Most Americans Use Federal Science Information On a Weekly Basis, a New Poll Finds (npr.org) 102
Most people in the United States rely on federal science in their daily lives but don't realize it, a new nationwide poll of U.S. adults shows. NPR: The poll was conducted in early April by the Association of Science and Technology Centers, the association for science museums and other educational science centers in the U.S. The poll found that on a weekly basis more than 90% of people use weather forecasts, job market reports, food safety warnings and other information that is based on federal science.
But only 10% of respondents are concerned that cuts to federal support for science might impact their access to such information. The Trump administration has made deep budget and personnel cuts to federal agencies that collect weather data and do safety inspections at factories that make food and prescription drugs, among many science-related functions.
The association conducted the poll to understand current attitudes about science in the U.S. and inform how their member institutions, which include science museums, aquariums and zoos, can better serve the public.
But only 10% of respondents are concerned that cuts to federal support for science might impact their access to such information. The Trump administration has made deep budget and personnel cuts to federal agencies that collect weather data and do safety inspections at factories that make food and prescription drugs, among many science-related functions.
The association conducted the poll to understand current attitudes about science in the U.S. and inform how their member institutions, which include science museums, aquariums and zoos, can better serve the public.
Weather: several times a day (Score:3)
Every time I see or hear an updated weather report, I know my tax dollars are at work.
Re: Weather: several times a day (Score:3, Interesting)
I just watch the TV weather reports because the weather lady is cute.
A while back, my wife almost caught me watching with the volume turned off.
Re:Weather: several times a day (Score:5, Insightful)
"Weekly" seems like quite an understatement. Weather was the first thing I thought of, but there's also food safety, not just warnings but routine inspection, weights and measures, e.g. every time you buy anything by weight or volume, timekeeping, and a thousand other things I've failed to think of in the last thirty seconds.
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I assume that, as in the UK, the television & radio channels tell you what the time is, at least at the top of the hour if not more often. That time is synchronised by the National Institute of Standards and Technology [wikipedia.org].
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I trust Weather Underground instead- it's private citizens, not government propaganda, and it's far more accurate.
Post-COVID, I don't trust governments or corporations to do science. I saw too much statistical abuse, p-hacking, politics, and outright lying about the scientific method to trust federal funding OR corporate funding of science.
Science is best done by private citizens funding their own experiments with outside jobs, not academic peer-review cancel culture bubbles.
Think of the opportunities! (Score:5, Insightful)
A thing that everyone relies on, and some idiot is just giving it away for free!
Like your cancer, like the clean water you need to live, that's a huge missed opportunity for someone to make a big pile of cash!
Next you are going to be telling me that the government just builds roads and lets anyone drive on them for free, like a bunch of chumps.
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It is only "for free" if you don't count the taxpayers' money, though.
And without it, it a lot of it, especially of the fundamental, basic kind on which everything else is built, will simply not exist.
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I don't pay any taxes at all. My employer is the one who pays them, and at the end of the year the government even sends me a check!
Not true (Score:5, Insightful)
If I spend $10 on weather reports from my taxes but I get back $100 in increased productivity from things like increased food production, fewer deaths due to weather events, and even something as mundane as people not wasting the gasoline to drive out for a picnic on a rainy day then I made a net $90.
That $10 is effectively free.
People like to focus on government waste because that's a trick people that want to steal taxpayer money use in order to make you look in another direction while they steal taxpayer money. Every time you see somebody talking about government waste you need to ask what their ulterior motives are because they are never good.
If you want to see people actually fighting waste those are the people going after thieves stealing from the taxpayer directly. Stuff like Medicare and Medicaid fraud. That dwarfs any waste. Then again Americans elected a convicted Medicaid fraudster to be a member of the US Senate...
We don't really think things through around here. Nation of 12-year-olds and all.
Re:Not true (Score:5, Interesting)
Almost like the government is not in fact a business and has no business (heh) being operated like one.
The government can do things and make calculations businesses simply cannot, such as losing money in area because it can tax the economic growth spending that money creates.
Or the simple fact that every dollar you spend on IRS enforcement puts back $3-12 in the Federal coffers [yale.edu], no new taxes needed, just ensuring people pay what they are supposed to.
That stupid Doge thing (Score:1)
But you know bureaucrats are bad m'kay.
When I learned what a thought terminating
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Sure, because as we all know, science and technology never develop or advance without direct government funding.
Re:Think of the opportunities! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not they never would but Federal funding underpins a ton, way more than we think, of the base level research that companies then take and develop further into products. It's a private/public partnership and it's a win/win situation.
Example I like to use is when SpaceX was developing Dragon they used NASA's PICA ablative shields, they took that research and information and built an improved material on top of it, no need to start ground up.
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Tell us what private company(ies) would have developed a program to go to the Moon in the 60s, and all the attendant science and technology to do so.
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Feel free to point out which fundamental discovery has been done without.
Every fundamental discovery before about 1920 (Score:2)
Before then the government spent zero on research...
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Before when? Newton lived all his life on government scholarships and salaries as did Copernicus; even Archimedes was a DEI hire of a Sicilian city-state.
Early modern universities weren't 'government' (Score:2)
Yes, they were civil servants, but that's exceptional. Almost every other early scientist was privately funded or funded at universities, which received NO government funds back in the day. They were private institutions with endowments and students to keep them solvent.
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but that's exceptional.
Hardly. Since the early Renaissance most of the famous European institutions of higher learning were accredited by and at least partly funded by a "government", the earliest ones in the 1200-1300s by the popes; and virtually all science was happening on the payroll of some court or other, courts which were, well, "the government".
Fibonacci, Galileo, Da Vinci, Kepler, Descartes... Virtually all scientists whose names you know were employees of a "government" working in a... wait for it... Public universities
Not in the UK (Score:2)
The few universities were not at all creatures of the government. They were independent institutions. As indeed was the 'Royal Society' despite its name. And some research was self funded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
etc etc...
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The few universities were not at all creatures of the government.
What of it? Even for private establishments like Cambridge, the amount of government funding is above a third of their yearly budget.
As indeed was the 'Royal Society' despite its name.
Which is relevant how?
The Royal Society was originally a forum for discussions between its members for the "promotion of science", i.e. its members reported on research they were performing elsewhere. When its functions gradually expanded to support research, it became a recipient of government funding. Today it receives something like 250 million pounds a year from the govern
How this started! (Score:2)
You invited: 'Feel free to point out which fundamental discovery has been done without.'
I've pointed to the British model which saw many fundamental discoveries made in the past without government funding. So I've answered your challenge.
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So you failed to point out a discovery?
Okay.
Re: Think of the opportunities! (Score:2)
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Speak for yourself, buddy, as the only heir of a 10-figure fortune, I've been set for life before I was born.
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It will be good if you develop some reading comprehension abilities before the AI takes over, buddy :)
Nah, too late. Plan accordingly.
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A thing that everyone relies on, and some idiot is just giving it away for free!
Like your cancer, like the clean water you need to live, that's a huge missed opportunity for someone to make a big pile of cash!
Next you are going to be telling me that the government just builds roads and lets anyone drive on them for free, like a bunch of chumps.
Mod parent "sadly funny", but it's already an oldish story and apparently none of the "fabulous moderators" could figure out the joke. Only mod point from some censorious troll, so I guess it should be quoted here...
I use these websites almost daily (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/... [noaa.gov]
https://radar.weather.gov/ridg... [weather.gov]
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ [noaa.gov] (seasonal during hurricane season)
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Re:I use these websites almost daily (Score:5, Informative)
Almost every weather site uses some of the NWS radar, forecasting and weather station data as well as NOAA satellite data because it's free and openly available.
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Re:I use these websites almost daily (Score:5, Informative)
And my point was you do use those services, they're just in the background. If the NWS shuts down their reporting over half of the weather apps on the market would cease to function. I subscribe to windy.com and they have the NOAA logo watermarked on their site, it's very important data.
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Rest assured - The weather service will be replaced with a privately owned operation that reports great weather every day. The best weather.
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which gets all its data from weather.gov
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astronomy must be really advanced over there
i mean, get shit on. (Score:1, Insightful)
That Americans do not understand either what government is, nor what it's for, is what the entire rest of the world has been telling you for forty years, you fucking pointless virgins. You got morons down there not knowing that MEDICAID is a government service; none of THIS stuff that's just been pointed out is surprising to the grownups who have been paying attention.
The Reagan cuts to education and everything that followed are to blame for this.
You wouldn't call it a battery if it only had one dipole. De
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The US lost of the Cold War (Score:3)
The cuts to education in civics happened gradually, as the curriculum was slowly stripped away. I believe the removal of institutions that support a healthy democracy, such as public education, was an intentional move. US politics is a game of polls, and an uninformed public comes out every four years to vote in major elections. Often without any idea of the issues or who is running until they have a ballot in their hand. We're neglected our democracy and we will lose our republic.
We as a people don't reali
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Of course. It's not a secret:
"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing."
-- Karl Rove
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The US has not actually been even a "representative democracy" since WWII. The emergency powers act was never repealed, and the "state of emergency" was never declared over.
It has NEVER been a real democracy. I think that the size probably prohibits that. (Even just Athens has scaling problems.) It was, originally, a reasonable republic. Perhaps it still is, though I'd really need to check the definitions against the actualities.
N.B.: Neither being a democracy nor a republic guarantees civil rights to
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No. What they WANT is everything they have now but to NOT have to pay for it.
What we are seeing is pure greed. "Give me everything but I won't pay for what I am getting."
They are lied to by politicians (Score:2)
For many decades politicians have been telling the public that they can have more government expenditure without higher taxes. Now the bills are coming due - and the people are rebelling against the politicians who are trying to tell them the truth because they don't want to believe they've been fooled / need to pay more taxes. Doge is an incarnation of this fantasy.
Thank you DOGE (Score:5, Interesting)
For showing that the government was actually quite efficient and well managed. It's not perfect but the presented idea of every area was rife with waste has not been evidenced, like at all.
$2T in cuts became $1T which then became $150B and estimates today are less than that even that, we'll probably end up only saving about $50-80B because payroll for the federal government is actually "only" about $300-400B and these people are managing functions of a $20T+ economy and services.
Zero fraud cases have been sent to the DOJ, no presented cases of real abuse, the waste accusations are completely subjective (i don't like it so it's waste) For all their focus on efficiency all they did was what any MBA at a tech firm does when they have a bad quarter: cut payroll. That's all they did. No care or thought given to what outcomes we want from these organizations.
This would be somewhat justifiable if we come to September for reconciliation and the for all these cuts we at least get a balanced budget but from all reports the deficit is expected to get even bigger this year, because the idea of balancing the budget is a lie and has always been a lie.
Re:Thank you DOGE (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of that, we try to push everything into private hands because "private businesses are so much more efficient". They're efficient because each ounce of efficiency is sucked into the owner's pockets. Every single private-public partnership ends with us as a society giving more hard-earned cash to a group of rich individuals, to prevent phantom public inefficiencies.
Re:Thank you DOGE (Score:4, Informative)
They are claimed to be more efficient. This claim is repeated over and over. I've never seen any reasonable proof. Such proofs as I have seen demonstrate that if you obsess over not being overcharged to the extent of vastly swollen paper work, your costs will go up. (This is a true assertion, but it applies to private companies just as much as to government.)
There ARE good arguments that "cost plus" contracts should not be allowed except in rather exceptional cases. And that they ought to be VERY exceptional.
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There's a nice story of how the Air Force was savvier with the B21 procurement so there is hope there.
https://www.realcleardefense.c... [realcleardefense.com]
Re:Thank you DOGE (Score:4, Insightful)
I worry that there's a good 30% of Americans that get their view on our budget straight from President Trump. With little to no curiosity as to what an independent audit might say.
We had a $73 billion deficit in 1980, equivalent to $285 B today.
For 2025, the deficit is projected to be around $900 billion.
We had surplus in 98, 99, and 2000. The first and last in a generation. Without major changes to our political system, such as legislating away the Citizens United ruling, we are unlikely to see a surplus ever again. And this nation will slide into deeper debt while deeply incompetent politicians damage our debt rating and currency throughout the world. Making it much more expensive for us to borrow.
I hope America is remembered fondly for our contributions to music, science, and space exploration. On our current path, we're not going to be leading the world in anything by the end of the 21st century.
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Yeah it's bleak and it isn't so much that they get it from Trump but the entire conservative media apparatus. The whole deal in 2024 was "the numbers don't matter, only the vibes" and the vibes are dictated by our media environments. If every podcast and new report you are exposed to says the economy is terrible you will believe it's terrible. We're all susceptible but some are more than others that's for sure.
I don't even think the debt is as big a deal as we've been told all our lives but that is predic
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Nov 2026 is what, 18 months away?
I think it's a mistake to wait for elections. I see this attitude from several key Democrats, and I don't think Congress will have any meaningful legislative power by 2026.
Attending protests, even relatively benign ones like Hands Off. Regular calls to your representatives. These can keep the pressure on people that can make a difference, and give them some level of confidence that if they take the difficult road of putting up an opposition that their constituency will support them.
Without popular support.
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For sure I do not disagree but all that action has to at the end of the day pay off at the polls or it's a bit for naught.
I think we are seeing Democrats wake up due to public pushback and that is good but getting a Dem majority in either house in 2026 makes 26-28 a much different animal than if Trump holds his majorities. Dems get Committees back and investigations and votes can take place that are currently quite fraught.
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I do agree with that and that Democrat's need to get together a message of that they want and advocate for it, forcefully. I think though we are seeing things start to shift, the low approval rates, the bad economic outlook, the already setting in exhaustion even from the supporters a bit. The support people who punch back like JB Pritzker (my 2028 pick, let's get an actual fat guy president again)
Hopefully by this time next year we are looking at some interesting primaries which is what will gut punch th
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Treasure bonds are not included as revenue. I would argue it's "D.C. accounting" rather than "Hollywood Accounting". Fortunately the information is public and easy to access.
Tax hikes and GDP growth were the main contributors to the revenue, and the surplus occurred because of an earlier clamp down (1990) on increases in spending.
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$150B and estimates today are less than that even that
Cuts don't mean anything in the light of the whole budget. Honestly it doesn't matter what the actual figure of the cuts were. The only thing which matters is actual expenditure, and that is currently $200bn higher in Trump's first 100 days than it was over the same period last year. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/t... [cbsnews.com]
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Or maybe inefficient in a way that can't get fixed by random budget cuts. We see a lot of inefficiencies in big companies that are profit driven and ruled by unelected, amoral and smart people who would do anything in the name of efficiency.
It may take 10 people to screw in a light bulb and an outsider will find it ridiculous, and sure, it is. However, they are all doing their part and if you fire just one of them, no more light bulb being screwed, the company will be in the dark and there will be trouble.
I just find it interesting... (Score:2)
Most Americans don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just the anti-science regressives, I mean most of the entire population.
Almost every aspect of modern existence has scientists actively involved managing public infrastructure - communications and transportation are two big ones. There's also emergency preparedness and response, public health, road safety... if there's a complicated problem out there, there are people who work with current understanding to manage it and others who are working to advance that understanding.
Who thinks about that when they get out of bed in the morning? AND THAT'S THE POINT. These experts specialize in these things so that governments can handle it for everyone and do a better job than is even theoretically possible for everyone to do individually. So you can go about your day with only a thousand worries you might be able to deal with instead of a million you can't possibly handle.
That's what DOGE is ultimately cutting; every system in the US that protects you against all the threats you ignore because they're monitored and handled for you.
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Humans are very susceptible to the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon - once you notice something, you start seeing it everywhere.
Despite this, I am extremely confident that extreme wealth disparity is ultimately behind 99% of of social, political, and economic issues. We need to tame it or we are doomed to these cycles of unnecessary waste and suffering.
Frustrating myopia (Score:5, Insightful)
We rely on NOAA for weather forecasts to plan planting and harvesting, avoiding getting killed by hurricanes and tornadoes. We rely on FEMA when those severe weather events do come through and destroy our fields, barns, homes, and towns. We rely on the USDA to collect SO MUCH FUCKING DATA on imports, exports, crop progress, drought conditions, commodity pricing, etc. we also rely on the AMS and ARS groups at USDA to help us build markets for our products, and to keep our science competitive. We rely on the Army Corp of Engineers to keep our waterways navigable so that our products can get to the rest of the world economically (the low cost of river transport is criminally under appreciated). The DOT keeps the trains rolling for those crops that cannot be shipped via waterways. SNAP is a welfare program at first glance, but it is an agricultural subsidy first and foremost. The programs origins were in keeping US crop prices high by buying surplus goods at above market prices to receive the over-supply and distributing them to those who couldn't afford them. The list just goes on, and on, and on, and on.
Part of me legit wants to leave my industry becuase of how stupid we look for supporting Trump so strongly. He's destroying the things we use to make our livelihoods, and thanking him for it. Likes some sad co-dependent wife talking about how great her abusive husband is while he goes in the kitchen to grab yet-another-beer.
Farm subsidies - the one area we should cut (Score:2)
The fact that agricultural land still has significant value is a sign that the taxpayers are paying too much in subsidy. Of the items you list, SNAP (and other price maintenance payments) need to go, at least in so far as they raise farm incomes. As far as the other things are concerned? Those are items which directly benefit the farmers of America, so should be directly paid for by them if at all possible.
American farming is now a mega corp protected by some very clever politicians and by an appeal to igno
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The government and citizens both have a vested interest in keeping food affordable. Ag subsidies began as a means to keep farmers from having their farms repossessed, AND to feed those who couldn't afford enough to eat. Both still desirable goals. There is certainly unnecessary subsidies in the US which pervert the market. As a nutritionists, I believe there should be fewer dollars for commodity crops like corn, soy and sugar, and more for things like vegetables. There should also
Hmm... (Score:2)
This Robert Heinlein quote focuses the problem:
'There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to c
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To whit, US farm land IS overpriced. But that is largely because of the fuel ethanol mandate and related subsidies. I remember when the Bush administration pushed through the
It's about the deficit (Score:2)
Two trillion dollars in the red, every year. Printing our way out of the problem is not going well.
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Re:It's about the deficit (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about the deficit
Um, no it's not. That's just propaganda. If they actually did care about the budget then the service cuts wouldn't be offset by tax cuts for the rich. That's why all this 'savings' is needed, to offset the upcoming tax cuts. They've been open and clear about that since before Day 1. When you reduce expensives (services) and also reduce income (tax cuts) by the same amount, there's no change to the deficit.
Other clear non-budget saving cuts are the cuts to the IRS and the upcoming military parade. The parade is simply a complete waste of money. IRS agents bring more into the government than they cost. If Republicans were honest about improving the budget they would have increased the IRS' budget, not laid a bunch of them off.
Then there's the bullshit way DODGE/Trump cut all those services resulting in a ton of lawsuits and continued salary payments to tons of people not working while their jobs are held up in lawsuits. Republicans control both houses of Congress. If they passed a law making all of those changes that would have been it. No lawsuits, no paid non-workers. The jobs and services would be gone. DODGE could have given Congress a list and Congress could have terminated everything on that list. But no. Instead they went about it in the most wastefully possible way leading to a ton of additional costs and lost productivity.
They haven't even touched any actual fraud yet. You know like how UnitedHealthcare both bullies and bribes Doctors to over diagnosis patients which then causes Medicare/Medicaid to make unnecessary payments to the insurance company. Not a peep out of any branch of government about that type of fraud despite it being well documented and the evidence easy to gain.
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The parade is simply a complete waste of money.
The parade is a national embarassment (fuck you Firefox, that is how it was spelled when I was a kid) and is proof that the USA has fallen. There has NEVER been a parade to celebrate a President's birthday. Why would there be a parade for a public servant's birthday? There are parades for the birthdays of despots and dictators within their countries. Guess where we are now?
What is worse is that this despot is in control of the most intense surveillance system ever created in all of history. The STASI would
Re:It's about the deficit (Score:5, Insightful)
Folks love to trot that one out as a way to justify their budget cut of choice. But take a look at federal spending [usafacts.org]. Out of ~$6,500 Billion spent each year, nearly 2/3 is "mandatory" spending: Social Security (~$1500B), Medicare (~$875B), Medicaid and CHIP (~$550B), interest on the debt (~$875B), the VA (~$300B), etc. Then there's defense spending (~$850B). It really is true: the United States government is an insurance company with an army [google.com].
All the non-defense discretionary stuff that folks love to hate on, and somehow think we can eliminate the deficit by cutting, amounts amounts to less than $800B. But most of that is stuff people genuinely like, and mostly what people think of when they think of "the government". Things like national infrastructure (roads, airports), law enforcement (DoJ), assistance programs (SNAP, TANF), disaster relief (FEMA), educational assistance (college loans, public schools). The "science" that people benefit from every day is a miniscule cost to the taxpayer by comparison, and we get enormous benefit from it. You could cut all of NIH ($48B), NASA ($24B), and NOAA ($6.5B) and you'd save...1% of the federal budget.
If you want to tackle the deficit, look to where the real money is. Then also look to the other side of the ledger: revenues.
What do these people do when they are sick? (Score:3)
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Do people who are against science not go to doctors when they are sick or injured?
Everything sounds bad until you personally need it. The people who are first in line to go to the doctors are the same people who thing vaccines are a hoax and that Fauci alone caused Everything Bad (TM) during the pandemic.
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They take bullshit remedies like colloidal silver https://www.npr.org/2020/03/11... [npr.org] until it gets bad enough and they end up in the hospital.
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Re: What do these people do when they are sick? (Score:2)
Not really (Score:2)
In some cases, the government does the science and then creates regulations to tell me what I may or may not do. Go ahead and collect the data and publish the report. I'll read it and decide whether wearing a seat belt to halve my probability of death is worth it.
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Most people carry insurance, so when someone is injured, everyone who pays for insurance pays for their injury.
Bingo! It's all about protecting the bottom line of (for profit) insurance businesses. It's a shame there's nothing like mandatory wino or junkie insurance. Or our attitudes about substance abuse might be different.
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The factories don't own the waterways they dump into. So it's a different problem entirely. On the other hand, if they want to pour their effluent into their own CEO's cistern, no regulation should block them.
Fox News Weather circa 2026 w/o gov't data (Score:2)
"And today's forecast is a high somewhere in the 80s, maybe 70s or 90s, check back around 6PM for more details.
Oh, and it just might rain. Maybe."
haha. (Score:2)
Every time you check the weather.
Check the weather lately? (Score:2)
Why people think government agencies do nothing (Score:2)
The reason is simple, they have no knowledge or first hand experience of what it does. Most government agencies do FAR more than people realize.
And there is very little waste in honest governments compared to businesses, religion and non-profits. Governments always have budgets too small for their required jobs so they tend to look for people and things to cut. Businesses often make so much money that a bit of waste is ignored. Religion and non-profits decide what to do based on the money available. Fo
Most Americans Elect Cocksuckers Too (Score:1)
Who the fuck cares what Americans do?
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Here's how to save money (Score:2)
They can get their info off the weather channel like everyone else!
I heard ... (Score:1)
... that he curdled the milk and made the chickens stop laying too!
Burn the witch!
The premise is always the same (Score:2)
Every single story of this type has the same premise. The assumption is that the "science" is pure and unadulterated, that there are no redundancies or inefficiencies in the organization, and there are no paper-pushers who don't contribute to the work product. All of that exists everywhere in government just as it does in the private sector and all of those people get a paycheck with guaranteed raises every year and a pension and carry significant overhead costs. The difference is that the government jus