Trump’s 2021 budget drowns science agencies in red ink, again | Hacker News Reader

Trump’s 2021 budget drowns science agencies in red ink, again

sciencemag.org

For non-US readers or those not used the federal political process, the president doesn't set the budget, congress does.

These proposals are policy pieces to play to the base, and rarely have much that ends up in the actual budget.

You significantly underplay how much influence this has on the budget actually passed by the house and how often the house decides to go ahead and fund what the white house asks for.

The house is hostile to Trump no? They will do the opposite of what he says he wants. Checkmate.

The president's budget is traditionally DOA, but particularly when the opposing party controls the house.

Apologies for lack of a newer source, but https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/presidential-budge...

The presidential budget proposal is actually required by law, but just doesn't have an outsized effect.

Thanks for the clarification. As someone not from the US, can you also clarify what role does president have at all in the budget? Can he send it back (and be forced to sign a second time?)

He can veto it, but he won't have to.

The Senate is controlled by his party, and Mconnell has shown time and again he won't stand up to the president (he won't agree with him either, but will use it politically for his own agenda). So I don't expect a budget Trump objects to will even make it to his desk.

What is likely to happen is that the Senate will use this as a negotiation tool with the house. It -will- lead to a compromise eventually (but with a decent chance of government shutdown first), which will end up funding most of the things Trump wants, AND most of the stuff Dems want, leading to a further increase in the deficit.

It is... very complicated.

Strictly speaking, if congress doesn't pass a budget the previous year's budget is in effect for some things, and others can be handled at the level of a 'continuing resolution' that doesn't require the president's signature.

Realistically all parties (house/senate/exec) generally come up with a deal, which is sometimes a proper set of spending bills, and sometimes a hack-up of short term fixes.

The budget is technically like any other bill, so the president is allowed to veto it. This tends to have severe political fallout, so it doesn't usually happen, but it can.

He also generally has a lot of unofficial influence with legislators in his party, so he can use that influence to push things one way or another. That's usually the main effect, and Trump would likely just use his influence on the senate here.

Appropriation bills are like any other bill [0] and go through the same process, they can be vetoed by the President and that veto can only be overruled by a 2/3rds majority of the Senate.

[0] With minor exceptions, ie they have to originate in the House because that is the body with the power of the purse.

He can refuse to sign it as many times as he wants.

Congress can only override his veto with a 2/3rds majority, that is highly implausible.

If congress and the president can't come to terms on a budget, our government effectively shuts down [1] in what is, largely, a form of political gamesmanship.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdowns_in_the_Un...

As someone who hates President Trump with every fiber of my being but the submitted budget rarely looks anything like what actually becomes appropriated.

The individual agencies, under the guidance of a Cabinet secretary (appointed by the President) submit their budgets. It's a combination of the work of the career civil servants (largely continuing their existing work, plus some new things they'd like to do) and the goals of the President.

That's the budget sent to Congress, and traditionally pronounced "dead on arrival". In practice, the Congress is usually pretty interested in continuing to fund existing programs (many of them mandated by law), and changes (adding and removing stuff) is done around the edges.

The final appropriations bill (authorization to spend money) is passed by the House, then the Senate, and then possibly reconciled between the two.

That's then sent to the President, who can sign it or veto it. The veto could be overridden, but it's a very high bar to clear, and the President's party nearly always has enough votes to avoid that even if they're not an outright majority. So then there's a protracted negotiation... during which the government may shut down if the existing appropriations bill expires (including temporary extensions).

The president can veto any bill sent to him by congress, and that includes the budget.

Should the Democrats control both houses, this is a real possibility. However, it's unlikely to come to that.

Instead, a political process would happen in which the president makes his intent known, and Republicans use the threat as a tool to get a budget more inline with what the president proposed in the first place.

  The president can veto any bill sent to him by congress, and that includes the budget

... which just shuts down the government altogether. That's why it essentially never happens.

This does more than cut budgets:

> DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy: a cut of 173%, which would not only eliminate the $425 million agency, but also force it to return $311 million to the U.S. Department of the Treasury

ARPA-e is a grant funding institution. They were given 400 million to give grants, and have issued 92 million. Trumps budget is asking for them to return the remainder.

Yes. That's what they said.

This sucks, I would rather see more civilian than military advanced projects, but of course Trump has the opposite preference.

(That isn't to say that DoE isn't doing plenty of military stuff too.)

Right hand: "We're outraged that China's Huawei is exploiting state subsidies to develop technology that poses a national security threat to the USA!"

Left hand: cuts research funding.

Sometimes I get sadly resigned to the possibility that this really is what a majority of this country wants (or has been convinced is what is best). Despite us being overall so developed, these kinds of issues show you the importance (and inescapable historic truth) of still needing to tend to your fellow citizens' basic material needs. And, when not doing it properly (or seen to be doing it), it can determine whether you get to advance on the forefront of other issues.

I swear, the biggest gift to other countries who are our long term competitors (and yes, don't mistake that we're not in a long term race here), is not any transfer/leak of technology or outright sabotage. It's that our stagnation and policy choas (caused by the dumbest issues!) for a decade sap our progress on strategic, major, major technologies. And cause the experts who you need to make progress to leave for more fertile ground, whether through leaving government, private companies, or to other countries. (How do you think that the FAA and military gradually became so dependent on their industry partners for any semblance of expertise?)

Edit: yes I know that it's just the budget proposal, and that it's likely to get watered down more than Bernie Sanders in a general election. But the decline in funding in actual budgets is undeniable. And the outright deception to present such a budget is near fraud.

It's a rough time for any government agency doing research, if they're not being slashed entirely the whole funding process is being redirected away from any sort of renewable energy and to fossil fuels. At a DOE conference a year or two ago the speaker from the government pretty explicitly said most funding will be going to research into things related to fossil fuels (coal, fracking, etc).

If this were headed in the direction of deficit reduction, that would be one thing. But on top of these cuts, the budget also expands the deficit to $1T, or somewhere north of 5% of GDP:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/09/trump-admin-to-unveil-fiscal...

https://www.thebalance.com/us-deficit-by-year-3306306

The budget outlines a plan to have a budget surplus by 2035. Obviously it would be better for that to happen sooner but that seems unlikely. People are upset about these cuts. Imagine how upset they would be if all discretionary spending was cut in half.

Doesn't that "plan" depend on unrealistic economic growth?

If there is one thing that will end american hegemony, it is failing to fund basic science.

This is correct. While I personally don't want us to be the world's policeman, we are certainly guaranteeing we will slip beyond even an influential state the more we do this sort of thing.

Sad to see NOAA continue to be gutted. Michael Lewis's book the Fifth Risk provides a good look at the individuals behind services like Accuweather and how they're trying to monopolize public, tax-funded data for private profit.

How does one "monopolize" public data that remains public?

By making it technically available but realistically inaccessible (like bad, buggy web services) due to budget cuts and willful malice.

Then with special treatment/access, re-sell it through your private for-profit company in the formats that NOAA should've presented it in (and has in the past).

The book is worth a read if you're curious about specifics.

Interesting: https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1226983552987860992

In the break down it looks like nasa's science and environmental budgets got slashed, the operations budget kept flattish/light cuts, and some of the flashier stuff boosts.

Private sector: This is your time. The free market has been waiting for you. You don't need the government to do this.

The private sector has never funded low chance of return research, actually a few companies did but that was another time. That's what national labs are for.

When we're 23 trillion in debt, maybe the government should be reducing funding for low chance of return research too..

Government debt in that state's own currency is not like household debt. Frankly, we shouldn't use the word "debt" for the former.

What word do you think should be used instead?

Perhaps "Market Cap".

A country that controls a currency that is used by many people outside its own borders is analogous to a cryptocurrency with a "proof of stake" consensus algorithm in which holders of sovereign bonds are rewarded with "interest". The central bank may periodically make policy pronouncements which may be analogous to various soft and hard forks (change of interest rate -> change of mining reward) which may impact the valuation relative to other currencies. Certain countries/currencies have a very long track record of not having very many "zero day vulnerabilities" and are therefore highly trusted and a first choice whenever there is a "flight to safety" (when panic strikes and there is demand for "safe" investments).

oh, I didn't have one mind! I guess I'm solicitation alternatives :)

Pharma does this all the time

Pharma does this because they're almost guaranteed monopolistic control over their research which means that not only does it not return to the public benefit but it also means big pharma will prioritize profitable research over things like drugs for obscure diseases or small markets.

As an aside, it's a shame posts like the OP get flagged. It's somewhat ironic on a site that encourages curiosity and scientific endeavors that you can't discuss the hollowing out of public scientific institutions.

Private sector: throw money into projects with low chance of success

Yeah.. that's not how this works, generally.

This is so sadly out of touch of a comment, and yet probably represents the viewpoint of many.

So many examples counter it, too. Just read about how CRISPR was discovered [0]. Do you think many companies would encourage the investigation of bacterial DNA patterns, just out of curiosity?

[0] https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674(15)01705-5 (admittedly, this is an MIT biased slant, but you get the point)

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