What percentage of your tax money should go to a government space agency?
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FYI (Score:5, Informative)
I think there should be a way to donate to individual government agencies. Here's already a way to donate to the US treasury [treas.gov], but no way to specify how much goes to your favorite program.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What do you mean by 'tax' (Score:5, Informative)
Historically, the budget of NASA has been anywhere from 0.5 to 1% of the overall Federal budget.
Actually it went as high as 4.41% during the Apollo years.
Re:Sign O' The Times (Score:4, Informative)
Ever heard of abortion? Oh or are you a religious nut?
Ever heard of Prince [wikipedia.org]?
Re:You People are a bunch of Statists!!! (Score:5, Informative)
The free market didn't "discover America".
The free market didn't build any of the national railroads.
The free market didn't build any of the national highways.
The free market didn't electrify the nation.
The free market didn't get phone service to everyone.
The free market didn't build the Internet.
All of those things were big expensive projects that either required direct government action, severe kickbacks to private companies, or heavy handed regulation of private companies.
Re:FYI (Score:5, Informative)
Donating to specific agencies won't work -if there were a significant such donation to NASA, the legislators would just defund the agency the corresponding amount, and then in future years without a donation, the actual budget would tend towards the lower level.
Re:FYI (Score:5, Informative)
It's deductible, like any other charitable contribution, which means you have to itemize to see a benefit. For most people, the standard deduction is higher.
Re:Sign O' The Times (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sign O' The Times (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You People are a bunch of Statists!!! (Score:5, Informative)
You are a sadly deluded fool.
ALL of those developments required heavy handed government intervention of one sort or another. They require such meddling precisely because of the sort of Ayn Rand mentality you are trying to advocate now.
Re:The vast majority (Score:5, Informative)
This means to prevent wars between the states.
This means to promote the welfare of the Union by maintaining the governmental infrastructure required by the constitution.
This does not mean relieving individuals of the responsibility for their own lives as to do so would make the following an impossible goal.
This can not be achieved under a government that wields total authority over your every action, including how you provide for yourself and family. The more power you place in the hands of a ruling authority, the less liberty you will have. Today we have only an illusion of liberty, revocable at the whim of the government at any time. It's being usurped a little more virtually every day.
Re:I'd gladly give 5+% (Score:5, Informative)
You are not an island of rugged individualism.
You only think you earned your paycheck all by yourself. In reality, you were probably publicly educated for at least part of your life, you enjoy the benefits of publicly funded infrastructure which makes your job possible (as does your employer if you're not self-employed), your business and home are protected by police and fire departments which are publicly funded, and you enjoy so much more from society that I can't even begin to list it all. You get paid for the work you do, yes, you earned it in that way but don't forget for a second that you only have the opportunity to earn that paycheck because thousands of others came before you to set up groundwork which makes your job possible. There is little evidence that this could all be achieved equitably and fairly if left to purely market based solutions. The only thing that's asked of you is to reinvest into the system in proportion to the amount of prosperity you've managed to extract from it.
You are deeply immeshed into your society and civilization and you have a responsibility to pay it forward. You may disagree with what your money is used for, I do as well when I see how the US uses our military, but there are mechanisms to fix and adjust that, imperfect as they are.
military spending (Score:5, Informative)
The US on the other hand... Let's put it this way, how many groups, countries, and fruitcakes have declared they want the USA destroyed and/or it's people dead?
Pretty long list, isn't it.
How many tymes has the US fought against democracy in other nations? How many tymes has the US aided and supported dictators? Too many tymes on both accounts, and that's why some people hate the US. Let's start with Iraq. During the 1980s the Reagan and Bush Sr admins supported Saddam Hussien. All the while Saddam was using WMDs against Iran and Iraqis in Iraq, Reagan and Bush Sr supported him. US support for Saddam didn't end until he ordered the invasion of Kuwait. And why did Saddam do that? Because Kuwait was Slant drilling [wikipedia.org] or directional drilling into an Iraqi oil field [wikipedia.org]. After Iraq was driven out of Kuwait the UN gave Kuwait those oil fields. So theft pays for some.
Next, above I mentioned Kuwait, which is not a democracy, and Iran. Iran was a democracy. In 1953 the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States under the name TPAJAX Project overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh [wikipedia.org] and installed the Shah as dictator of Iran. And the Shah's secret police were just as bad as others torturing activists who opposed him. Or take East Timor [wikipedia.org]. Portugual decolonized East Timor in 1975 and as a newly independent nation East Timorese elected their own government. However with the support of President Ford and Henry Kissinger Indonesia's President Suharto [wikipedia.org], a Major General, invaded East Timor. After the invasion an estimated 200,000 East Timorese, one third of the population, was killed. Up to 100,000 [gwu.edu] were killed in the first year alone. Maybe half of what was left were rounded up and put into "camps controlled by Indonesian armed forces."
How about closer to the US, um? Ever wonder where the saying "Banana Republic" comes from? Banana Republic [wikipedia.org] comes from when United Fruit Company and other US owned agricultural corporations used US military might in Central and South America to force their will onto others. Teddy, er Theodore Roosevelt [wikipedia.org], and other US presidents used Gunboat diplomacy [wikipedia.org] for such things.
There are a number of instances like this that provide reasons people hate the US. If the US didn't carry such a big stick and use it then people wouldn't hate it.
Falcon