3 ms·

> But times are tight. We're massively overspending as is - borrowing tons of money our grandchildren will still be paying back. So increased spending is far fr

by joshAg 15y ago

> But times are tight. We're massively overspending as is - borrowing tons of money our grandchildren will still be paying back. So increased spending is far from free. FYI, if you remove all NASA spending from the budget, the total deficit remains the same out to something like 3 or 4 significant figures.

jlarocco 15y ago
What's your point? Break down the budget categories enough, and you can say the exact same thing about anything. "If you remove tank spending from the budget, the total deficit remains the same out to something like 3 or 4 significant figures." Guess we should keep buying tanks, too.
- leot 15y ago
  Except, historically $1 billion for tanks today meant $1+ billion for tanks for the foreseeable future. The actual long-term costs of $1 billion military spending are far more than those of $1 billion of NASA spending (and let's not even get into the economic reward of said spending).
  - luigip 15y ago
    And $1 billion to Nasa today means another billion next year, and the year after that...
- joshAg 15y ago
  My point is that the entire operating budget of NASA, not just part of the program, but literally the entire agency, could be wiped from the budget without affecting the budget deficit in any meaningful way. I'm not breaking down categories nearly as deep you had to dive to get to your example of tanks. Looking at NASA is like looking at the entire operating budget of the Army, the FBI, or the NSA. This isn't to say that there aren't inefficiencies at NASA that can be corrected. I'm sure there are, but since NASA's entire operating budget is orders of magnitude smaller than the deficit even the most optimistic optimization will have basically no effect on the problem.
kens 15y ago
The FY2013 deficit is $901 billion. If you remove NASA spending, the deficit is $883 billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budg... (By the way, I agree with pretty much everything in the grandparent comment.)
- joshAg 15y ago
  That requires two sign figs to appear so it's not that far off of what i guestimated (1 order of magnitude off: 9.01E11 - 8.83E11 is 1.8E10). If i had said, "if you remove all NASA spending from the budget, the total budget remains the same out to something like 3 or 4 significant figures," then we would need 3 sig figs to see any impact by NASA's budget (3.803E12 - 1.78E10 = 3.785E12 ~ 3.78 ~ 3.8 ~ 4). I think my ultimate point that NASA's budget is pretty inconsequential to either the budget or the yearly deficit stands since it is only 0.468% of the budget and 1.97% of the deficit.

by joshAg 15y ago

jlarocco 15y ago

What's your point? Break down the budget categories enough, and you can say the exact same thing about anything. "If you remove tank spending from the budget, the total deficit remains the same out to something like 3 or 4 significant figures." Guess we should keep buying tanks, too.

leot 15y ago
Except, historically $1 billion for tanks today meant $1+ billion for tanks for the foreseeable future. The actual long-term costs of $1 billion military spending are far more than those of $1 billion of NASA spending (and let's not even get into the economic reward of said spending).
- luigip 15y ago
  And $1 billion to Nasa today means another billion next year, and the year after that...
joshAg 15y ago
My point is that the entire operating budget of NASA, not just part of the program, but literally the entire agency, could be wiped from the budget without affecting the budget deficit in any meaningful way. I'm not breaking down categories nearly as deep you had to dive to get to your example of tanks. Looking at NASA is like looking at the entire operating budget of the Army, the FBI, or the NSA. This isn't to say that there aren't inefficiencies at NASA that can be corrected. I'm sure there are, but since NASA's entire operating budget is orders of magnitude smaller than the deficit even the most optimistic optimization will have basically no effect on the problem.

kens 15y ago

The FY2013 deficit is $901 billion. If you remove NASA spending, the deficit is $883 billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budg... (By the way, I agree with pretty much everything in the grandparent comment.)

joshAg 15y ago
That requires two sign figs to appear so it's not that far off of what i guestimated (1 order of magnitude off: 9.01E11 - 8.83E11 is 1.8E10). If i had said, "if you remove all NASA spending from the budget, the total budget remains the same out to something like 3 or 4 significant figures," then we would need 3 sig figs to see any impact by NASA's budget (3.803E12 - 1.78E10 = 3.785E12 ~ 3.78 ~ 3.8 ~ 4). I think my ultimate point that NASA's budget is pretty inconsequential to either the budget or the yearly deficit stands since it is only 0.468% of the budget and 1.97% of the deficit.