[blindriver]

This is what happens when we are $40 Trillion in debt.

I'm sorry that scientific projects are being cut but are we supposed to keep funding everything ad infinitum regardless of how our economy and our future is going to be crippled by debt?

EVERYONE is going to be crying about their projects being cut and there's no good way to do it where everyone is going to be happy. Some people are going to lose their jobs, and that sucks but there is no other way except having the courage to cut funding. We have to cut everything and then reorganize at a lower budget number and the reallocate funds to the most important projects.

We can't keep funding everything. You may not care about our debt but I certainly do and there's more than enough of us around that care. Our descendants are going to be fucked and that's not fair. I'm sorry you're losing your job but soon over half our budget is going to be used to pay off interest on our debt. Just the interest and not the principal. This is an economic crisis.

[mym1990]

Funny, because while science and research funding is being cut…the debt is still rising faster than ever, because I still see taxpayer money flying towards useless things more than ever.

[dnautics]

social security and medicare?

[mym1990]

That, interest payments, UFC fight night flyovers, ballrooms, wars, tax cuts.

I would go as far as to say that the only things getting reduced funding are education and science research, but that’s just a hunch.

[HerbManic]

The massive increases to military spending would be a big part of it. Have to feed the war machine at all costs apparently.

[dnautics]

all military is ~1/6 of ss and medicare. new military expenditures is a rounding error

[Windchaser]

[citation needed]

Defense (DoD) budget is $900 billion now. When you also account for veterans' health, expenditures on nukes (goes to the DoEnergy), military stuff in space (goes to NASA), border protection, etc., the total national security spending tops $1.5 trillion. That's not counting the interest on past wars.

Medicare + SS is about $2.6 trillion. With Medicaid, it's up to $3.3 trillion, but this still gets you nowhere close to "all military is 1/6 of ss and medicare".

Even if we are more conservative about how we count "all military" - for instance, include veteran's health and nukes, but not CBP - it still doesn't get us close to the 1/6 number.

Would you explain your reasoning and numbers a bit more?

[Starman_Jones]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. You’re going to need to justify both of those claims.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

[dnautics]

you listed some rounding errors

[mym1990]

Interest payments, wars, tax cuts are rounding errors?

[Windchaser]

guess you also listed some non-rounding-errors

[bijowo1676]

reparations to Iran

[Windchaser]

tbf, it's unclear to me at this point how much of that is going to represent $$ out of the American pocket. A lot of it is "guarantees of financing and investment" by other gulf states. Probably we're subsidizing Iran re-investment, and the costs of that are intentionally ambiguous.

[bijowo1676]

If its USD dollars that are going to be spent, its not different than Fed literally printing money out of thin air and sending to Iran. The mere consumption of these dollars will have some effect on global inflation and will strenghten Iran long term

[Ar-Curunir]

Maybe you should complain about the other leeches on your economy, like, eg, the military.

Science funding is a minuscule part of the US budget

[jddj]

It's an economic crisis where they cut taxes and start wars though

[blindriver]

Starting wars was stupid and dumb and I hope the next administration cuts military just as severely but cutting spending severely isn't wrong.

[cryptoegorophy]

Being friends with Israel and giving them billions of dollars annually was a dumb idea. There would’ve been no war between USA and Iran if there wasn’t such a close friendship with ridiculously acting Israel.

[solid_fuel]

The losers whining loudest about the debt just started and lost a war with Iran and now they’re sending Iran $300 billion.

If you actually cared about the national debt you would back higher taxes and the democratic party given that the democrats are the only party who actually run a balanced budget at any point in the last 50 years.

But you don’t care about the national debt. You don’t care about the well being of americans. You don’t care about the cost of living, or protecting the environment for our children.

You don’t care about making the country better. All you care about is making sure that you don’t see anyone who is different. Your willful ignorance and hate disgusts me.

[pvaldes]

> are we supposed to keep funding everything ad infinitum

It depends. Do you want to be rich?

People don't "fund" science, they "invest" in science.

There is a big difference. Often, each dollar invested will return multiplied by five, ten or more.

But you can also spent 14 millions painting a pool in a different shade of blue or much more building the Barbie's disco dance house and will end with... the same pool, or a disco dance house that you will never be allowed to use. Is your money after all.

[ikrenji]

raise taxes on the rich, cut pentagon funding by 90% and you solved society

[blindriver]

Cutting military should be done, yes. But everything needs to get cut.

[Windchaser]

No, cutting R&D is the same as eating our seed corn. These programs pay off a lot in the long run, because they're a core and unavoidable part of technological progress.

They also tend to pay off big in societal progress. As an example, researching teaching and learning better results in better education, which results in better-trained kids and a more productive society. Research into clinical psychology leads to better therapy and emotionally healthier and well-adjusted people. Etc.

Science funding is one of the best investments we can make into the long-term success of the country, and it's a gross mistake to cut it. Literally one of the biggest mistakes we can commit. Science is a big part of what keeps us moving forward, and it is outlandishly cheap compared to the benefits.

[thrance]

Cutting public services and lowering taxes is what we've been doing since Reagan, and look where it lead us. And you still want more of that!?

To fix society, you need to bring money down the ladder, from the ones whose wallets got indecently fat in the past few decades. Public spending (outside of police and military) and higher taxes for the rich are the only way to go, lest you want society to get completely consumed by the neoliberalist death cult.

[froggy]

Some of the science spending was to help us prevent catastrophe and save our descendants.

The GOP cut a measly $60 million per year for scientific monitoring instruments in the ocean, yet are increasing spending by hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on things like military spending, White House security, and deporting good people they call “illegals”.

They haven’t cut the national debt because they cut taxes on the rich. Taxing the rich could pay for all the science and gradually pay down the debt. But it’s in the GOP interest to cut science to dumb down the population. Climate change is “fake” they say, meanwhile Fox acquired Roku (100+ million households), Paramount (MAGA) acquiring Warner Brothers, CBS, CNN, etc. Oligarchs taking over TikTok and their disinformation machine strengthens.

[sensanaty]

How much money has Trump just quite literally blown up in an idiotic, pointless war that has served no purpose other than granting Iran Billions in reparations?

What was that new number they were throwing around, 1.4 Trillion dollar budget?

But sure, let's worry about cutting funding to research institutes which were sucking the US dry with their budgets in the millions.