We need to invest in mass transit and space exploration

Why? We already have mass transit where it us needed. Space exploration is a luxury and now more than ever we need to bolster our military.

False. Our transit is lacking and we need to invest and expand our subway systems in order for our cities to compete with chinas and europes as hotbeds of innovation and buisness. Our streets are clogged with cars and transit would mitigate this and reduce pollution. And space exploration is crucial in our competitivive stance with other countries. And we spend more on our military then the next ten countries combined

DAMN YOU OBAMA!!!

We need to invest in education. Always. It's like earning compound interest.

I agree with investing in mass transit and space exploration.

Cut needs base social security/medicare?

So you are saying to keep the SS/medicare payroll tax, and not use it for SS and medicare but divert those funds to mass transit and space exploration.

cyclepaths wrote:

Why? We already have mass transit where it us needed. Space exploration is a luxury and now more than ever we need to bolster our military.

2/10. More money spent on the military than the next ten countries combined.

Space exploration???

For what? That is literally lighting money on fire.

No it aint

Yeah, it is. The benefit to cost ratio is absurdly low for any kind of manned spaceflight including space stations, which still exist only for propaganda and because the Russians refused to give up on them.

Whereas the cost of unmanned spaceflight is already so low that it could be expanded many times over if it weren't for all the manned spaceflight. The International Space Station cost the US $74 billion as of 4 years ago. The space shuttles cost $196 billion. But the Spirit and Opportunity rovers combined have yet to cost even $1 billion, and Opportunity is still functioning effectively after more than 10 years on Mars!

And even for rovers, the benefit is mainly knowledge that can't readily be valued in dollars, except that outer space is so inaccessible that whatever is out there would be prohibitively expensive to bring back even if there were a pressing need for it, which there isn't.

Just outlawing trucks and SUVs would save 50% of energy costs.

Mass Transit is only cost effective to invest in when population densities approach critical mass such as NYC, London, Tokyo to name a few.

We are centuries away from making any significant population movement via space exploration and currently its way too expensive getting people into space but we should invest more towards space endeavours to get the ball rolling faster

This could be paid for by levying high taxes on trust fund kids

I often wish their was an all powerful ruler in the United States. People are far to stupid to choose their candidates and an unfortunate amount of energy is wasted making emotional appeals to the masses - not fixing problems.I am glad that person is not you.

cyclepaths wrote:

Why? We already have mass transit where it us needed. Space exploration is a luxury and now more than ever we need to bolster our military.

liberal budget hawk wrote:

But we need to cut spending. So we should cut military spending, needs base social security/medicare, institute most aspects of ryans anti poverty plan, clinton-like welfare reform and close tax loopholes

1. Yes, cut military spending or put soldiers to work on transportation projects.

2. You'll never repeal Medicare or SS laws in this democracy. We've been paying into it all our lives. Now you want to steal my pension? You're essentially telling me not to retire when I want, despite 30 years of careful planning. No, you control Medicare and SS costs by devaluing the dollar slightly, as always. If you want to claw back some money from the rich, bring back estate taxes and/or repeal the Bush tax cuts.

3. "Closing tax loopholes," is a gimmick. Sure. Go ahead. Do it. But there's no difference to the economy between "closing loopholes" and raising taxes. So my smart choices about when/what to tax and call it what it is.

Space exploration ... at the moment, we are relatively speaking, no different than someone floating on a log to the next island. We need to figure some physics out before we can go anywhere useful in the span of a lifetime.