In which case, why don't you stick with the old generic drug, and let the people who need these new drugs buy them.
America's pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies invested a record $65.2 billion in R&D in 2008. There are now more than 2,900 medicines in development in the U.S., including 750 compounds in development for cancer, 312 for heart disease and stroke, 150 for diabetes, 109 for HIV/AIDS and 91 for Alzheimer's disease and dementia.
Drugs approved by the FDA in 2008 include Degarelix for prostate cancer, Promacta for idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, Tapentadol for acute pain, Banzel for seizures of Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, Toviaz for overactive bladder, Vimpat for epilepsy, Cimzia for Crohn's disease, and many more.
Re:Administration (Score:3, Informative)
5% of $10 is a lot less then 3% of $100.
To get an idea on spending, here is a little PDF for you [battelle.org]. Essentially, the US outspend every other country in the world by at least twice as much if not more.
Re:Administration (Score:3, Informative)
Go Research! (Score:1, Informative)
As an actual scientist, this is a great idea. I figure he is talking about in part adding more money to funding agencies such as NIH and NSF. This is a needed boost as the funding rate of grants nowadays is in the single digits, as opposed to well above 50% a little over a decade ago. This means that less money is available to pay professors, students, lab techs, and as you go on down the line of university personnel to supply companies etc. Here's an article on funding over the last few decades http://www.scienceprogress.org/2009/01/nih-funding-to-states/ . You'll notice after Bush II took office, the NIH funds weren't increased proportionally and so research funding is stalling. I think Obama's idea is a great one, but of course I'd think that since my job is paid for through NIH grants. However, so should you since everything we scientists do, allows you to live a better, longer life.
Re:Do want (Score:4, Informative)
If there was an appropriate return on the investment, the project would be taken up by private industry.
Except they aren't the same kinds of ROI. You're talking profit, GP was talking benefit. As in benefit to society. Things that are of benefit to society are not necessarily profitable to private industry.