when making sausage, you not only have to get the guts to stuff with ground up meat and grain, you also have to mix in some small lumps of fat and minced offal
From a "heads-up" e-mail from the ScienceDebate 2008 team:
"I am writing to alert you to efforts underway this morning to zero out a large portion of the science funding from the Senate American Reinvestment and Recovery Act as a part of a $77.9B reduction effort led by Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME).
As you know better than most, science and technology are responsible for half of the economic development of the United States since WWII and yet, if current trends hold, some, such as the Business Roundtable, have predicted that 90% of all scientists and engineers will live in Asia within 5 years.
The United States simply MUST renew our investment in the single greatest economic engine this country has ever known. Small federal investments in scientific research have helped produce things like the internet and the transistor that have consistently delivered multi-trillion dollar economies.
The United States is at a critical juncture, and if this concerns you we suggest now would be a time to contact your Senators and urge them to support science funding. Here is what is being proposed to be cut from the bill, according to TPM:
NASA exploration $750,000,000 = 50%
NSF $1,402,000,000 = 100%
NOAA $427,000,000 = 34.94%
NIST $218,000,000 = 37.91%
DOE energy efficiency & renewable energy $1,000,000,000 = 38%
DOE office of science $100,000,000 = 100%"
from TPM
The claimed intent is to cut $100 billion from the stimulus package, though the Senate amendments last I heard had actually added a net of ~ $40 billion or more.
They shoved in a lot of extra tax deductions, which are generally agreed to have low multipliers and to be ineffective at short term stimulus.
I also heard a different group of senators is trying to add $6.5 billion to the NIH.
If they cut all the science boost, they still have to reconcile with the House version.
But, it'd be easy for science funding to be left on the floor in the process.
The constituency is small, few congresscritters feel strongly about science, though they tend to be vaguely positiive about it for the most part, and they might like to able to point to having actually cut something when they go back home.
But, you might get a tax credit if you buy a 2009 Chrysler.
So it is ok.
So the stimulus bill is supposed to put money into the system so that people can have jobs (the government, a consumer, is going to spend more than other consumers because they aren't spending enough). Is it that Republicans don't think people actual get payed (i.e are employed) when they work on money coming from DOE or NASA. Look folks I was hoping that several defense programs would get cut under the new administration but they aren't going to be because the government needs to play the role of the consumer to keep employment up.