Who needs a break from the NASA budget? (I do, I do!)

Great Debates
1

Every time the subject of space exploration come up in GD, some twit or other raises the question of why we spend such vast dollars on NASA.

Given that NASA gets less than one percent of the federal budget, I can only assume people who raise this issue are dedicated experts on missing the forest for the trees, rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, or your choice of appropriate metaphor.

Here, then, for all you small potato fans, are the discretionary and mandatory spending totals (as well as I could glean them), in descending order, from Bush’s proposed FY2004 budget .

[ul]
Total $2,066,337,400,000.00
Health, Human Services $536,624,000,000.00
Social Security Administration $522,056,000,000.00
Defense $379,898,000,000.00
Agriculture $73,428,000,000.00
Veterans Affairs $62,146,000,000.00
Education $60,832,000,000.00
Labor $58,477,000,000.00
Transportation $54,352,000,000.00
Treasury $47,880,000,000.00
Homeland Security $35,035,000,000.00
HUD $29,348,000,000.00
State, International Assistance $26,636,000,000.00
Justice $22,382,000,000.00
Energy $22,192,000,000.00
NASA $15,469,000,000.00
EPA $7,433,000,000.00
Interior $6,667,000,000.00
National Science Foundation $5,586,000,000.00
Commerce $5,528,000,000.00
Corps of Engineers-Civil Works $4,076,000,000.00
Total Other Agencies $90,292,400,000.00

[/ul]

Breakdown of other agencies:

[ul]
Office of Personnel Management $83,371,000,000.00
Corporation for National And Community Service $962,000,000.00
Securities and Exchange Commission $842,000,000.00
Small Business Administration $798,000,000.00
Nuclear Regulatory Commission $626,000,000.00
Smithsonian Institution $567,000,000.00
General Services Administration $400,000,000.00
Executive Office of the President $342,000,000.00
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission $335,000,000.00
National Archive and Records Administration $298,000,000.00
FCC $281,000,000.00
National Labor Relations Board $243,000,000.00
Institute of Museum and Library Services $242,000,000.00
Distric Of Columbia Courts $196,000,000.00
Federal Trade Commission $191,000,000.00
National Endowment for the Humanities $152,000,000.00
National Endowment for the Arts $117,000,000.00
Commodity Futures Trading Commission $88,000,000.00
Consumer Product Safety Commission $60,000,000.00
District Of Columbia $58,000,000.00
Regional Economic Development Agencies $56,000,000.00
Federal Election Commission $50,400,000.00
National Transportation Safety Board $17,000,000.00
[/ul]

There! Now, you may notice that NASA is very low on the list of agencies receiving major funding, but look at all the nitpicking opportunities to be found further down the list!

So here’s how it works, for all you folks who enjoy pulling ant shit out of the pepper:

No debate here about NASA and how we’d be better off cutting their funding and letting other countries go to space without us, and no discussing really big ticket items like Health and Human Services, Social Security, Defense or even Agriculture. And none of this distracting nonsense about how it’s all going to be paid for.

Instead, minutiae fans, this thread will be your long-awaited oppportunity to vent your frustrations about the gargantuan wealth squandered on those snivelling propellerheads at the National Science Foundation, the fat cats in Commerce, and those double-dipping weasles who do Civil projects for the Army Corps of Engineers.

Or, to get even more microscopic, you could scream about the lesser members of those under-the-radar “other agencies”, like the do-nothing knuckleheads at the Regional Economic Development Agencies, the Federal Election Commission, and the National Transportation Safety Board.

So fire away, have fun, and stay off the Mars and Shuttle threads!

2

This is too easy, even for a “twit” llike me who would normally crticize NASA spending.

*eliminate
**eliminate or reduce signifacantly

Those items have no business in the federal budget.

3

You guys might actually want to up funding for these guys.

4

Grey:

Hey! Quit criticisizing our “ballot challenged” citizens.:slight_smile:

And actually, the elections are run and funded by the states, IIRC.

5

Really? Ignorance gets beaten back once more!

I guess you vote for representation in the Electoral College so that would make it a States issue. Hmmm. Up here we have Election Canada for the federal election. Pretty basic, pencil and paper with names and a circle to check off.

Sorry for the hijack.

6

Care to explain why those choices of yours should be eliminated and/or reduced?

7

While you’re at it, please explain what it is you think those agencies do, and what you have in mind to replace those tasks.

Thanks!

8

John Mace:

Duckster:

andros:

Welcome, John Mace, I KNEW I could count on you to play along! You have successfully saved the Federal government over 2 billion dollars, out of Bush’s planned $2.229 trillion budget. That’s the spirit I was looking for on this thread!

And not just random choices, either. Your language makes it obvious that you possess a certain amount of conviction about these line items. Why do you object to them so strongly that you slash them over the rest of the “Other Agencies”?

Remember, it’s not your money personally. I don’t know what you spend in taxes, but to save the math, I’ll use my standard technique of assuming the government treats us all equally (ha!) and divide the numbers in the budget items by the population.

Your almost $2.7 billion divided by the nearly 300,000,000 people in the country means your share of the money comes to 9 bucks, out of $7430. Remember, this is what the government is spending on your behalf, not what you paid, as a great deal of the budget is to be covered by increasing the national debt, according to the summary tables at the end of the budget link I provided.

Why is it that these programs are so odious to you that that you can’t even bring yourself to float them nine bucks out of your personal share of the budget?

9

Scot:

Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not about the fact that only “saved” $9. But you cooked the rules and said we couldn’t touch the big stuff. Open up the rules to the big stuff, and I’ll really have at it!

And there are probably others in the “small stuff” column that I wouldn’t mind cutting if I had the inclination to look up exactly what they do. For this exercise, I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Grey:

No hijack at all. It’s a legit question for a Canadian, and I’ll be most Americans thought the feds paid for pres elections, too. It goes back to the fact that we’re a collection of states who have voluntarily formed a union. Not a Union that just happens to be divided into states. The pres is elected by the states, not by the people (directly). Some of us like it that way.

Duck:

Just to pick one, the NEA, I see no reason whatsover for the gov’t to take some of my money to fund art. I’m perfectly capable of funding all the art I need myself. There is no compelling national interest that some art is subsidised, and some not.

10

I want your job. Must be a good one to think 15billion is such a trifiling amount we shouldnt question it!! By your reasoning I guess as long as the govt. spends less than 1% of the GNP we shouldnt bother asking why?

just to put that “small” amount into perspective 15billion is more than the entire GNP for: Albania, Bahrain, and Yemen respect. And thats just three I checked on…im sure there is more.

I do see the trees for the forest which is why I question things like this…

11

Well, one of the suggestions I would make would be to allow independent research agencies access to the NASA budget, as if it were grant money. That’d help out the X-Prize a bit.

12

what does Regional Economic Development Agencies $56,000,000.00 do?

13

Regional planning and coordination. They use to spit out grants apparently.

14

“what does Regional Economic Development Agencies $56,000,000.00 do?”

Holy Jesus! How could we live without that?? My region definitely needs more planning and coordination, especially from Washington, DC. Those guys have all the answers!

No slight meant to you, Grey. Just using your post as a bouncing off point.:slight_smile:

15

Bounce away. Up here we have a ministry for it. :slight_smile:

16

Wow. Congratulations there, John Mace.

According to my calculations, you just saved the federal government approximately $2,663,000,000.00, or $2.66 billion.

That equates to just about $9.46, or nine dollars and forty-six cents, for every man woman and child in the United States as of April 1, 2000.

At the same time, you also ended national coordination of volunteer services, business start-up information assistance, protection against racism and discrimination in the workplace, arbitration assistance between unions and corporations, and start-up grants for impoverished regions.

But certainly if you need any of those services, you can just take your ten bucks and buy a couple of drinks for your buddy who happens to be a volunteer business start-up, arbitration, economic development, and discrimination lawsuit lawyer.

The only thing is, he probably pays to go see pictures of someone pissing in someone else’s mouth.

17

Any idea what department Regional Economic Development Agencies falls under? I have a feeling it’s Agriculture – in which case I’ll make an outstandingly good case for keeping that funding in place, unless you’re interested in either (a) bankrupting about half the hamlets in America or (b) drinking their raw sewage, slightly diluted.

On the other hand, if it’s the umbrella agency for groups like the Appalachian Regional Comission, it’s obvious that we don’t need it – anyone who’s been through the Appalachians on normal blue highways realizes that they’re immensely prosperous these days! :rolleyes:

I’m less than impressed with the performance of SBA, but I think its purpose is a good one.

Final point: if anyone takes a good look at the DOD budget, you’ll find that our supposedly pro-military Administration is not doing right by the enlisted troops, but instead spending the money on big-ticket military materiel and construction (two guesses who benefits from those funds!).

18

Not bad for 30 seconds work. I’d say that’s a great ROI. Just think what I could do if I really put my mind to it!

I really like the way you put that. Makes it sound even better than I thought!

19

I’m sure that within a matter of a few years we’d be right back to the good old '90s.

The 1890s.

20

Oh, I can do better than John. Watch this:

Dept. of Education - Buh bye. It hasn’t done a damned thing for education other than dump another layer of bureaucracy on top.

There. 60 billion bucks a year. I just paid for the entire tax cut, twice over.

But wait, there’s more!

A lot of people have been complaining lately that the poor aren’t getting a tax cut, because they don’t pay income tax. The argument is that they should have their Social Security contribution cut. But Social Security is supposed to be a user-pay system. It’s not really a tax, but an investment to be held by the government for your retirement. Cutting the SS contribution while keeping the payout the same converts the program into a welfare program, and not a retirement program.

Fine by me! Let’s means-test social security, and turn it into welfare. If you retire with a million bucks in the bank, you get nothing. NADA. Zip. If you retire poor, you can collect social security.

There. That’s a couple of hundred billion dollars a year.

Now let’s do the same thing with Medicare. Why in hell should Bill Gates get free hospital treatment when he reaches a magic age? Screw him. Means test Medicare. Rich old people have lots of money, and they’re going to die soon anyway. So let them spend their own damned money on a hip replacement.

There’s another couple of hundred billion dollars.

I’m pretty sure I could trim ten or twenty billion out of the Department of Agriculture. Does it fund farm subsidies? Bye bye, farm subsidies. The day I get engineer subsidies, the farmers can have their damned farm subsidies.

What in hell does the Departmnet of Labor need almost 60 billion dollars for? I’m pretty sure we can cut some fat out of that white elephant.

HUD. Bye bye, HUD. 30 billion dollars.

I could go on, but saving you Americans so much money makes me hungry. I think I saved you about 500 billion dollars, or about 1/4 of the entire budget. I’ll take 1%.

And while we’re at it, let’s agree that the U.S. government is plenty big enough right now. So let’s pass a law calling for indexing federal spending to the rate of inflation. This nonsense of 5% budget increases in years when inflation is flat is ridiculous.

Also, can we agree that overall, there’s enough regulation in America? If so, fix the size of the federal register. Every time a new regulation is proposed, the proposal must carry an offsetting sunset of an existing reg. Regulation is the single biggest hidden tax on the American people - some estimates say it’s as high as 2 trillion dollars a year. Surely there are some regulations that have outlived their usefulness.