White House Seeks 72 Percent Cut To Clean Energy Research (engadget.com) 390
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The Trump administration has made it very clear that it is pro fossil fuels and has little interest in pushing programs the promote renewable energy. Now, the Washington Post reports that the president's proposed 2019 budget slashes funds for Energy Department programs focused on energy efficiency. While the proposal is just a jumping off point, the fact that it seeks to cut such funding by 72 percent underscores where the administration's interests lie and in which direction its policies will continue to go. The draft budget documents viewed by Washington Post staff showed that the president is looking to cut the Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) budget to $575.5 million, down from the current $2.04 billion level. Included in the budget cuts are funds for programs researching fuel efficient vehicles, bioenergy technologies, solar energy technology and electric car technologies. Additionally, the draft budget proposal seeks to cut jobs, dropping staff levels from 680 down to 450. One EERE employee told the Washington Post, "It shows that we've made no inroads in terms of convincing the administration of our value, and if anything, our value based on these numbers has dropped." The report notes that the Energy Department had requested less extreme spending cuts, but the Office of Management and Budget pushed for the more substantial ones found in the draft proposal. It's also worth noting that the proposal could still be changed before being released in February.
Related: (Score:5, Insightful)
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
This administration is determined to make the USA more like a third world country.
Re:Related: (Score:5, Funny)
Make America a Shit-hole Again. :)
Re:Related: (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, making the country into a shit-hole (or shit-house, if you want to be pedantic) will cut immigration down by making the USA into a terrible place where nobody wants to go.
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I live in Europe and I sure don't want to live in the US.
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*whack-a-racist*
Re:Related: (Score:5, Funny)
This administration is determined to make the USA more like a third world country.
This administration is determined to make China look more like a first world country.
Re:Related: (Score:4, Insightful)
This administration is determined to make the USA more like a third world country.
This administration is determined to make China look more like a first world country.
They are switching. Make America Stone Aged again!
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That already happened.
Re:Related: (Score:4, Informative)
No. Whatever state the country is in it cannot be laid at Trump's feet after being in office for one year. The state of the nation is the end result of all of Trump's predecessors. The largest contributing factor to any downturn in the country can be laid at the feet of those who don't have a fucking clue about how the three branches of government actually work. The executive branch wields the least amount of power when it comes to making any meaningful changes in the country. If you are going to go protest something at least target your protest to the fuckers causing all the problems. The no term limit legislative branch combined with no limits on the amount of money can be funneled into it's members would be a damn good place to start. The legislative branch has created their own brand of internal government that go out of their way to limit the amount of transparency as possible. They have rules protecting themselves from public investigations of their conduct. This branch of government also controls the government purse which they use to payback their campaign donors.
The budget numbers leaked are only a starting point on the negotiations and the President cannot unilaterally impose his budget on the country. Only Congress has that power. The use of renewable energy in the country has been increasing every year for the past 15 years. Fossil fuel use has declined. Understand these figures have absolutely nothing to do with the government. Outside of renewable energy tax credits the government is contributing very little to the process. Any research efforts paid for by the government is nothing more than corporate welfare. Any research brought to market will not generate any government profits. The research will most definitely benefit the corporations who use the government funded research to slash there own R&D efforts. The government doesn't build anything. At most they are the worlds largest general contractor that doles out billions of dollars to their campaign supporters.
And those who have made billions of dollars in the fossil fuel industry are the same people positioning themselves to do the same thing with new energy markets in the future. The largest contributors of R&D investments for alternative energy sources are the top fossil fuel corporations in the world. The people running those companies are not stupid. Up until now it has been easier to generate fortunes in the fossil fuel sector while the profits for renewable energy sources are just know becoming a viable and profitable sector. No silly International bullshit environment treaties are going to magically create a cleaner environment. It is the rising profits in the commercial renewable energy industry. Electric vehicles will replace fossil fuel vehicles when the technology matures. Right now the 300 mile re-charge barrier, high vehicle costs, and the lack of a public and convenient recharging infrastructure will keep the number of electric cars from becoming a serious consumer choice.
Re: Related: (Score:2)
I believe you are mistaking the current Administration for the prior administration of Bill Clinton.
Re: Related: (Score:3, Insightful)
You really believe that shit, broham? We don't have two parties in America. We have one party, the Financialist Party, with two faces.
It's okay if you don't see it yet. Some people still believe the myth of two parties. Some people continue to imagine good public policy will follow from voting for evil.
Well bro, keep on voting for stooges of the big banks. The impoverishment of our country will continue apace. But hey, you're doing what the propaganda organs say is virtuous. And that's what matters to you!
Re:Related: (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect that most people who voted left in the past are going to start asking questions, like why is the economy doing so good, why did I just get 1k+ bonus, why are there more jobs, why am I getting a tax break.
Not me. I'll be asking "which Democratic campaign should I donate this bread crust of a tax break to?"
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I grudgingly agree.
At this point, investment in renewables and energy efficiency research are commercially viable, and might not need as much of a government push. Microgrids still need funding and research, but that is much less cutting edge stuff.
As long as the administration doesn't start pushing fossil fuel at the expense of alternative energy, I will live with it.
Train Wreck (Score:4, Funny)
I saw something earlier today about a "GOP train wreck". Is this connected to that story, or does it just refer to the Republicans more generally?
Re:Train Wreck (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a train wreck. Freight cars full of GOP everything. I assume this is part of it, but really this administration appears determined to undo *everything* the previous administration did for no other reason than it was done by the previous administration. Seriously, if there was ever a POTUS that the tee shirt slogan "Go away or I will replace you with a small shell script" was apropo for, this appears to be it.
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It's a train wreck. Freight cars full of GOP everything.
This joke is in very poor taste. Shame on you.
A person is dead. [nbcnews.com]
Re:Train Wreck (Score:4, Interesting)
well shit.
didn't know about the news prior to walking fully into it with my comment.
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+1 for civility.
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It is God's way of playing with symbolism. Just like when Trump tried to pose with a bald eagle and it decided to attack him.
Re:Train Wreck (Score:4, Funny)
It is still unclear whether the eagle was trying to attack Trump or have sex with his hair.
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I saw something earlier today about a "GOP train wreck". Is this connected to that story, or does it just refer to the Republicans more generally?
I think it was a GOP trainwreck which happened when they hit a garbage truck. I'm not aware if the garbage truck was on fire at the time.
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Is this a parody of senile elderly right wingers, or do you really think random all caps words, incomplete sentences, and ridiculous bragging are a good form of argumentation?
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The difference between Democrats and Republicans (Score:2, Informative)
The Democrats might be bought and paid for, but at least their sponsors are leaders for the 21st century instead of the 19th.
Big Fat Nothing Burger (Score:4, Insightful)
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possibly, but as I understand it this will severely impact fed research grant $$ too (like more efficient solar cell tech and such). That is something that industry will also do, but at a much slower pace without incentive.
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Your claim that
solar and wind are going to become cheaper than fossil fuels in the long term anyway...
is an important contention.
In this age of corporations petitioning governments to interfere in markets on their behalf, unless its boosters are more powerful than entrenched energy interests, alternative energy is only likely to flourish if it becomes economically competitive. Or bettter than competitive.
As energy use increases, it become more likely to raise in price; thus there is pressure to use less or improve efficiency. As long as there are no market distortions, like petroleum subsid
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This is probably not a big deal, IMHO. Sure, some groups will be stymied by the lost of tax breaks and grants. But let's face it; solar and wind are going to become cheaper than fossil fuels in the long term anyway (hell, it's a dead heat right this minute) and we won't need government funding for renewables to propagate. In fact, I would rather the feds just get out of the way.
The big difference is whether you want the patents on the technology to be owned by U.S. or Chinese companies.
I'm fine either way. Are you? The people against renewables tend to hate China... it's weird that they're effectively ceding technology leadership to China. I'm not sure if they realize they're doing it.
Re:Big Fat Nothing Burger (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is probably not a big deal, IMHO. Sure, some groups will be stymied by the lost of tax breaks and grants. But let's face it; solar and wind are going to become cheaper than fossil fuels in the long term anyway (hell, it's a dead heat right this minute) and we won't need government funding for renewables to propagate. In fact, I would rather the feds just get out of the way.
The point of fundamental research isn't to make money from today's technologies but to establish the science that will drive tomorrow's. If the US doesn't lead the way to innovation, it risks getting left behind while the EU, China, and others surge ahead and start profiting from selling and licensing new technologies to the US.
This is not about solar getting cheaper (Score:2)
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Indeed! america, go ahead and step aside. Plenty of countries are dying to lead in these fields!
you had your turn, now give others a try. Very progressive and very unlike you! Maybe that trump will end up being the best thing yet for countries not the usa. USA out of everywhere, and everything!
Then in a few years, you can claim "unfair dumping of subsidized technologies", slap a tariff on them, and make your market less and less attractive. (This then makes
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Profit driven research doesn't tend to innovate.
Go tell that to Elon Musk.
I suspect Elon might agree with the GP, given that his two most visible enterprises are having trouble earning a profit:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/... [theverge.com]
https://www.theverge.com/2017/... [theverge.com]
Don't get me wrong, I respect Elon Musk for his devotion to the long game (setting aside alleged labor scandals at his companies.) The point is that innovation is expensive -- you need deep pockets or an alternate source of revenue in order to make bold new ideas happen. That's why government has a role to play in the fundin
Dragging us back to the 1940's -- or earlier :-( (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dragging us back to the 1940's -- or earlier :- (Score:4, Insightful)
Military spending is twice what it should be as a percentage of GDP - look at 1940 just before the war [usgovernmentspending.com]. Then shit got real and we spent 40% of GDP for WW2. Imagine what would happen if the US spent $7.89 trillion on war. That'd be a freakin' space opera.
A true "Bring Back the Good-Old Days" policy would cut DoD spending to $291.35B instead of increasing it to $639.1B - a $347B difference or 53% of the deficit. $650B in cost cutting or revenue increases needs to happen to stop the debt from growing. If each tax bracket was increased by 5%, the gap would be closed and the budget would be balanced. To actually pay the debt off, you'd need to raise 6.1 times current annual revenue in excess of spending. It can be done, but needs to be done as a 50 year plan to not wreck the economy. Politicians are incapable of long-term planning.
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It wasn't a hell hole back then. And the people were a lot better. And those people are the ones that made the social changes happen. It's been downhill the last 20 years. Your comment that "Of course it probably won't have any effect on industry...." is a great reason for a government with $20T in debt shouldn't be spending money there.
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So, in your own words, not spending 1.5 billion in tax payer money won't have "any effect", doesn't that imply that the spending was itself wasteful? If private interests will pick up the slack, shouldn't we be saving that money to spend somewhere else where it is more needed? Maybe that money could be spent improving infrastructure? Or other research? Or just plain not spending as much so
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Those times weren't even the "good old days", at least not for most people. Female, non-white, gay, transgender, disabled... Basically anything other than healthy straight white male sucked to be back then.
Hopefully, they will focus on geothermal and nuke (Score:5, Interesting)
As to dropping EV subsidies, Tesla has always begged for it since all of their competitors have NEVER used it correctly. And they are correct. Those subsidies SHOULD have been used on 150 MPC EVs and not on 75 MPC/hybrids which then charge in the daytime increasing demand and then pushing coal plants.
"We have ended the war on beautiful clean coal"* (Score:2)
Aren't you happy?
*exact words
The reason is in the summary (Score:2)
"we've made no inroads in terms of convincing the administration of our value" is exactly the reason for being cut. Burning money for 4 decades without progress means something is wrong, we still don't have "clean energy" and most "clean(er) energy" innovation hasn't happened in the US.
!! BOO HOO !! (Yay!) (Score:3, Interesting)
Hidden in the WaPo article is an (alleged source) punchline,
One source familiar with the negotiating process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely describe what the person had learned, said that the budget request had been lowered after negotiations with the Office of Management and Budget, and may have been lowered further because of a desire to channel more funding toward nuclear energy, a favored subject for Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
It's funny that so many of the folks who see Russian Bots everywhere and also happen to promote utility wind and solar, FAIL to spot the 'natural gas bots' in their midst. If there is a future for modern civilization at the present level of convenience -- which is code for "nobody has to die" -- it is through clean, safe nuclear energy with a ~300 year low volume waste profile [slashdot.org]. See that link for more rant.
Re:corporate welfare (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to stop giving corporations money for investing in future profitable endeavors.
When companies invest in solar or wind technology, maybe it will be profitable, or maybe not. But either way, much of the benefit goes to the public in the form of avoided externalities. Without public funding, companies will still research alternative energy, but will do much less than is optimal from the public's perspective.
Subsidies for alternative energy research make way more sense than subsidies for alternative energy production. We should do more of the former, and less of the latter.
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Right, let's socialize the cost and privatize the profits. Oh, wait, isn't that what so many people complain about with government programs? Maybe the companies should invest in their own research if they are going to profit from it.
Public funding of research is a terrible idea. The decisions on who gets the money is decided by a bunch of lawyers in Congress based on how many votes it will buy them in their re-election campaign, not on it's ability to reduce pollution.
I can see some public funded researc
Re:corporate welfare (Score:5, Interesting)
Right, let's socialize the cost and privatize the profits.
That is not inherently bad. We subsidize the research, the company makes profits, and the public benefits from less CO2 emissions and a stronger dollar from fewer fossil fuel imports (or more FF exports). Win-win.
We can also take it further, and set up a patent-pool [wikipedia.org] for all companies that accept research subsidies. This keeps the IP out of the hands of NPEs (who will just sit on them), while simultaneously encouraging companies to participate in creating shared IP. So we are encouraging both the creation and the sharing of innovation. Again: win-win.
Re: corporate welfare (Score:2)
"let's socialize the cost and privatize the profits"
Exactly! How else are we going to build a techno-dystopia?
Re:corporate welfare (Score:5, Insightful)
Public funding of research is a terrible idea. The decisions on who gets the money is decided by a bunch of lawyers in Congress based on how many votes it will buy them in their re-election campaign, not on it's ability to reduce pollution.
Whilst the size of the pot may be decided by Congress, a lot of the research goes on in universities, and allocation is via competitive tender, judged by a panel of senior academic peers.
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Give the DOE 10% of the DOD budget and they could probably come up with "some awesome research" as well.
You also talk about "check(s) on government waste for energy research" but what about checks on waste in military spending?
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It depends on what point on the curve you are at in terms of what the best investment is. Without the subsidies, the market would not have accelerated as quickly and profoundly as it did. Just 10 years ago, it was a really big deal to have a building with a 50kW PV array; the subsidies likely cut the time to get where we are now in half.
Personally, I think that has meaningful strategic value.
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The 99% and
Re: Thank you! (Score:3, Funny)
Congratulations on your investment, Ivan! How are the capital gains tax is there in Russia?
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that a lot of basic research is done at these national labs, that often times, will not occur in private industry because the investment is too high and returns aren't quick enough. Businesses will seek profit for their shareholders, not what's good for humanity.
Businesses often depend on this basic research to be released to public to make products and services from but someone has to do the research. This cut also hits solar energy (which is currently only one of the few realistic long term energy sources we're aware of as a species), battery research (which is critical for many future developments--hell you can even pour your "clean" coal energy into batteries, they're agnostic...), and more.
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> Why should Google be forced to host speech from Infowars in the form of advertisements, regardless of how anyone at Google personally feels about that site?
Then examples should be pretty easy to cite. Otherwise I call bullshit. Musk seems to be this community's anointed savior when it comes to future-tech. Now you're giving all the credit to the government.
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think Musk's engineers don't rely on publications performed under government funding (around the world) to advance, then you're crazy. Advances are certainly made by private industry, but a lot of pieces come from public funded research.
It's like saying Musk's Tesla group haven't benefited from any research and development into SLAM methodologies, which built off of much research in computer vision to help build their autopilot feature and self driving vehicles. Take away all public funded research in computer vision, for example, and lane assisted driving wouldn't be remotely near where it is today. It might eventually be developed as a competitive requirement as industry inched into this territory.
I'm no material scientist but I suspect much of the battery technology used can be traced back to leaps developed under or as a result of public funded research.
Research is costly and high risk of failure so businesses typically minimize research to the point of keeping a competitive advantage. Not only that, if you rely strictly on private industry to do all the research, you end up in situations like we have now in the US with the pharmaceutical industry (which is even higher risk of failure and overhead investment).
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when we used to be a first world country in the US, and poured resources into science and engineering and education so that we wouldn't fall behind the Commies? Today it seems like our competition is Syria, and as long as we're doing better than Syria that we don't need to work harder to be better.
This is like Biff from Back To The Future is president, and he gives noogies to any nerdy scientist he runs across.
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Those aren't scientists, however convenient for your argument that might have been.
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Interesting)
Really? You saying all this time Obama was researching a lithium battery?
https://energy.gov/eere/vehicl... [energy.gov] (Until some Trump lackey gets appointed to pull all the useful content off their website.)
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Funny)
I'd like to see some examples of successful publicly funded research projects.
The irony of someone typing that on a computer, communicating over the world wide web on the internet is obviously completely lost.
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see some examples of successful publicly funded research projects.
The irony of someone typing that on a computer, communicating over the world wide web on the internet is obviously completely lost.
Not to mention the fact that some of those internet hops may very well occur via satellites.
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Funny)
I'd like to see some examples of successful publicly funded research projects.
The irony of someone typing that on a computer, communicating over the world wide web on the internet is obviously completely lost.
Not to mention the fact that some of those internet hops may very well occur via satellites.
He probably is pissed of that we have Government weather satellites, when the government should just get their weather form the Weather channel like the rest of us do.
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But the DOE secretary has a built in bias against the DOE!
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not *your* money, any more than the road you use is your road. It's our money. Your ability to earn money is inexorably linked to us pooling some percentage of it together for the common good, of which scientific progress is a part.
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Taken as part of the social contract that is the United States citizenship under the United States Constitution as specified in Article 1 Section 8.
If you don't agree with the social contract that comes with being a citizen of this nation, you are free to move to a nation that has no social contract or taxes that come with it. I hear Somalia is nice this time of year, and it fits your demand nicely.
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No it's ours. Taken by mandate. Who would volunteer to pay it? Usually spent unwisely. Rarely for the common good. Usually to pander to some cause or make someone (or some group) feel good about themselves. What innovation comes from it we end up paying for again if we want to use it.
No, it's the Federal Reserve's. It says so right on the note. You and I are just borrowing it.
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you noticed how your mom, sister, aunt, girlfriend, wife, daughter, and female friends haven't died from cervical cancer? You can thank public science (and NIH/NCI) for that.
Have you noticed how you haven't died from lung cancer yet? You can thank public science for that.
Have you noticed that things around you are made from plastic? Have you noticed that 'medicine' now involves surgeries and anti-bacterial treatments rather than voodoo and shrunk heads? Have you noticed how we can build rockets that take us into space, predict likelihood of certain diseases by reading an individual beings genome, troll unfortunates on the internet, scan individuals for relatedness, fly with the birds? Yes, publicly funded research has led to a vast improvement for our civilization.
I get the feeling your argument is more on the emotional axis than the logical one.
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Informative)
Examples of government funded research that made it to private sector:
Cell phones
Radio
Internet
Electron Guns (tube TV's)
LCD displays
Lithium batteries
Just from NASA alone:
Barcodes
Cordless power tools
MRI Machines
Microchips & Integrated Circuits
Quartz clocks
Smoke Detectors
Teflon
Velcro
Infrared thermometers
Ventricular Assist devices (Devices that make heart transplants possible)
Artificial limbs
LEDs
Scratch resistant glass
Aircraft anti icing systems (IE what makes planes able to fly in winter and as high as they do)
Radial tires with a life over 2000 miles
Chemical leak detection systems
Fire breaks & Fire resistant building materials
pressurized Fire extinguishers
Memory foam
Cordless vacuums
Freeze dried foods
Digital cameras
I'm tired of typing, and I'm not even 3% through the list.
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MAGAers are such snowflakes...
Re: Thank you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
That's true. The government's role should be to make the market work efficiently, which means eliminating market failures [wikipedia.org] such as monopolies and negative externalities.
But the federal government doesn't seem to be eager to internalize negative externalities by charging polluters the cost of air pollution, about $1,000 per person annually [fullerton.edu]. Instead, the current administration has been doing the opposite by dismantling protections!
While it lasted, the government's investments in clean energy research were a good way to repay its negligence in making sure the market cleaned up after itself. Ending the research will only accelerate the environmental debt that our children and grandchildren will inherit from us.
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Good (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Look, the military is about PROTECTION of America, and improving our defense. The highway system was built up to serve the military in times of war, while also helping our nation in a civilian fashion.
Energy is a SERIOUS issue for the military and our nation. As such, this R&D and even the subsidies to get this stuff going, IS about defense.
And as has been pointed out by the DOD, climate change, if it goes too far, will lead to massive numbers of wars and refugee issues.
Sadly, ppl like you are NOT listening to them because you AND YOUR FAMILY NEVER FUCKING SERVED.
You have NO idea of what it means to put it on the line. Nor do you have any idea of what it means to AVOID a war.
Far too many of you on the right, are like trump, cowards.
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We're not the Soviet Union here. Everything isn't automatically military just because the military may benefit from it.
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it's science for defense and science for metrology standards.
The gov can and should do lots of things. For example, much of our vaccines and anti-biotics came from fed R*D, not from private businesses. The reason is that antibiotics solve issues and makes far far less money than drugs that simply gloss over recurring issues.
Our highway system was developed for the military, and that dictated our cars, in part.
DOT then does regulations because it is cheaper to have well made SAFE cars than
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
> The federal government has no business doing commercial product R&D that's actually being done in the private sector.
This is so wrong it's hard to know where to start. Let's just confine ourselves to renewable energy. It's fair to say that renewable is a growth market worldwide. If your country doesn't do fundamental research on renewables, how do you expect to capture this market? Well, it wont by slapping a 30% tariff on importing PV panels because the world's largest *market* for PV will retaliate in kind and you'll sell precisely 0.
Bottom line, if you're not in this race, you lose market share, and that means losing exports, jobs, tax revenue and all that jazz.
The second aspect of your rant is the whole small-government idea. Well, most of world considers that one of the things a government ought to do is ensure there is a healthy safe environment for their citizens. Any move to renewables is basically a strategy for avoiding chuffing out fine particles from chimney stacks and tail pipes. I mean, you wouldn't want to have everyone spewing out catalytic-free diesel clouds from their cars would you? Eventually, everyone is going to be driving (or being driven by) electric vehicles. That's just the way it's going to be. Most nations realise the value of investing in research so they can reap economic benefits from participating in the emergent industry.
Or you can basically kill all your environment protections, kill your research funding and initiate a trade war with everyone else by slapping on tariffs. It's a policy so perfectly honed to be almost completely the wrong-thing-to-do that it's breathtaking. Still, I'm sure your ideologues will convince you that it's good some how, the market will sort it all out right? Good luck with that.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
The federal government has every business doing commercial product R&D that won't pay off in the short term, but that may very well reap huge benefits in the long term. When the average tenure of an S&P 500 CEO is only 10 years (https://www.creditdonkey.com/ceo-statistics.html), they have no interest in investing in technologies that may only pay off in 20, 30 or 50 years.
Unfortunately, that's exactly the kind of investment humanity needs right now....long term, speculative innovation.
Or we could just stick our head in the sands, say that black is white, coal is clean, news is fake and we've always been at war with eastasia. Maybe that will work out for us.
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> Yea let's instead prop up a dying industry thats also trying to take the planet down with it.
I remember when this kind of "pie in the sky" stuff also included useful non-polluting things to do with COAL. So I am kind of baffled at all of the blind hatred for coal around here. This group should be better informed than that.
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You are quite free to have an alternate opinion about the role of government, and you are quite welcome to adv
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Power systems and civilian vehicle technology is commercial R&D, though. Whoever wants to make a buck off of selling me a car can pay to have that research done. I don't want my tax dollars wasted on giving away corporate freebies that private business is capable of paying for out of its own pocket.
Life isn't
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Apparently, Trump thinks clean coal means washing the coal before burning it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
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So expecting a trolling jackass to support their argument counts as "atrocious education" now? Expecting the person that makes a claim to support it is a very basic principle of rhetoric. Or were you ditching class that day?
It's interesting how much a mere 12 months makes. Who knew that the world could change so much so fast?
Re: been so much fun (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: been so much fun (Score:5, Insightful)
Oddly, the GOP screams about having a strong defense, while gutting EVERYTHING needed to make it so.
The GOP is SOOOO fucking over America.
What planet are you on? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is amazing how the far right really does not understand how important all of those items are. Even now, the military is pointing out how worthless our high school grads are. They are in HORRIBLE shape, and many of them can not pass boot camp or even pass high school.
Oddly, the GOP screams about having a strong defense, while gutting EVERYTHING needed to make it so.
The GOP is SOOOO fucking over America.
The left controls education in this country; the results of that system serve the goals of Democrats. Sure, you can point to some school in the rural south that is trying to teach young earth creationism, but the vast majority of schools are run by graduates of left-wing education schools (inside left-wing colleges) that are more interested in teach neo-marxist doctrine than the three 'R's', history, and physical education.
Further, they get their guidance from the United States Department of Education, whos
Re:What planet are you on? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that someone gave money to Clinton instead of Trump says very little about politics. Clinton was the lesser of two evils, whereas Trump was dedicated to the destruction of most federal departments (witness the slash and burn leaders he appointed to the departments).
Most people vote based on their wallets, and teachers voting for Trump meant voting for losing their jobs.
Teaching creationism should not be considered left or right, it should be considered stupid. The only reason it's considered right wing is because many of those hard core fundamentalists allied themselves with fiscal conservatives and segregationists. We used to have a much more equal distribution of religious believers across the parties until the Moral Majority insisted that you couldn't be a good Christian unless you voted the way they told you to.
Re:What planet are you on? (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry for your brain injury. I hope losing the ACA doesn't mean you can't still get treatment.
Maybe this is news to you, but a good 50% or more of education is controlled at the local level, through the local school board. That's made up of people voted in by the members in the community. Unless you're telling us that everyone in every state is voting in liberals for their local school board, your shrieking about the left is pretty stupid.
Another 25% or so of education is controlled by the state education agency, generally headed by a board and/or a state superintendent who's appointed by the governor of the state. Last I looked, all of the state governors weren't liberals, so it stands to reason that most of the state education agencies are not liberal.
Probably the last 25% is controlled by federal law, which, and this may surprise you, tends to be written by both republicans and democrats. The last major bill was ESSA, which was sponsored by Lamar Alexander and passed on a bipartisan vote.
Where do you get the idea that education is somehow owned by the left? Because the left is smart and the right is dumb?
Re:What planet are you on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you get the idea that education is somehow owned by the left? Because the left is smart and the right is dumb?
You are of course completely right. There are educators out there teaching creation as science, but anyone with half a brain wouldn't call that science or education. You can learn that in one day in a sunday school class. If you wan't the ability to cure cancer through genetic engineering or the ability to diagnose and cure Alzheimer's or Parkinson's then you will have to take more time than what the average right wing teacher gives their student's in knowledge and understanding of the world around them.
Where do you get the idea that education is somehow owned by the left? Because the left is smart and the right is dumb?
Yes.
Re:What planet are you on? (Score:5, Interesting)
Secondly, it is the GOP that continues to gut the fundings for education. For states that have given decent funding, like we used to do back in the 40-60s, they are tops in our nation. Who are the worst? Those with little funding.
BTW, my sons go to a charter school . Next year, they are switching to a stem charter school. Why? Because Koch bros funded a bunch of fucking GOPers who took over Douglas County school district in Colorado about 7 years ago, and drove what was considered a top 50 district in the nation, and top 5 in the state into mid-20 in the state and not even ranked in the nation. While my house's value HAS gown up in that time, it used to be at the top for growth. Now, we are middle of the road for value in a state that is booming.
Re: been so much fun (Score:5, Insightful)
WHen you do NOT have that, then any strong military is simply a drain on society. And right now, our mlitary is draining our GDP because of the idiots in CONgress.
Re: been so much fun (Score:3)
Once China finishes building their perimeter airbases on the various disputed islands, they will have air superiority over the big coastal cities. With their industrial and population centers defended the Chinese *will* be the strongest military power in the world.
In any protracted conflict, China's awesome industrial superiority will carry the day. We don't stand a chance against them in a long war. No one does.
THAT is the legacy of the Reagan / Clinton policy of deindustrialization. A few capitalists lin
Re: been so much fun (Score:5, Interesting)
You're thinking of Cambodia with the killing of eyeglass wearers, not China.
Reagan did his damnedest to destroy organized labor. And thereby eliminate the voice of working people in public policy discussions. Clinton oversaw economic policies under which large parts of our manufacturing infrastructure were literally packed into boxes and shipped to China.
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It was in 2005 that W passed the infamous tax law that says that those companies did not have to pay taxes until the money was repatriated. At that point, it was better for companies to keep it offshore and wait for idiots that would give major tax breaks on this rather than roll that back.
And to be fair, both O and Trump are disaster WRT China. O allowed China to constantly dump and did nothing ab
Re:Who cares? This will be changed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on.. This is a leaked document which is admitted to be a draft, subject to wholesale changes, of a budget request from the DOE, which will be edited at the Whitehouse before the president presents it to Congress with a bunch of other similar documents. Congress will ignore the president's input and draft their own budget in the house, argue for months over in committee, sent to the floor of the house, finally arrive at something that won't be recognizable as the original draft that the house passes as a "budget" which will be taken up by the Senate who will likely add their own amendments in committee and from the floor which if it actually passes, will head back to the reconciliation committee to be possibly edited again before both chambers vote to pass it or not.
How's this even news fit to print by a respected news paper much less "News for nerds" on Slash Dot? There is a nearly zero chance these numbers will survive all the coming edits driven by the endless debate in congress.
How do you think it gets changed?
It's public outrage that causes items like this to get scrapped. Extreme cuts like this are designed to change the Overton window so they can "compromise" on slightly less extreme cuts later on. The earlier the uproar the less chance they have to shift the debate.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that you do not understand economics, and are now describing some horrible ideas), suggest to me that you are trolling for either Russia or China.
Re:I'm fine with these cuts too.... (Score:5, Informative)
Almost all of the incremental improvements I've seen with solar panel technology have come from private industry doing their own in-house R&D so their specific brand of panel can outperform the competition in some way. It wasn't a matter of the U.S. government doing all that R&D and then sharing it with industries so we could have better panels for all.
Actually, there are a lot of universities in the USA doing research on solar panels, and then publishing the research (sharing it with industry). Private companies do research too, but it doesn't make sense to ignore the university research which is quite extensive.