The Cost of the US Government Shutdown To Science 355
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Schiffman writes in The Guardian that the Republican-led shutdown of the U.S. government caused significant damage to many scientific programs. For example: shortly before the shutdown started, over a hundred scientists had gathered to perform critical equipment tests on the James Webb Space Telescope — Hubble's successor — and that work was unable to continue without the government around. 'Not only did this delay cost the program an estimated $1M a day, but, given NASA's tight schedule, some tests may never get done now.' It doesn't stop there: 'This is only one of untold thousands of projects that were mothballed when Congress's failure to approve a budget defunded the US government at the start of the month. Federal websites were taken offline, scientists couldn't receive emails, attend meetings, or interact with their colleagues. Crucial environmental, food safety and climate monitoring programs were either suspended, or substantially scaled back.' Schiffman provides a few more examples, including one project that's losing a year's worth of work and equipment that will end up buried under snow in Antarctica. But it goes beyond even the basic funding issues; in many cases, scientific work is simply too intertwined with the government to continue without it. Andrew Rosenberg, the director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' center for science and democracy, said, 'It is all so interconnected now. Federal researchers collect data that is utilized by researchers in academia, by people working in industry, at state and local levels, so when you ask how dependent are we on the federal government in terms of science, it's a bit like asking: do you need your left leg?'"
Better model needed (Score:5, Interesting)
Science is too important to be dependent on a funding source that is 17 trillion dollars in debt. It's *all* going to dry up at some point, and probably rather suddenly when it does. Talk to the history department if this is unclear.
With all the great thinkers in science, perhaps research into better funding models would be worth the effort.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
To redirect back on topic: why does it seem like everything the federal government does was declared "essential" and not affected EXCEPT for science? I don't hear a lot of discussion about what rules need to be changed for the next shutdown. Here's my suggestion: in the event of a shutdown, absolutely no congressional support services will be provided. No staffers can answer the phone from their congresspeople. No electricity in the capitol. No fucking gym open. No paychecks including back pay for congress persons. No security guards will be protecting the reps. None. Congressmen can hold meetings at a starbucks or something if they feel like it. Conversely, science research will absolutely not be affected.
I'd start a petition on change.org or writing a letter to congress urging that, but I think my time might better be spent wishing on a star.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
He probably shouldn't have antagonized the Republicans from the start. He might have done more horse trading and made more sacrifices elsewhere: the budget, gay rights, financial regulation, whatever.
As far as the budget was concerned, he was in a rough spot with the economy - it was just spectacularly bad timing for dealing with budget problems. I'm not convinced that changing his mind on financial regulation or gay rights would have done any good, since the steps he took in those directions were fundamentally so small. And from what I can remember, the repeal of DADT was the first major policy change on gay rights and that came well after the Obamacare passage.
Where he could have become active is scale back the abuses of the Bush era, the NSA, and all the other things he promised to do but has failed to.
God, I wish - this was the main reason I voted for him in 2008 and he has been a spectacular disappointment on these issues, which is why I stayed home in 2012. But, again in partial defense, even his good-faith efforts were blindly opposed by the GOP, which went out of its way to prevent him from closing down Guantanamo. (Admittedly with some Democratic support, and may those legislators rot in hell.)
Health care reform could have waited a little longer.
Unlikely, since he probably would have lost Congress in 2010 regardless of what else happened. Either the right wing was going to accuse him of being a radical socialist, or they (and everyone else) were going to blame him for not doing more to improve the economy.
Probably a Republican president would have been better for passing this; in fact, if Romney had become president, we probably would have gotten reasonable health care reform, because he could have passed something better and more consistent with bipartisan support.
It's a nice fantasy, except both Romney and the Republicans have moved so far to the right that anything they passed was likely to be even more favorable to the insurance companies and even less effective at bringing insurance to the people who don't have it. What exactly is their plan to reduce costs? Malpractice tort reform? Screwing over the trial lawyers, while it might be a worthy goal on general principle, would barely put a dent in the price of insurance. And people with pre-existing conditions are simply fucked.
Re:Better model needed (Score:2, Interesting)
17 trillion dollars sounds like a shipload of money, but you have to put in perspective: It's not that much compared with the GDP of the US.
LOL. Maybe to a galaxy spanning civilization this would be small potatoes, but it's kind of big for the US.
The biggest structural problem the US has is its insane right.
They keep holding back the suicidal left which is a bad thing apparently.
The debt ceiling standoff was very, very dangerous, far more dangerous than even 20 trillion $ of debt would be.
As I noted elsewhere, anyone who cared about a few week default of US on short term bonds had already sold them off.
It would have taken very little additional bad luck to triger a financial calamity of biblical proportions.
Reminds me of that Heinlein quote about "bad luck". There's a simple solution here: spend less at the federal level and stop getting in the way of people who create wealth.
Biased-much? (Score:0, Interesting)
"Republican-led shutdown of the U.S. government"
Whoa, hold the phone. You do realize that the last budget proposal to be rejected by the Democrat-led Senateprior to the shutdown was only rejected because it stipulated that the president and congress members had to participate in Obamacare just like everyone else, right? No defunding Obamacare. No delaying Obamacare.
The Democrats in the Senate and the White House had a choice: Abide by their own law and be bound by it just like their constituents, or shut the government down until the other side gives in and lets them get away with being above "the law of the land". We all saw which path the Democrats took.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
The tea baggers have prevented the gov. from raising taxes, even though they are at an all time low.
In addition, teabaggers and neo-cons constantly blocked cuts that they did not like.
for example, both teabaggers/neo-cons continue to push the SLS which will cost us 30B and not be ready until 2022 at the earliest (it is now expected for man's first flight on it at 2025, and several studies say that it will run closer to 50B). So, where are they getting the money for this nightmare? By gutting private space inside of NASA. Even now, when it was agreed to that private space would get a TOTAL of 2B, for funding 3 companies to be ready by 2015, the neo-cons cut that and has forced NASA to limit the downselect to ONE private space company.
Then we have again, both neo-cons/teabaggers pushing the nightmare of keeping our M1A1 tank lines going. Yet, the DOD IS SCREAMING THAT IT IS NOT THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT FOR FUTURE wars. Worse, we have plenty of core M1A1 tanks. But the house is blocking the stoppage of the line.
It continues over and over and over.
The problem is not that we are not making spending cuts.
| The real problem is that 49 teabaggers in the house are blocking compromise on ANYTHING from happening, and the neo-cons are going along because the teabaggers are threatening them at the next election.