The online publication American Chronicle features an op-ed by Scott Bannon, who describes himself as a “conservative liberal” (as opposed, one imagines, to a “liberal conservative”) about Republicans’ recent spendthrift proclivities. Mr. Bannon offers several solutions to the problem, including this:
Kill NASA. Hey, I love the idea of space exploration and am an avid viewer of the Discovery channel, but let’s be practical. When I compare meals-on-wheels to feed members of our “Greatest Generation” against flying a $3 billion model airplane with a camera on it into the face of a comet at 6 miles per second… neat as it may be; I have to say pass the potatoes. I know it’s a tough decision, but priorities must be set. Maybe next year we can visit Micky on the moon.
If NASA really had a $3-billion model airplane that could fly at six miles a second, it would be imprudent to crash it into a comet. A $300-million spacecraft designed to crash into a comet? A little different story. And just who is “Micky”, anyway?
Before all the shouting begins, I have to say that hyperbole notwithstanding, he makes an important point.
And his “important point” is what? That we have to choose between space exploration and feeding the elderly? That’s the oldest argument in the book, and it hasn’t improved with age.
The space advocay community needs a “spacebenefits.com” website to put some more nails into the “What has space done for me lately?” arguement.
Let’s just take the Bush tax cut as a sincere statement of how much money the federal government should spend. Let’s also accept the Republican position that defense spending is important and should not be cut. They also say that Social Security and Medicare should be repaired. They imply a conception of separate financing for these two programs, and also that the recipients — namely all senior citizens — are getting too little rather than too much. In any case said recipients see their benefits largely as their own lifetime of tax payments coming back to them.
That leaves non-defense discretionary spending. In order to match tax cuts with spending cuts — or to use Rand’s terminology, tax rate cuts with spending rate cuts — we should eliminate non-defense discretionary spending. No NASA, no NIH, no transportation bill, no “meals on wheels” either. If we are going to take the Bush tax cut (or tax “rate” cut) seriously, it’s time to wipe the slate clean.
The problem with that argument (among many) is that we don’t know how much money we’re talking about, and what the sign is on it, since it was in fact a rate cut, and not a tax cut.
That depends on who “we” are. Those of us who look at the historical budget data compiled by the Congressional Budget Office know exactly how it’s been through 2005. That was already the fourth year of the Bush tax cut, and also well into the period that the Republicans described as a booming economy. So there it was, an enormous deficit in a time of plenty. Given the Republican claim that Social Security is facing a crisis, the relevant number to consider is the on-budget deficit, which was $493 billion. As I said, it slightly exceeds total non-defense discretionary spending.
And those of who look at the CBO’s fiscal projections have no reason to doubt them. It is true that the CBO projections can be off by $50 billion or so, sometimes even $100 billion. But the real future deficit may just as well be higher as lower. There is no reason to believe that the CBO is suddenly unusually stupid in the face of tax policies that are now four years old.
(Note that the corresponding White House department, OMB, has made rather less accurate and more confusing “predictions” in the past few years.)
But it is true that if you don’t know or don’t care about these authoritative references, then you may well not know how much money we’re talking about.
Anyway, as I said, if we are really to take Bush’s tax policies seriously, it is time to wipe the non-defense, discretionary slate clean.
In this (if nothing else) I fully agree with Greg. There is no greater threat to space exploration, of whatever variety, than Mr. Bush’s apparently total ignorance of basic Quicken skills.
— Donald
Sorry, Greg, but no one, including the CBO, knows what revenues would have been in the absence of those rate cuts (we can’t do controlled experiments), so no one knows their actual effect on revenues.
However, Rand, spending more while decreasing what you take in, especially if the money is not invested in capital infrastructure or training, is historically likely to get any economic entity into trouble.
— Donald
Donald Robertson: There is no greater threat to space exploration, of whatever variety, than Mr. Bush’s apparently total ignorance of basic Quicken skills.
Or rather, willful denial. I don’t think that the man is that stupid.
Rand Simberg: Sorry, Greg, but no one, including the CBO, knows what revenues would have been in the absence of those rate cuts (we can’t do controlled experiments), so no one knows their actual effect on revenues.
CBO methodology certainly is subject to experiment and they have a perfectly respectable track record. Their what-if-we-don’t’s are therefore just as credible as their what-if-we-do’s. So your assertion that no one has any idea how it would have been otherwise is counterfactual, but in any case it doesn’t matter. If you look at what is actually happening with the tax policies that we have, the question is, do you want spending rates to match tax rates or don’t you? If you do, the simplest solution is to eliminate non-defense discretionary spending. No NASA and no Meals on Wheels either; the whole slate of alternatives should just be thrown out.
I think this thread has lost sight of the original point.
The elderly vote. They support programs, and vote for politicians, that are in their self-interest – as does everyone else.
The space community has long suffered from willful ignorance of this fact. It doesn’t matter if we care about a comet probe or a mars lander – if the average *voting* american doesn’t, that budget is open to being cut.
“And his “important point” is what? That we have to choose between space exploration and feeding the elderly? That’s the oldest argument in the book, and it hasn’t improved with age.”
The important point is that if you cannot justify the expenditures to the politicions, and they in turn cannot justify it to their constituancies, you will not get the resources you want. The choice presented (elderly vs. space) may in fact be a false choice, but in politics this may be irrelevant, as it is often the emotional rather than the logical argument that wins.
The proposal by Alistair is a step in the right direction, but I would propose an even more far reaching campaign, composed of the website, TV/radio ads, and enlistment of celebrities to the cause. An initial “blitz” followed by a “got milk” or “the power of cheese” style ad campaign would be expensive, but would have a good chance of suceeding.
“However, Rand, spending more while decreasing what you take in, especially if the money is not invested in capital infrastructure or training, is historically likely to get any economic entity into trouble.
— Donald”
A Rate Cut does not equal ‘decreasing what you take in’.
Please google on the words ‘Laffer Curve’ for more clarification.