A Modest $500 Billion Proposal

[-Jrabbit]

I wonder how many career government workers this would put on the street.

[Docfeelgood]

Wonder how much would be saved if congress took a pay cut?

[Hauldren Collider]

Cutting the DOE research funding will go a long way to making sure that we can't stay competitive with China/etc on energy.

JM

I don't think we're in any danger of that. Especially when you consider that subsidies for things like wind power and crap are basically just earmarks to General Electric. We're wasting our money on feel-good environment boondoggles instead of just letting people spend money on things they actually care about.

[Hauldren Collider]

As for cutting the military, if you just stripped out everything the Pentagon doesn't want and is force-fed by Congress you could slash it by quite a bit. They're basically jobs programs which have no value to anyone.

Wonder how much would be saved if congress took a pay cut?

Congress should be paid more, not less. They have to have two houses and could be earning like 4x as much in the private sector. We'd have better congressmen if we actually paid them enough.

[Egbert]

We'd have better congressmen if we actually paid them enough.

A baseless assertion. For a start, it seems to presume that people run for congress mostly for the pay packet?

BTW Nigerian senators get paid something like $2,000,000 per year. I could do without Nigerian senators thank you.

Nigerian senators

[Jon Miller]

We are already behind on Nuclear and Fusion. The knowledge and expertise aren't in America there, and the money won't be either.

If that doesn't matter to you, then OK. But if we want the US to have a high gdp, we need to be innovative.

We don't want to compete with China and Thailand in manufacturing.

And we are too big to be just services.

Other countries subsidize their innovations. If we don't too, we will fall behind. And people like you will go to China for jobs, just like now (and 10-40 years ago) people from China/etc came to the US.

JM

[HalfLotus]

My understanding is that we're behind on nuclear and fusion because government hyper-regulation and taxation of those sectors makes them nearly impossible to manage at a profit in the U.S - not because of a lack of 'research'.

[Hauldren Collider]

We are already behind on Nuclear and Fusion. The knowledge and expertise aren't in America there, and the money won't be either.

If that doesn't matter to you, then OK. But if we want the US to have a high gdp, we need to be innovative.

We don't want to compete with China and Thailand in manufacturing.

And we are too big to be just services.

Other countries subsidize their innovations. If we don't too, we will fall behind. And people like you will go to China for jobs, just like now (and 10-40 years ago) people from China/etc came to the US.

JM

Behind China on nuclear power...right...

Look, innovation is not something that springs from handouts to companies with political clout, which is basically what DoE deals in. Subsidizing innovation is certainly not how we got airplanes or the Ford Model T or crap like that. The government directs our money towards things that are political, not economical. I trust an investment bank a lot more than Obama or my congressman to figure out what we should spend money on. And not even because the investment bank is necessarily smarter than the politicians, but because they are motivated to earn money. All politicians are trying to get are votes.

You are wrong if you think that we need to subsidize to innovate. In fact I would say that we need to do the opposite, if we want people to innovate we need to remove barriers, not pick winners and losers.

[Docfeelgood]

As for cutting the military, if you just stripped out everything the Pentagon doesn't want and is force-fed by Congress you could slash it by quite a bit. They're basically jobs programs which have no value to anyone.



Congress should be paid more, not less. They have to have two houses and could be earning like 4x as much in the private sector. We'd have better congressmen if we actually paid them enough.

you don't think we have the best congress that money can buy?

[Hauldren Collider]

you don't think we have the best congress that money can buy?

I don't think you can buy a Congress, but I hope you grasp the idea that when you pay people more you can attract more talent. I suspect someone will retort with "well the pay seems to be enough for the people who are there" to which I pre-emptively reply, OBVIOUSLY, or else they wouldn't be there, but have you noticed something about the quality of our legislative branch? Do you think maybe there are people that don't run for office because they don't want to have to pay for two houses, one of which is in one of the most expensive areas of the country, on a salary of $250,000 a year? (Answer: YES)

[Docfeelgood]

Does not add up to me. Never could figure why spend millions on a campaign that the office paid so little.
I think they should be paid nothing.
Holding office should be a privilege not a way to earn a living.IMHO

I do think they are payed, its called lobbyist.

[Jon Miller]

Cause the US put men on the moon and nuked Hiroshima without government subsidies.

And the reason why the best people in asia+europe work in the US has nothing to do with government subsidies either.

JM

[giblets]

I don't think you can buy a Congress, but I hope you grasp the idea that when you pay people more you can attract more talent. I suspect someone will retort with "well the pay seems to be enough for the people who are there" to which I pre-emptively reply, OBVIOUSLY, or else they wouldn't be there, but have you noticed something about the quality of our legislative branch? Do you think maybe there are people that don't run for office because they don't want to have to pay for two houses, one of which is in one of the most expensive areas of the country, on a salary of $250,000 a year? (Answer: YES)

I think congress would be a pretty terrible job for people who just care about money.

[Hauldren Collider]

Cause the US put men on the moon and nuked Hiroshima without government subsidies.

And the reason why the best people in asia+europe work in the US has nothing to do with government subsidies either.

JM

Nuclear weapons and weapons in general are in a completely different category. There is no market for weapons (besides small arms) beyond the military, and the military is very important. The fact that the government pays for weapons for the military is as surprising as the fact that the government pays for White House office supplies.

And the fact that government handouts have produced many innovations only shows that the system isn't a complete failure. It says nothing about the opportunity costs.

NASA is in another category altogether as well. Space exploration and other enormously expensive projects are obviously the responsibility of the government. Small-time stuff like hybrid cars and wind turbines are not something the government should be investing in. If they are actually good ideas, then let the market figure that out. The incentives of businessmen are a lot more favorable to our welfare than the incentives of politicians.

[Hauldren Collider]

I think congress would be a pretty terrible job for people who just care about money.

Duh. Obviously the money isn't the only reason people become congressmen. That has absolutely jack**** to do with whether paying them more would encourage better people to run for office.