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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

While the US needs to get spending under control, the cuts to science sting.

A $1B cut for ΛCDM seems pragmatic as long as we focus on the economy. The cosmic background will still be waiting for us in four to ten years.

Unfortunately, it feels like the budget cuts being made are incredibly partisan and not actually helping pay down the debt spiral. Especially when the deficit is increasing.

Everything needs to be cut back, not just things one party doesn't care for.

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> not actually helping pay down the debt spiral

Just to be clear about the new budget law. It does not attempt to reduce the deficit or debt at all. It sidesteps existing law to increase the deficit beyond what is actually allowed.

The rate of increase of the debt increased last Friday, even as we are told we can't afford things we could afford 10 years ago.

Put simply, we were doing a better job of managing our debts until last Friday when we decided that the national debt doesn't matter.

>While the US needs to get spending under control

There is no evidence of this need and every single cut feels like it hurts the citizens more and more.

What needs to be done is an increase on taxes on the wealthiest corporations and people instead of cutting science funding, food benefits, and kicking people off their health insurance.

> There is no evidence of this need ...

Not sure I agree. Interest on our national debt is increasing (I believe it's third largest spending category, depending on how you break it down) and is expected to surpass defense spending this year.

The rest I totally agree with.

Due to tax cuts, not really do to science expenditures.

Totally agree. My point is mainly that if we did destroy the national debt (as promised by this administration), we'd be able to spend significantly more on whatever we liked. We don't seem to be doing that, however.

Last time this admin was around, they inflated the money supply by creating 20% more money than had ever been made. They had zero intention of cutting debt, they just want to use debt to trap everyone else. They lied to you and there is historical evidence that should have made you think twice before supporting them.

Pretty sure that poster isn’t supporting them.

I meant "we" as in the US. I try not to be explicit about my political affiliations online. Or, frankly, in general.

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist."

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-nie...

I think you're making some very wrong assumptions about me.

For sure.

Should taxes increase while we're on the brink of recession?

Shouldn't we do austerity now, then tax increases during periods of prosperity?

Tax increases will trickle down and morph into unemployment, under-investment, and de-growth. Just look what ZIRP / Section 174 did to software engineers. Imagine that across the entire economy.

The power of the US economy is in its consumer base. People need to stay employed and see job/salary growth. That means companies need to spend more money on headcount and not cut costs.

If tax cuts don't trickle down, it is unlikely that tax increases will.

>Tax increases will trickle down

Piss trickles down, nothing else has trickled down since Reagan made that up.

Eggs were slightly up in price at the end of Biden's term, but the tariffs have done nothing except increase the price of everything by 10% across the board. The Trump bill just makes recession more likely. The tax cuts benefit nobody but companies and the most wealthy, which Trump used to pretend he was part of but now actually is.

> Piss trickles down, nothing else has trickled down since Reagan made that up.

When businesses face hardship, they lay off. That's demonstrable. Employees are a luxury.

When Section 174 tax code ended, that set off a tidal wave of layoffs. And that's not even a new tax -- that's just amortization. When real taxes are levied on businesses, it'll be a blood bath.

> tariffs have done nothing except increase the price of everything by 10% across the board.

You're preaching to the choir. I'm not a fan of the administration or the tariffs. For a party that purports to be fiscally conservative, they're doing the opposite.

Or we need to increase revenues. Irresponsible tax cuts over the last decades have fueled the spiral. You need both responsible spending, and thoughtful revenue collecting.

This is about populism as a reaction to "elites", such as those who head universities and science. They are looking to eliminate or replace them. The reality is this has nothing to do with debt or deficit. I'm not sure why this isn't understood. They've done nothing to hide this fact. They've been clear that they are replacing the heads of both private and public institutions with those that are loyal to the party head.

You must be trolling. How does giving ICE $170 Billion, with a B, dollars have anything to do with curting spending? We are wathich the rise of a christian nationalist police state.

Science funding is roughly 1% of the government budget "everything needs to be cut" is pure and utter hogwash.

What 'spending under control' you are talking about, when the recent big bill massively increased the deficit.

Or we could just raise taxes.

> it feels like the budget cuts being made are incredibly partisan and not actually helping pay down the debt spiral.

The recent legislative changes exploded the deficit. They didn’t reduce it.

Any concern by Conservatives about debt is fraudulent given their actual behaviour.

NDT made this clear like a generation ago: its absolute nonsense to cut science funding to get federal "spending under control". The amount that goes to all of this is a drop in the bucket compared to military and subsidies. hell, we spend 1/10th of the total federal science funding (~200bn) per year JUST giving free money to oil and gas companies. trying to "fix" spending this way, even if it was actually reasonable to try and do, is tantamount to trying to save to buy a house by eating two fewer avocado toasts per week.

Or we could undo the tax-cuts of the past 20 years to bring in revenue.

>not even noticing how ideological the "need" to cut is

Whitey still on the moon

Underrated reference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_on_the_Moon

Problem is most of the spending is on social services nobody is willing to touch. If you even think about touching Medicare/medicaid or SS: your own party will get rid of you. There are a lot of other things that are large budget items nobody can think touching.

The bill that was recently passed has massive cuts to medicare and medicaid

Medicare too? I heard a lot about Medicaid being cut, but very little about Medicare.

Can you point me to some specifics about the cuts to Medicare?

(Going on it in less than two years, so I want to know.)

Yes, Medicare too. Unless Congress intervenes, Medicare providers will see about a 4% cut every year starting next October. The new law's deficit boost triggers automatic sequestration cuts across the board each year for ten years.

Total 10 year cut: $~490 billion

Source: https://prospect.org/politics/2025-07-03-republicans-cutting...

The source is clearly biased (sorry), but I believe it's accurate on the numbers.

Interestingly my representative just sent me a message assuring me that both were protected in the bill. Which proves my point, you don't touch them, or if you do you ensure it looks like you didn't.

Well, based on unbiased information out there (like GAO for example) your representative is clearly lying. Maybe you consider voting for someone other than your representative…

> Problem is

social services aren't a problem (sorry to be pedantic but i think it's really important to recognize that these things are necessary, and we can afford them).

> most of the spending is on social services nobody is willing to touch. If you even think about touching Medicare/medicaid or SS

but the BBBA passed, with massive cuts to medicare/medicaid (which will have some insane downstream cost effects on the broader healthcare/insurance industry as a whole, which will be passed on to insured individuals).

> your own party will get rid of you

that doesn't really appear to have happened to a degree that matters yet, because these orders are coming from the top of the GOP, but i suppose we'll see when the shit really hits the fan in the next couple of years.

I'm not a big fan of social security, but social security revenue is supposed to be "off books"... wanting to cut the payable, but still keep the receivable is more than a little dishonest. And if we look at what's happened, I didn't see much in the way of "social services" that escaped the axe other than social security. There are, of course, cuts that could make a difference (the DEA alone is $10bil/year... and there's another $5-10bil used for DEA shit in the state dept. budget), but those are the ones that no one's willing to touch. We don't even immediately have to go after the military, though there's half a trillion per year there (or more) that could easily be cut. And guess what? Just as things are about to get desperate, world events are unfolding that will even make the most cowardly pacifist hesitate to take slices out of that.

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