Re Trump's budget calls for sensible cuts in research

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Harry Hochheiser <harry () alum mit edu>
Date: Sun, Mar 19, 2017 at 5:29 PM
Subject: Re: [IP] Re Trump's budget calls for sensible cuts in research
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: ip <ip () listbox com>


Dave:

John raises some interesting points.

It's worth noting that there are mechanisms by which the NIH will accept
community input that is used to guide research directions. Recent examples
include a request for information for comments on varieties of marjiuana
for research (
https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/marijuana/nidas-role-in-providing-marijuana-research/summary-request-information-rfi-regarding-varieties-marijuana-marijuana-products-research),
and on the NIDA strategic plan (
https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/strategic-plan/comments-nidas-strategic-plan-rfi).
If John Gilmore or others have concerns about directions that NIH/NIDA or
other groups are taking, they should avail themselves of this opportunity
to contribute input.

As far as the idea of "I don't want to fund what I don't like", fine.
According to Wikipedia (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II), the F35
fighter plane was $163b over budget and 7 years behind schedule by 2014.
The NIH spends $30b on research annually (
https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/impact-nih-research), making the
overruns alone on the F35 sufficient to cover almost 5.5 years of
NIH-funded research.

Disclaimer - I am an NIH funded researcher and a believer in the intrinsic
value of scientific research. I am therefore thoroughly biased. That said,
I'd rather spend my money on the worst of NIDA mis-guided research than on
overruns on defense contracting.

-harry

On Sun, Mar 19, 2017 at 4:02 PM, Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote:




Begin forwarded message:

*From:* John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>
*Date:* March 19, 2017 at 3:49:28 PM EDT
*To:* dave () farber net
*Cc:* "ip" <ip () listbox com>
*Subject:* *Re: [IP] Re Trump's budget calls for sensible cuts in research*

The way to fix the NIDA problem is to fix its charter (or for

congress to get out of the research-direction business), NOT to

simply lop 20% off the budget.


Lopping money out of the budget IS geting Congress out of the
research-direction business.  Succeeding at that goal would require
getting rid of 100% of the research budget, but 20% is a significant
start.

Congress seems unlikely to fix NIDA's charter.  Of course, Congress
seems also unlikely to ever cut the federal budget.  Every president
and every politician who went in promising to do so, has so far
failed.  All the classic incentives go the other way (c.f. all the
scientists screaming to not take away what funds the braces for their
daughters' teeth, oops, I mean not to cut that very important national
priority, science).  It may take a real sport like Trump to do it.

I think the real argument is whether our money is better spent on

more arms and a wall in the southern desert, or on science and

health and local infrastructure.


I think the real argument is whether our money is better spent on what
governments want to spend our money on -- or on what WE, individually,
want to spend it on.

The lower the government budget, and the closer the match between
government spending and government revenues, the more we each have to
spend however we want.

Mr. Slaney, feel free to support scientists and and researchers with a
portion of your own money.  I suspect that you would be more selective
than the US Government about which projects you fund, if it was
actually YOU deciding which ones to spend it on.  If federal, state,
and local governments weren't taking about 50% of your income for
walls, wars, racist cops, NSA, and NIDA, you'd have lots more for
supporting your choice of altruistic projects.

(I have learned a lot by working as a philanthropist for 17 years.  I
have spent multiple millions of dollars on the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, as well as on reforming drug laws.  Both of these efforts
to improve society are more-or-less directly opposed by government
agencies that have more than 100x their annual budget.)

Worldwide, Americans are the most generous per-capita funders of
altruistic projects.  Most of that charity goes to churches, but it
could go to science if more people had faith in it ;-).  Even more of
us could afford to donate, if the government wasn't inflating and
taxing away the value that we all make in the world.  Cutting the
federal budget is part of making that possible.

   John

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