Science Programs Hit Hard By Proposed Budget

BJ_Covert_Action writes "The House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations has released a list of proposed spending cuts for the US Federal Government. The proposed cuts include reductions in spending on many science organizations and funds such as NASA, NOAA, nuclear energy research, fossil fuel energy research, clean coal research, the CDC, the NIH, and numerous EPA programs. There are also quite a few cuts proposed on domestic services, such as Americorps and high speed rail research. The House Appropriations Chairman, Hal Rogers, acknowledges that the cuts go deep, and would hurt every district across the country. But they are still deemed necessary to rein in Congressional spending. Notoriously absent from the proposed budget cuts are two of the largest spending sinks in the federal budget: the Department of Defense and Social Security."

Re:Great Idea

[nbauman]

Did you ever hear of the National Institutes of Health?

http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?p=13733&query=home [nejm.org]

Sounding Board
Biomedical Research and Health AdvancesNEJM | February 9, 2011 | Topics: Other Health Issues
Hamilton Moses, III, M.D., and Joseph B. Martin, M.D., Ph.D.

In 1945, the President’s science advisor, Vannevar Bush, wrote in Science, the Endless Frontier 1 that basic scientific research was “the pacemaker of technological progress” and that “new products and new processes do not appear full-grown. They are founded on new principles and new conceptions, which in turn are painstakingly developed by research in the purest realms of science.” He recommended the creation of what would become the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which was created in 1948, and the National Science Foundation, created in 1950.

The biomedical-research enterprise in the United States soon became the envy of other nations, as well as the primary source of the world’s new drugs and medical devices. Since 1945, biomedical research has been viewed as the essential contributor to improving the health of individuals and populations, in both the developed and developing world.

Financing of research was ensured by the successes in the early 1950s of polio vaccination, antibiotics, and antipsychotic agents. Equally dramatic advances in surgery and medical devices, such as cardiopulmonary bypass, dialysis, and organ transplantation, followed in the 1960s. In the 1990s, the conversion of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and some cancers from uniformly fatal diseases to chronic conditions created an expectation that similar advances would occur for other devastating diseases.

P.S. Vannevar is not related to George. He invented the Internet in 1945. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/as-we-may-think/3881/ [theatlantic.com]

Re:Is anybody really surprised?

[h4rr4r]

All taxes are wealth redistribution, they take from us all and spend on things we all in theory need. Surely a social safety net is far more important than invading nations half way around the world. If you don't like paying for civilization I would be glad to provide you a one way ticket to Somalia or Liberia. If you decide to come back to the States I would require you give my money back so I can continue my "Educate a Libertarian Program".

Re:Is anybody really surprised?

[Moryath]

The Preamble doesn't actually give any power. There's a reason it's called a "Preamble":

Preamble [reference.com]:
1. an introductory statement; preface; introduction.
2. the introductory part of a statute, deed, or the like, stating the reasons and intent of what follows.

Until you get to the actual body of the document, nothing in it has any legal force.

Of course, this sort of attack on science and education is stock-in-trade for a group of idiots I've had to take to calling "Retardicans", because they - despite having gained far too much power in the Republican Party over recent times - make actual, reasonable Republicans who are closer to the center look like idiots by association.

In a previous thread we were discussing "Senator Dan Patrick" - Teabagger/idiot extraordaire from the Texas 7th State Senate district. What's his claim to fame? Screaming a lot about how every government service should be less expensive, how there should be no taxes anywhere, and lying a lot. He was caught on his radio show declaring that anything but engineering and medical research is "research nobody cares about [wikipedia.org]" when he was discussing Texas's insane education cuts recently.

He's also been constantly sucking up to, and having his other radio hosts "interview", a major Texas liar by the name of Michael Quinn Sullivan, who loves to trot out the statistic (see also: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics) that there is "waste" in Texas Education because there is a "1 to 1 ratio" between teachers and "non-teachers" (his definition).

Unfortunately for him, first he's stretching his definitions [politifact.com], then he's outright lying about them.

Sure, Texas has a "1 to 1 ratio" of teachers to nonteachers. How do you get there?

Step 1: count the teachers who have a "homeroom."
Step 2: discount anyone else who teaches or aids students - librarians, substitute teachers, speech therapists, deaf sign language interpreters, English as Second Language teachers, Special Ed teachers - as a "nonteacher."
Step 3: Tutors and study hall monitors: Again, "not teachers."
Step 3: count the lunchlady and school nurse.
Step 4: count the janitors.
Step 6: count the school security personnel (esp. the ones in inner city schools).
Step 6: count the BUS DRIVERS.

When Michael Quinn Sullivan screams about "waste" and says anyone who wants to find "waste" in government should "Just walk down to your nearest administrative complex" - yet "administrative" personnel are less than 4% of the Texas education force. And yet these pathetic retardicans (yes, I have to call them that) will accept his "1 to 1 ratio" screed with zero analysis and then scream about how we need to "cut education funding."

Pathetic. I can't look a real Republican straight in the face any more without wondering how it is they possibly fail to stand up to the Retardicans that have taken over their party.