The US National Debt is about $20,000,000,000,000. Isn't it time to encourage scientists to seek non-gov't funding?

God, you are stupid beyond belief.

Lets privately fund science? lol There wouldn't be ANY conflict of interest in the data there.....

The cut is basically directed at the extortionate overheads Universities charge. In the UK the full economic cost of a post-doctoral researcher is roughly £100k a year but the gross salary is £30k. From a business point of view, those costs are not acceptable. The University will need to find some other way of paying for the flash new student union building or army of gardeners.

It may be a minor point but I've seen it so many times where a lecturer is given a grant and they go out and buy a brand new top of the line macbook pro when all they do is a bit of Word, Excel and SPSS. It's wasteful and about time they scrutinised expenditure a bit closer.

Real Scientist wrote:

The cut is basically directed at the extortionate overheads Universities charge. In the UK the full economic cost of a post-doctoral researcher is roughly £100k a year but the gross salary is £30k. From a business point of view, those costs are not acceptable. The University will need to find some other way of paying for the flash new student union building or army of gardeners.

It may be a minor point but I've seen it so many times where a lecturer is given a grant and they go out and buy a brand new top of the line macbook pro when all they do is a bit of Word, Excel and SPSS. It's wasteful and about time they scrutinised expenditure a bit closer.

I went with my family to London last year and had to leave my $200 Nike flats in the trash can at Heathrow on the way back to the US they were so polluted with dog doo doo from running on the London sidewalks and ropda.

Isn't time to encourage spending less on our miliatry, which budget is about 1000 times higher than the science budget?

I'd institute a straight flat tax rate of 40% tax rate for anyone making more than 200k per year. No deductions. If you don't like it, get out of the country.

Yeah, because non-military scientific research is such a HUGE portion of the federal budget.

Oh yeah, and because most non-military scientific research already IS done by universities and for profit insitutions.

Oh wait, and because outsourcing to private enterprises pretty much always leads to huge cost savings (snicker, snicker).

Oh yeah, and . . .

Oh never mind. Simple answer - 6/10

Good job!

the original scientists were Arab Muslim clerics

yah science wrote:

Here are some reasons that I am pulling out of my butt:

- Private funding carries with it conflicts of interest, and thus diminishes some research.

-Research is how you get ahead--an investment for the government. The return may not be in the short term or necessarily financial, but it is still important. Defunding of sciences would be another step away from the greatness that our president supposedly want to reclaim. There are plenty of other areas that should go before this.

-We complain about how our kids aren't as good in the sciences as some other countries. Cutting funding, and subsequently hurting the job market for research and universities, is a pretty bad way of encouraging our students to want to succeed in math or science.

+1

If you're really worried the debt then go after the big stuff and privatize the military.

Science funding only radically improves the U.S. economy. If you think for a second that science funding is the cause of the debt, you are seriously mistaken. Spending as much on the military--with plenty of boondoggle giveaways to corporations--as on the entire remainder of the discretionary budget is insanity. You could also restore more progressive tax rates on the rich, not even at rates as high as the beginning of Reagan's first term, and fund the basic research and infrastructure and free college that will make this country #1 long into the future.

X-Runner wrote:

If you're really worried the debt then go after the big stuff and privatize the military.

They could work on commission to encourage plundering.

It is time to encourage politicians to find other lines of employment. The majority of them and their staffs provide no useful work product.

Funding for science is ESSENTIAL. How about we stop subsidizing profitable corporations? We give out hundreds of billions in UNNECESSARY corporate welfare that is hArdly ever used to raise wages for employees and new job creation.

While we are at it, lets STOP SUBSIDIZING CHURCHES/RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS. They have entirely too much influence in politics And they pay ZERO taxes every year, so thats another hundred billion in wasted gov't spending.

Lets also raise the minimum wage instead of cutting taxes for the people at the top. Its a much better investment.

Thats a good start.

monocle afficionado wrote:

You're, first, a fcckin idiot.

You, second, do not seem to recognize that discretionary spending on research is a drop in 55gal drum in terms of contribution to the deficit and debt. We are in debt/run a deficit almost entirely due to defense/medicare/ss/unemployment and related expenses. These together are 75% of the budget. Add interest/VA/transportation/eduction and your pushing 90%.

Yet you and other espousers of teabilly nonsense think we can fix things by cutting something that is a tiny fraction of the remaining 10% or so???? And by the way, is worthwhile?

Furthermore, you stupid sack of shit, researchers DO look for funding from corporate and non-profit sources.

Do the world a favor and smash you computer so no further idiocy may spew forth.

Rather, I think it is you who is "a ______ idiot." You seem to be letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The OP simply addressed an issue prompted by today's protests, and didn't pretend to proffer a comprehensive solution to the ginormous US National Debt. He went on to suggest that nearly all or all subsidies might do more harm than good.

Your violent reaction suggests that you are emotionally disturbed.

read a book wrote:

This is so stupid it's hard to read

Perhaps it is your stupidity that impairs your reading.

Prof Frink is an Idiot wrote:

Isn't time to encourage spending less on our miliatry, which budget is about 1000 times higher than the science budget?

Reading is not your forte, is it? You missed Prof. Frink's earlier post:

"Well that's another government sinkhole, but the representatives of the military-industrial complex are not all over the TV today with their marches."

Congratulations: you are less with it than the poster you criticize.

Noticerer wrote:

Prof Frink is an Idiot wrote:

Isn't time to encourage spending less on our miliatry, which budget is about 1000 times higher than the science budget?

Reading is not your forte, is it? You missed Prof. Frink's earlier post:

"Well that's another government sinkhole, but the representatives of the military-industrial complex are not all over the TV today with their marches."

Congratulations: you are less with it than the poster you criticize.

Well, he probably did notice that the last three posts are all yours under three different handles.

Try becoming more clever.

Jerry Maguire wrote:

God, you are stupid beyond belief.

Lets privately fund science? lol There wouldn't be ANY conflict of interest in the data there.....

As if there were no conflicts now. I know of a major cancer hospital and research center in Manhattan which receives donations from major corporations including telecoms. A health physicist there published a much-cited paper on radiation from cell phone antennae and was let go. Causally related? I dunno, but maybe.

sundown wrote:

Science funding only radically improves the U.S. economy. If you think for a second that science funding is the cause of the debt, you are seriously mistaken. Spending as much on the military--with plenty of boondoggle giveaways to corporations--as on the entire remainder of the discretionary budget is insanity. You could also restore more progressive tax rates on the rich, not even at rates as high as the beginning of Reagan's first term, and fund the basic research and infrastructure and free college that will make this country #1 long into the future.

The US Federal Government in the last year has received a record tax revenue... and still ran a deficit. I think we need to cut spending rather than raise taxes. Better to starve the politicians than soak the rich. I'm all for cutting military spending as the US spends more on the military than do, what?, the next 18 or more biggest military-spending nations combined.

Free college? For decades, the gov't has intervened to make "college" more affordable, yet failed to constrain tuition hikes. The colleges gamed the system and raised tuition faster than inflation. I read that in a recent period, Yale hired 4 professors and 10 administrators, evidence the author argued of trying to provide a spa-like experience more than an education. I know many intelligent, well-educated people who ague that a college degree has become a poor financial investment. Perhaps colleges should to a much greater extent provide the loans to students, rather than the US Gov't. This would give colleges more of an interest in producing quality grads, promoting development of more in-demand skills in their students and keeping tuition down.