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NASA Budget Attack

Michael Blood wrote: "...as for WELFARE - it is 1.2 that is one point 2% of our budget - Let's see it gets 1.2% 'air time' in political debates."

Pamela Laurence found it "insulting"  that Jim Strope raised the welfare vs. NASA funding issue.

As one who does public policy analysis for a living (and I used to work for the U.S. House of Representative) -- and as one who supports more NASA funding -- I must point out that the facts support Jim Strope's underlying concern (though it was not tactfully stated).

While Michael knows meteorites, he obviously does not know the federal budget.  The Annual Report of the United States (published annually by Harper Collins using OMB data) reports that 57% of your federal tax dollar goes to entitlements and 14% goes to interest on the national debt.  That's a whopping 71% that doesn't go to programs that benefit the general public, including NASA and other civilian R&D programs.  Here's where your tax dollars go:

INDIVIDUAL ENTITLEMENTS:
Welfare		14%
Medicare	10%
Medicaid	08%
Social Sec.	22%
Vet. Benefits	03%

NON-ENTITLEMENTS:
Defense	19%
Education	03%
Trans/R&D	04%
Agriculture	03%
Debt Int.	14%

The federal Office of Management and Budget reports that the 20 years that civilian R&D (non-defense) shrunk between 1972 and 1992 correspond with the 20 years that entitlements grew at a rate much faster than inflation.  Since the Clinton Administration and Congress starting pursuing welfare reform, medicare reform and deficit reduction measures, civilian R&D has just about kept pace with inflation.  It should be noted that there has been a dramatic shift in R&D spending from natural sciences to health sciences.  For example, the USGS was cut in half about 2 years ago and the National Biological Survey was merged into it -- and now USGS's Menlo Park facility is slated to be closed.  But biotech research soared in the meantime.  NASA has been "stable" in recent years, but has been doing an admirable job of "doing more with less" with its new "faster, better, cheaper" strategy.

Since I view economics as a science too, I must agree with Jim if we (as a society) want more NASA and R&D funding we must find ways to keep entitlements and debt service from gobbling up the entire federal budget.

Steve