[Rhodes22-list] Politics and Science - a reply to Ron Lipton

[Tootle]

Ron,

Well it seems now is the time for you to run for public office?  It is time
for you to step up to the plate and take a swing.

You can start here:  http://www.sonshi.com/leader.html

Ed K
Greenville, SC, USA





Brad Haslett-2 wrote:
> 
> Ron,
> 
> You stumbled on to some of the serious issues of how our government
> currently works (or doesn't) and how budgets are created.  First the good
> news (not necessarily for you but good for the country), after seven years
> in office, Bush 43 has finally learned he can veto spending bills with the
> stroke of a pen. Had he learned that a bit sooner he'd still have his
> conservative base behind him.
> 
>  "Fermilab was hit particularly hard because Dennis Hastert, former
> speaker
> of the house,
>   had resigned a month earlier and none of the Illinois delegation was
> watching the store."
> 
> This is one of the biggest problems we face and it works both ways.  Why
> should spending that benefits everyone in the country depend on the power
> of
> the local congressional representation? Why should spending that only
> benefits a few depend on the power of the local congressional
> representation?  (Think Katrina and Big Dig)  Maybe the funding of these
> labs were earmarks to begin with, I confess ignorance, but the continued
> funding in this case behaved like an earmark.  The first solution to
> overcome is to eliminate earmark spending (and the power of entrenched
> local
> politicians).
> 
> 
>  "The international community will get yet more evidence that the US is
> not
> a reliable partner."
> 
> Well, we certainly don't need that.  Our reputation as a reliable partner
> has suffered tremendously over the last several decades starting with the
> newsreels of helicopters evacuating the American Embassy in South Vietnam
> after the Congress cut off their funding.  Pulling Marines out of Lebanon
> and Somalia after a single attack, and arguing in Congress to cut funding
> for Iraq just as things were turning around are also examples.  It is
> important that we maintain an image as a reliable partner.
> 
> If we were corporate turn-around artists and were looking at a company
> with
> a budget problem, we'd probably study the situation briefly and then
> "measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a crayon, and cut it with an
> axe".  In other words, every department would get cut by a substantial
> percentage and would then have to argue to get their funding back. It's
> crude but effective.
> 
> Then of course, there's the old guns v butter questions. Mix in a little
> class warfare and you get to where we are now - deadlock.  Here's my
> two-cent answer:  term limits and line-item-veto.
> 
> I hope you get your funding re-established.
> 
> Brad
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 11, 2008 11:17 PM, Ronald Lipton <rlipton at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
>> 2008 was supposed to be a good year for science in the US.  A study
>> by the National Academies had made a strong argument that basic
>> research is vital to the economic health of the US.  That resulted in a
>> bipartisan agreement to increase funding for the physical sciences.
>> Budgets were increased for the NSF and DOE Office of Science in
>> the appropriations bills passed by the House and Senate.  Last summer
>> these bills were vetoed by the president as "budget busters".  The
>> government
>> operated on a continuing resolution until the end of last year when
>> the Omnibus bill was passed.
>>
>> This bill reduced overall funding for Science by $1 billion below the
>> level agreed last summer.  The cuts in Particle Physics and at
>> Fermilab, where I work were particularly devastating.  All funding
>> for a new experiment to measure the properties of neutrinos was
>> cut.  R&D funds for the next generation particle accelerator, the ILC,
>> which was intended to regain leadership in the field in the next decade
>> from
>> a new machine in Europe scheduled to start up next year, were cut to 1/4
>> the level expected.  Since the budget was passed 1/4 of the way through
>> the year all of this money has been already been spent.
>>
>> As a result all work on the projects which would have been the future of
>> the
>> field in the US have to stop.  At Fermilab 170 people were working on
>> these projects and will be reassigned and 200 layoffs are planned.  At
>> Stanford Linear Accelerator Center 125 people will be laid off.  The
>> Fermilab
>> budget was $52M below the budget initially passed by Congress. Those of
>> us who survive will be asked to take 2-3 days/month of unpaid furlough.
>>
>> The cuts were a result of a last minute flurry of adjustments to bring
>> the
>> budget below the limit set by President Bush for veto.  Fermilab was
>> hit particularly hard because Dennis Hastert, former speaker of the
>> house,
>> had resigned a month earlier and none of the Illinois delegation was
>> watching the store.  The cuts were not the result of any plan as far as
>> I can tell, just a random cut in the final weekend of preparation of the
>> Omnibus bill. US commitment to ITER, a demonstration fusion reactor
>> to be built in France was also cut to zero in spite of international
>> funding
>> agreements that took decades to negotiate.
>>
>> This is the sort of thing that can't easily be recovered from.  The
>> accelerator
>> group at Stanford, the best in the world, will be fragmented.  People
>> will be
>> laid off and leave the field.  Bright students will go elsewhere.  er.The
>> international
>> community will get yet more evidence that the US is not a reliable partn
>>
>> I had been working on detectors for the ILC.  We had a program
>> that led the field in the development of advanced silicon detectors and
>> electronics. Because we do R&D much of our work with US companies funds
>> beyond state-of-the art work too risky for immediate commercial
>> applications but which
>> lay the technical base for the future.  We we strongly involved in 3D
>> electronics,
>> where ~10 micron thick layers of circuit are stacked vertially,
>> increasing the
>> density of electronics without decreasing the transistor size.
>> We may be able to continue, but certainly at
>> a reduced level. Our group of IC design engineers, one of the best such
>> groups
>> in the world, will likely fragment, and much of the R&D will be delayed
>> or
>> narrowed.
>>
>> This was not due to on party or another, but our government has become
>> increasingly
>> dysfunctional.   As by far the richest country in the world we could
>> afford to be inefficient,
>> but we have real challenges now.  Killing the future of a field of
>> science that, aside
>> from enormous scientific and intellectual contributions, has generated
>> technologies such
>> as medical imaging, fast electronic logic, practical superconducting
>> magnets for MRI,
>> and the world wide web protocols, essentially by accident, is one
>> example of that
>> dysfunction that hits close to (my) home.
>>
>>
>>
>> Ron
>> __________________________________________________
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>>
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> 
> 

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