3 ms·
Ok, then let's address the 52% elephant in the room instead of making cuts to the 3%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_United_States#/me
by text0404 7mo ago
Ok, then let's address the 52% elephant in the room instead of making cuts to the 3%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Discretionary_Spending_2019_Budget.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_Uni...
Reducing defense spending by a fractional amount will have more of an impact than completely eliminating science spending altogether. The Iran tally is up to what, $11b now after a single week?
- whimsicalism 7mo agoDefense is 12% of federal spending, not 52%. Definitely a bigger impact & waste than science budgets, I agree - but even cutting 100% of it would not close our hole. As I said, I’m no big fan of DOGE — but the problem is a real one despite the common tendency to put fingers in our ears or propose non-solutions, whether of the ‘tax the rich’, ‘cut DEI spending’, or ‘end all military expenditures’ variety. Not a single one of those or combination gets us there. We have to make real hard choices.
- text0404 7mo agoThose numbers still scale whether you're talking about total or discretionary spending, which means science/grants are an even smaller fraction of the 3%. Why start cutting from the smallest piece of the pie? My point is that defense spending is already outsized and increasing while we cut science spending. Instead of increasing it, why not cut it and provide 100x the savings before cutting science spending? Doesn't seem like such a hard choice.
- whimsicalism 7mo agoSure, I think we should significantly scale back on defense. I hope you also support cutting social security & medicare as well though -- and also tax increases. Otherwise, we're cooked.