[Zagadka]

All the Science and Technology Initiatives Trump’s Budget Would Decimate

As expected, President Trump’s proposed budget is a nightmare for science, the environment, and parts of the technology industry. Welcome to the future, where our long national nightmare may not even have the funds to keep chugging along.

While we’ll focus on the the aforementioned areas, it’s important to note that the much of the budget is a slash-and-burn operation. It cuts or eliminates funding for poverty programs, like school meals for poor children and Meals on Wheels. It also cuts the Appalachian Regional Commission, which provides funding to help retrain coal miners who are losing their jobs, among many other functions. Meanwhile, Trump’s budget office director went on Morning Joe to claim that cuts to public broadcasting were justified because “Can we really continue to ask a coal miner in West Virginia or a single mom in Detroit to pay for these programs?” (Fuck that guy.) It even goes after the country’s birds.

The only departments that would see an increase are those of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security, the latter of which would get $2.6 billion to build the border wall, though it could cost 10 times that amount. We’ll need to keep out immigrants desperate to enter our crumbling wasteland, after all.

An important caveat: This budget proposal, which only covers discretionary spending and is only an outline, almost certainly won’t pass in this form. Even Republicans will likely oppose some of these proposals, like paying for the border wall. But it does give us a very depressing starting point, and it also tells us what our president thinks is worth cutting, which is to say anything that doesn’t involve a weapon or a soon-to-be-deported immigrant.

Environmental Protection Agency

Overall cuts: $2.6 billion, a 31 percent decrease.

Clean Power Plan: This program aimed to reduce carbon pollution from power plants, the nation’s largest source of carbon pollution, by a third by 2030. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, power plants produce more carbon pollution than every car, truck, and plane in the U.S. combined. Trump’s budget cuts it entirely.

Great Lakes Restoration Initiative: This program monitors water quality and reduces pollution in the Great Lakes. Since it was established in 2009, the program has helped fight invasive species and clean up pollution in the lakes. Trump’s budget eliminates this program.

Energy Star program: The program that created those energy ratings you see on your appliances, helping you choose the most energy efficient ones, is cut in Trump’s budget.

The Office of Research and Management: While this department—which carries out much of the agency’s climate change research—wouldn’t be cut entirely, it would see its funds slashed by $233 million.

(The cuts are even more drastic than what EPA head Scott Pruitt, who loves fossil fuels and doesn’t believe carbon dioxide contributes to global warming, asked for.)

Department of Energy

Overall cuts: $1.7 billion, a 5.6 percent decrease.

Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy: ARPA-E conducts research into high-risk but potentially high-reward advanced energy projects not funded by the private sector. It would be eliminated because, according to the proposal, “the private sector is better positioned to finance disruptive energy research and development and to commercialize innovative technologies.” ARPA-E was designed to emulate the famous DARPA program, which gave us such trifling innovations as the internet. ARPA-E programs include research into modernizing the electrical grid and ways to store thermal energy.

Title 17 Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program: The name doesn’t tell you much, but this program provides loan guarantees for green energy projects. It would be eliminated under Trump’s proposal.

Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program: This initiative provides loans for advanced technology in vehicles. Companies like Ford and Nissan use the loans to create jobs in upgrading their fuel efficiency standards, according to supporters. Among those supporters, at least in 2008: Elon Musk’s Tesla. We wonder if he’ll mention this at the next roundtable.

State Energy Program and the Weatherization Assistance Program: The State Energy Program provides funding for states to improve energy efficiency. According to the National Association of State Energy Officials, each $1 spent by the program leads to energy cost savings of $7.22. It would be eliminated “to reduce Federal intervention in State-level energy policy and implementation.”

The Weatherization Assistance Program falls under the State Energy Program, and is specifically targeted for cuts under the proposal. Formed in 1976, the WAP provides grants to the states for the weatherization of homes, which improves energy efficiency for low-income families.

Office of Science: While the proposal isn’t specific, and says it will ensure “the Office of Science continues to invest in the highest priority basic science and energy research and development,” it also says its proposal represents $900 million in“savings” on last year’s budget. That sounds like a cut to us.

One area that isn’t being cut: $120 million to restart licensing for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site, a controversial plan to store nuclear waste under Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Part of the Department of Commerce, the NOAA budget includes a $250 million cut. The plan would end the Sea Grant, which provides $73 million in research grants. According to the Washington Post, cuts to the NOAA’s satellites, which provide data on weather, climate and oceans, “also appear likely to be substantial.” NOAA also collects climate change data.

Department of Health and Human Services

Overall cuts: $15.1 billion, a 17.9 percent decrease.

Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP): This provides grants to help low-income Americans pay for energy costs, including the elderly, the disabled, and Native Americans. Trump’s budget would end it entirely. Helping old ladies stay warm in the winter? Nah, fuck it. Let ‘em freeze.

National Institutes of Health: The agency that conducts and provides grants for medical research, which have led to breakthroughs across countless areas of medicine, sees a 20 percent cut. Trump lackey and deeply sad man Newt Gingrich called for doubling NIH’s budget two years ago, but don’t hold your breath for him to take much of a stand on this.

Nursing: The proposal eliminates $403 million in health professions and nursing training programs.

Department of Transportation

Overall cuts: $2.4 billion, a 13 percent decrease.

Essential Air Service Program: This program would be eliminated entirely. It ensures that rural areas are served by “a minimal level of air service”; about a third of those areas are in Alaska.

TIGER grants: Unfortunately unrelated to flying tigers, the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grants were part of the 2009 stimulus package. State and local agencies apply for funding for local transportation projects through the program, for everything from roads to bus shelters. Trump’s budget would end the program.

Federal Aviation Administration: The budget includes a proposal to privatize the FAA, which would turn it over to a non-governmental non-profit corporation.

Department of Agriculture

Overall cuts: $4.7 billion, a 21 percent decrease.

Waste and Wastewater loan and grant program: A $498 million program to fund clean water and sewer systems in rural areas with fewer than 10,000 people and tribal areas, this program would be ended. It funds construction or improvement for drinking water, sewer collection and waste collection. Trump’s budget literally leaves low-income rural people (many of whom voted for him) to deal with their own shit.

Department of State

Overall cuts: $10.1 billion, a 28 percent decrease.

Global Climate Change Initiative: This is a program under USAID, which helps developing countries adopt clean energy and prepare for the effects of climate change; these countries will be among those who see the biggest humanitarian disasters as a result of climate change. The proposal calls for an end to both this program and to payments to UN climate programs.

Department of the Interior

Overall cuts: $1.5 billion, a 12 percent decrease.

National Heritage Areas: This program provides funding to preserve areas “where historic, cultural, and natural resources combine to form cohesive, nationally important landscapes,” from the Gullah Geechee Corridor in South Carolina to Nevada’s Great Basin. The National Park Service partners with these communities to support restoration projects, education, and recreation. What an awful mission.

Reducing land acquisition: The budget calls for a $120 million reduction in the acquisition of new federal lands.

National Wildlife Refuge: The proposal would eliminate funding for the National Wildlife Refuge, a 114 year old program, saying it’s “duplicative of other payment programs.” Just yesterday, Trump’s Secretary of the Interior celebrated the program, saying the refuges are “an incredible asset to the national economy” and “offer a place where families can carry on cherished outdoor traditions while making the important connection between people and nature.”

NASA

Overall cuts: Roughly $150 million, a 0.8 percent decrease.

Office of Education: The budget would eliminate the $115 million Office of Education, which runs enrichment programs and provides internships and scholarships.

Earth Science: The budget cuts four Earth science missions, all of which are largely focused on the impact of climate change: PACE, which monitors the health of Earth’s oceans; Orbiting Carbon Observatory – 3, which measures carbon in the atmosphere; the Deep Space Climate Observatory, which monitors solar wind (changes in which can have catastrophic effects on infrastructure); and CLARREO Pathfinder, which helps produce climate records.

Department of Homeland Security

Overall increase: $2.8 billion, a 6.8 percent increase.

While the DHS budget would increase overall—including $1.5 billion for cybersecurity for federal networks and critical infrastructure—some programs will be cut.

Federal Emergency Management Agency: Several FEMA programs would be cut, including $190 million for flood hazard mapping (a hazard that will only grow as climate change worsens, of course). It includes a $668 million overall cut to state and local grant funding through FEMA, including the Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant Program, which helps communities reduce the risk of hazards associated with natural disasters.

Transportation Security Administration: Everyone’s least favorite agency sees an $80 million cut, including the flawed Behavior Detection Officer Program. It would also raise the Passenger Security Fee, which is currently $5.60 per trip.

Perhaps our president can mull over the drastic reductions while he scampers away to Mar-a-Lago, trips to which have already cost us millions.

http://gizmodo.com/here-are-all-the-science-and-environmental-initiatives-1793342081

And then we can move on to the humanitarian cuts. Fuck you Meals on Wheels! We need a border wall that Mexico definitely isn't paying for!

[Finfinder]

And then we can move on to the humanitarian cuts. Fuck you Meals on Wheels! We need a border wall that Mexico definitely isn't paying for!

Everybody has their spin seniors wont starve.

http://reason.com/blog/2017/03/16/senio ... n-wheels-l

As Scott Shackford has noted, Donald Trump's budget blueprint calls for zeroing out the oft-abused Community Development Block Grant program, which is administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The program is rife with waste, fraud, and abuse but because it also funds the popular Meals on Wheels, which delivers food to housebound seniors, well, it shouldn't be cut at all, right?

Earlier today, I received a spam email from the Democratic National Committee that read in part

There are a lot of details to parse through in the budget blueprint Donald Trump released this morning, but you can get the gist of it from one sentence:

Donald Trump is cutting Meals on Wheels, a program that delivers meals to senior citizens in need, to pay for his border wall.

But does Meals on Wheels rely on government grants to do its good work? There are hundreds of Meals on Wheels organizations around the country, so it's hard to generalize, but overwhelmingly, the groups get the majority of revenue from charitable giving, not government funds. In 2015, for instance, the national Meals on Wheels reported that government grants accounted for just 3 percent of its annual revenues of $7.5 million. Meals on Wheels for San Diego County in California says that government grants made up just 1.5 percent ($68,534) of its revenues of $4.4 million. Not all branches are so independent. Atlanta's group gets 48 percent of its revenue from government grants (none of the annual reports I looked at broke down exactly what level of government or specific program supplied the money). Many of the annual reports don't even break down revenues by source (see here) and others aren't even posted online.

The point? As Matt Welch writes, we have gotten so used to increased government spending on everything that any cut to any program is automatically cast in apocalyptic terms. As I wrote earlier today, I'm no fan of Donald Trump's budget, which actually fails to reduce net discretionary spending and ignores completely the far larger issue of "mandatory" spending on entitlements, which, along with interest on the debt, comprises about two-thirds of the federal budget. But the plain fact is that we have for years now been spending far more than we raise in taxes.

That simply can't continue indefinitely and there's every reason to believe that massive, persistent deficits that are covered by continual increases in national debt tamps down economic growth. Despite all manner of attempts to goose tax revenue upwards, it's exceptionally rare when the feds can squeeze more than about 18 percent of GDP out of us for any length of time. Simply put, we need a government that spends less and does less. And that means that not all programs, even ones that do good work, can or should be paid for out of taxes. In many cities, Meals on Wheels would barely be affected by losing all federal grants. In others, the local citizens (and corporations and charities such as The United Way) would need to step in to fill the void. That's hardly the worst possible outcome—can Atlanta not really feed its poor senior population via philanthropy?—and it certainly shouldn't stop Americans from coming to terms with basic fiscal realities.

The problem with Trump's budget plan is that it spends exactly the same amount on discretionary outlays as President Obama's did—right around $1.1 trillion. The only difference is that what Trump subtracts from non-defense programs, he plows back into the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. That's not progress and it's not even good politics. It would be better to put the military on a diet along with the rest of the government and explain exactly why all agencies should be doing more with less.