5 ms·

I support scientific research of course but to play devils advocate, how can the USA afford this? They run a deficit and have an enormous debt. I dont understan

I support scientific research of course but to play devils advocate, how can the USA afford this? They run a deficit and have an enormous debt. I dont understand how this can continously be ignored. Of course nobody wants cuts but how can it go on? Same with the foreign aid, isnt that something a country running a surplus should be worried about?

colingauvin 2y ago
How can they afford not to? Subtract public research funding from the economy. Go ahead - see what's left. I'll shortcut it real quick - we're all dead from lung cancer and leaded gasoline, so there's no one to do the calculation.
- bad_haircut72 2y ago
  ?? healthy people stay alive, sick people will die. Of course this is terrible but "we will all die without publically funded research" doesnt hold water. Again Im not in favour of the cuts I just cant understand how the USA continues to borrow/print money and it doesnt all come crashing down. I dont think even Trump is anti-medicine, just pro fiscal responsibility.
  - colingauvin 2y ago
    I can't tell if you're intentionally misunderstanding, or not. So I'll spell it out: public non-biased research is a public good. Oil companies weren't going to publish research saying leaded gas was bad. Tobacco companies weren't going to publish research saying cigarettes were bad. Have fun being healthy when you inhale leaded gasoline every day. Forget about things like, you know, the internet. Or any medicine. BTW, private companies are not paying for basic biological research. Good luck making a drug when no one knows what target to drug. VC firms will park their money in the bank instead. The value from biotechs is already marginal - investment basically vanished when interest rates went above 4.
    - bad_haircut72 2y ago
      I feel the same way back haha, are you intentionally misunderstanding me? Nobody is claiming research is bad! I dont want to see it cut either. I want the government to be running a surplus though. You can argue we should cut other places like military or whatever, I agree thats probably wiser, but what Im asking is, surely we can only prioritise what to spend once we are back to surplus Ive also been told in the past that its somehow ok that the government never breaks even, I can handle that maybe Im too stupid/uneducated to get it... but nobody ever even tries. Use little words, Im sure we will make progress. How can the government continue to exist and not go broke if it continually spends more than it brings in?
      - colingauvin 2y ago
        I'm trying to say that having a society of people breathing in leaded gas would be insanely expensive. Both in terms of lost productivity from stunted brain development, and actual acute symptoms. Public money was crucial to unbiased understanding of that, and lead to prevention. How much money do you think that saved/grew the economy? For like 0.5% of the Federal budget. That's just one (big and easy to recall) example. There are countless. Spending public money on public research grows the economy. Cutting it is penny wise and pound foolish. I work at a biotech. We have $150 million in private funding. My biotech wouldn't exist, and I wouldn't have a job if it weren't for decades of public research doing the foundational work that allows us to target a protein to make a drug to help people. None of that would exist if not for NIH, NSF etc
        bad_haircut72 2y ago
        This was a good reply, thanks for taking the time. I could be convinced that this is a money making investment and therefore foolish to cut. If you have no money though, you cant afford to make any kind of investment, and from the outside looking in (to govt I mean, I live in the USA) it seems the US is going broke. Like I said though, I hve come around and maybe it really is super dumb to cut this - if you want to see it continue for the next 50 years, I would urge you consider how thats possible if the USA continues to lose money though.
  - throwfgtpwd234 2y ago
    While the Unabomber, Luigi Mangione, and Communism may have correctly diagnosed socioeconomic pathologies their prescriptions were largely counterproductive. It is magical or superficial thinking to believe that aggressive chaos is somehow curative or better than following a more consultative and cooperative process like first assessing and auditing an organization thoroughly by eliciting input from all parties at all levels and gathering data before proposing recommendations, implementing those recommendations, and following up to adjust them.
    - kentm 2y ago
      Sorry do you really think Musk and Trump are eliciting input from all parties and carefully gathering data before giving recommendations? Because given how frequently they talk about the “radical left” and “marxists” I really don’t think they are considering dissenting opinions in good faith. They invariably insult people who have the slightest disagreements with them, even when those people have facts and data on their side. And Musk has stumbled into several known right-wing conspiracy theories based on knee-jerk reactions, so I find it far more likely that he’s just fishing to validate his pre-held knee-jerk opinions rather than doing a careful investigation.
      - throwfgtpwd234 2y ago
        You're preaching to the converted. Please read what I wrote again more carefully because you are mistaken.
  - agnishom 2y ago
    "healthy people stay alive, sick people will die" that's a tautology. I do not know you, but I am willing to bet that there are some people who you know who'd have a far worse life if it was not for modern publicly funded research
    - bad_haircut72 2y ago
      I dont dispute this at all - I want the research, I would pay higher taxes to support it, but it baffles me how the government can continually lose money and people handwave away the entire issue
natnat 2y ago
Approximately what proportion of the US federal budget is spent on scientific research? What proportion is spent on foreign aid? Looking up these values is a useful exercise.
- bad_haircut72 2y ago
  A billion here, a billion there, before you know it you're talking about some real money. If I were president I would probably cut from military spending - but at some point that becomes painful to cut aswell. A lot of people have misunderstood me in this thread, at no point do I want to see public research cut. Its just that the same people who are worried about what climate change will bring over next 50 years (and I am too!) dont seen to feel any sense of alarm at the federal government living outside its means for the next 50 years, and I can not understand why
  - czzr 2y ago
    Because the federal government is not in any sense living outside its means. I’m not sure how to explain this to you, really - you’re fundamentally stuck, I think, on the idea that the gov is like a business or a household, and needs to budget the same way. It really doesn’t. Maybe think of it this way, to start to get your head around it: current debt is just over 100% of GDP - so in some sense the US has borrowed about a years worth of production. 100% sounds scary, but does 12 months sound so scary? Would you consider yourself in catastrophic debt if you owed a year of your salary? Personally I wish my mortgage was only a year of my salary!
    - bad_haircut72 2y ago
      You can call it stuck if you want, I guess I am - how can this not be a bad thing? It feels like its not a bad thing until suddenly it is. Countries can & do go broke. You can sell your house and break even, thr govt cant sell the NIH Consider the idea that without decades of money printing, your house might only cost 1 year of salary in the first place Or maybe let me ask it a other way - if the govt really doesnt need to balance the budget, why dont we have 50 aircraft carriers and free healthcare for all? Such huge sums of money go beyond merely number balancing, at some piint theyre forcefully managing the real resources of the nation
amluto 2y ago
Go read the article. All of this is a few drops in the bucket. There are some absolutely enormous line items that, by themselves, put us well into deficit territory. On top of that, these things make the US money. We have, by far, the strongest pharmaceutical and medical technology industry anywhere. Those companies pay taxes. (Those companies also screw us and the government over in myriad ways, and that should be addressed, but cutting off the research system that supports the entire industry in like throwing out the baby without even draining the bathwater.)
- stainablesteel 2y ago
  the "drops in the bucket" mindset is the problem, the federal government absurdly overspends and we've not had any serious politicians to address the issue. the interest on our debt is going to bankrupt us and there will be nothing left afterwards if these things aren't reeled in and examined. political opponents of the newly elected administration are obviously going to go fully hysterical over any change, they already did last time. the science industries in the US aren't going anywhere, neither is research at the universities. the ideological discrimination and money laundering coming out of these departments are going to end. and did we all forget about COVID? The fact that the NIH funded the research that happened in china ILLEGALLY, because this was a really stupid idea and we found that out the hard way, and it was covered up, and we were lied to, it killed millions, destroyed economies on a global scale.... do we really not want to see this agency dissected under a microscope? They need to be investigated.
  - bad_haircut72 2y ago
    I feel like were on the same side but youre gonna need a (credible!) source that US govt money was funding virus research in China, that doesnt seem to pass the sniff test
    - stainablesteel 2y ago
      is this sarcasm? it's been known for years and we got some more "official" info recently this is the grant, but this was public info for years https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Year-5-EHAv.pdf https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Year-...
kristjansson 2y ago
The US could pay its debt tomorrow, in full. We'd like to avoid that shock, if possible, but there's nothing uncreditworthy about running a fiscal deficit. USG revenue/spending should be reasoned about in terms of the resources it directs, and the resulting effects on US and world GDP. Everything else is just accounting.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  it could if it borrowed money from china /s
- bad_haircut72 2y ago
  Interest on debt is the second biggest line item in the budget (said someone else in this thread)
  - caspper69 2y ago
    It is #4. Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and defense are larger. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
- piperswe 2y ago
  Treasury bonds are non-callable, so a substantial portion of US debt can not be paid back early.
dekhn 2y ago
How can we afford it? because scientific discovery turbocharges our economy. Why do we have such a huge biotech industry? Why was the internet mostly built in the US? Why are we the only country that has placed somebody on the moon, and have huge launch capacities? Because we invested in those technologies and they paid off handsomely. What you are seeing is the result of "profit externalization"- laws like Bayh Dole allow universities to profit from the research they carry out under contract with the government. Everything we did, we did because the alternatives were worse.
Vilian 2y ago
A drop compared to military spending, thing that no one of that people cares about

colingauvin 2y ago

How can they afford not to? Subtract public research funding from the economy. Go ahead - see what's left. I'll shortcut it real quick - we're all dead from lung cancer and leaded gasoline, so there's no one to do the calculation.

bad_haircut72 2y ago
?? healthy people stay alive, sick people will die. Of course this is terrible but "we will all die without publically funded research" doesnt hold water. Again Im not in favour of the cuts I just cant understand how the USA continues to borrow/print money and it doesnt all come crashing down. I dont think even Trump is anti-medicine, just pro fiscal responsibility.
- colingauvin 2y ago
  I can't tell if you're intentionally misunderstanding, or not. So I'll spell it out: public non-biased research is a public good. Oil companies weren't going to publish research saying leaded gas was bad. Tobacco companies weren't going to publish research saying cigarettes were bad. Have fun being healthy when you inhale leaded gasoline every day. Forget about things like, you know, the internet. Or any medicine. BTW, private companies are not paying for basic biological research. Good luck making a drug when no one knows what target to drug. VC firms will park their money in the bank instead. The value from biotechs is already marginal - investment basically vanished when interest rates went above 4.
  - bad_haircut72 2y ago
    I feel the same way back haha, are you intentionally misunderstanding me? Nobody is claiming research is bad! I dont want to see it cut either. I want the government to be running a surplus though. You can argue we should cut other places like military or whatever, I agree thats probably wiser, but what Im asking is, surely we can only prioritise what to spend once we are back to surplus Ive also been told in the past that its somehow ok that the government never breaks even, I can handle that maybe Im too stupid/uneducated to get it... but nobody ever even tries. Use little words, Im sure we will make progress. How can the government continue to exist and not go broke if it continually spends more than it brings in?
    - colingauvin 2y ago
      I'm trying to say that having a society of people breathing in leaded gas would be insanely expensive. Both in terms of lost productivity from stunted brain development, and actual acute symptoms. Public money was crucial to unbiased understanding of that, and lead to prevention. How much money do you think that saved/grew the economy? For like 0.5% of the Federal budget. That's just one (big and easy to recall) example. There are countless. Spending public money on public research grows the economy. Cutting it is penny wise and pound foolish. I work at a biotech. We have $150 million in private funding. My biotech wouldn't exist, and I wouldn't have a job if it weren't for decades of public research doing the foundational work that allows us to target a protein to make a drug to help people. None of that would exist if not for NIH, NSF etc
      - bad_haircut72 2y ago
        This was a good reply, thanks for taking the time. I could be convinced that this is a money making investment and therefore foolish to cut. If you have no money though, you cant afford to make any kind of investment, and from the outside looking in (to govt I mean, I live in the USA) it seems the US is going broke. Like I said though, I hve come around and maybe it really is super dumb to cut this - if you want to see it continue for the next 50 years, I would urge you consider how thats possible if the USA continues to lose money though.
- throwfgtpwd234 2y ago
  While the Unabomber, Luigi Mangione, and Communism may have correctly diagnosed socioeconomic pathologies their prescriptions were largely counterproductive. It is magical or superficial thinking to believe that aggressive chaos is somehow curative or better than following a more consultative and cooperative process like first assessing and auditing an organization thoroughly by eliciting input from all parties at all levels and gathering data before proposing recommendations, implementing those recommendations, and following up to adjust them.
  - kentm 2y ago
    Sorry do you really think Musk and Trump are eliciting input from all parties and carefully gathering data before giving recommendations? Because given how frequently they talk about the “radical left” and “marxists” I really don’t think they are considering dissenting opinions in good faith. They invariably insult people who have the slightest disagreements with them, even when those people have facts and data on their side. And Musk has stumbled into several known right-wing conspiracy theories based on knee-jerk reactions, so I find it far more likely that he’s just fishing to validate his pre-held knee-jerk opinions rather than doing a careful investigation.
    - throwfgtpwd234 2y ago
      You're preaching to the converted. Please read what I wrote again more carefully because you are mistaken.
- agnishom 2y ago
  "healthy people stay alive, sick people will die" that's a tautology. I do not know you, but I am willing to bet that there are some people who you know who'd have a far worse life if it was not for modern publicly funded research
  - bad_haircut72 2y ago
    I dont dispute this at all - I want the research, I would pay higher taxes to support it, but it baffles me how the government can continually lose money and people handwave away the entire issue

natnat 2y ago

Approximately what proportion of the US federal budget is spent on scientific research? What proportion is spent on foreign aid? Looking up these values is a useful exercise.

bad_haircut72 2y ago
A billion here, a billion there, before you know it you're talking about some real money. If I were president I would probably cut from military spending - but at some point that becomes painful to cut aswell. A lot of people have misunderstood me in this thread, at no point do I want to see public research cut. Its just that the same people who are worried about what climate change will bring over next 50 years (and I am too!) dont seen to feel any sense of alarm at the federal government living outside its means for the next 50 years, and I can not understand why
- czzr 2y ago
  Because the federal government is not in any sense living outside its means. I’m not sure how to explain this to you, really - you’re fundamentally stuck, I think, on the idea that the gov is like a business or a household, and needs to budget the same way. It really doesn’t. Maybe think of it this way, to start to get your head around it: current debt is just over 100% of GDP - so in some sense the US has borrowed about a years worth of production. 100% sounds scary, but does 12 months sound so scary? Would you consider yourself in catastrophic debt if you owed a year of your salary? Personally I wish my mortgage was only a year of my salary!
  - bad_haircut72 2y ago
    You can call it stuck if you want, I guess I am - how can this not be a bad thing? It feels like its not a bad thing until suddenly it is. Countries can & do go broke. You can sell your house and break even, thr govt cant sell the NIH Consider the idea that without decades of money printing, your house might only cost 1 year of salary in the first place Or maybe let me ask it a other way - if the govt really doesnt need to balance the budget, why dont we have 50 aircraft carriers and free healthcare for all? Such huge sums of money go beyond merely number balancing, at some piint theyre forcefully managing the real resources of the nation

amluto 2y ago

Go read the article. All of this is a few drops in the bucket. There are some absolutely enormous line items that, by themselves, put us well into deficit territory. On top of that, these things make the US money. We have, by far, the strongest pharmaceutical and medical technology industry anywhere. Those companies pay taxes. (Those companies also screw us and the government over in myriad ways, and that should be addressed, but cutting off the research system that supports the entire industry in like throwing out the baby without even draining the bathwater.)

stainablesteel 2y ago
the "drops in the bucket" mindset is the problem, the federal government absurdly overspends and we've not had any serious politicians to address the issue. the interest on our debt is going to bankrupt us and there will be nothing left afterwards if these things aren't reeled in and examined. political opponents of the newly elected administration are obviously going to go fully hysterical over any change, they already did last time. the science industries in the US aren't going anywhere, neither is research at the universities. the ideological discrimination and money laundering coming out of these departments are going to end. and did we all forget about COVID? The fact that the NIH funded the research that happened in china ILLEGALLY, because this was a really stupid idea and we found that out the hard way, and it was covered up, and we were lied to, it killed millions, destroyed economies on a global scale.... do we really not want to see this agency dissected under a microscope? They need to be investigated.
- bad_haircut72 2y ago
  I feel like were on the same side but youre gonna need a (credible!) source that US govt money was funding virus research in China, that doesnt seem to pass the sniff test
  - stainablesteel 2y ago
    is this sarcasm? it's been known for years and we got some more "official" info recently this is the grant, but this was public info for years https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Year-5-EHAv.pdf https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Year-...

kristjansson 2y ago

The US could pay its debt tomorrow, in full. We'd like to avoid that shock, if possible, but there's nothing uncreditworthy about running a fiscal deficit. USG revenue/spending should be reasoned about in terms of the resources it directs, and the resulting effects on US and world GDP. Everything else is just accounting.

bdangubic 2y ago
it could if it borrowed money from china /s
bad_haircut72 2y ago
Interest on debt is the second biggest line item in the budget (said someone else in this thread)
- caspper69 2y ago
  It is #4. Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and defense are larger. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
piperswe 2y ago
Treasury bonds are non-callable, so a substantial portion of US debt can not be paid back early.

dekhn 2y ago

How can we afford it? because scientific discovery turbocharges our economy. Why do we have such a huge biotech industry? Why was the internet mostly built in the US? Why are we the only country that has placed somebody on the moon, and have huge launch capacities? Because we invested in those technologies and they paid off handsomely. What you are seeing is the result of "profit externalization"- laws like Bayh Dole allow universities to profit from the research they carry out under contract with the government. Everything we did, we did because the alternatives were worse.

Vilian 2y ago

A drop compared to military spending, thing that no one of that people cares about