Tag Archives: congress

The Edge of the Cliff: Deadlines Reveal 16 Trillion Fault Lines

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Fiscal-CliffI wish everyone a happy new year as we together, hand in hand, jump off the cliff into fiscal oblivion…

I have spent the last two weeks consumed with work related to two deadlines that strangely parallel the deadlines facing our political system. I disconnected myself as much as possible from distractions and focused on making concrete progress every day. It’s been a tough process, and I’m disappointed with the rate of progress. The only thing that brings me comfort is when I compare my accomplishments in these two weeks with that of the United States Congress. Of course, they got nothing done, and anything is more than nothing.

There is an absurd game going on in Washington that is summarized well by Senator Everett Dirksen a half century ago: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.”

The United States is in debt about 16 trillion dollars. That’s about $140,000 per taxpayer. That’s how much you owe. Assuming you would resort to crime in order to repay that, you would have to rob a bank over 20 times to cover that amount (source: US News article).

The problem is that we are (1) spending too much and (2) being taxed too little. You probably disagree with one of those statements depending on whether you like the color blue or red better. The problem is that your disagreement is grounded in an ideology that isn’t based in honest evaluation of where you really stand. Majority of people who call for “smaller government” want a smaller government as long as it doesn’t affect them. Everyone is for “spending cuts on that other guy’s stuff but not my stuff”. Same hypocritical philosophizing goes for taxes.

And of course the poor politicians have to represent us selfish contradictory facebook-positing taxpayers. Their job is essentially to try and make 300 million children eat broccoli, while pretending it’s delicious cake. Of course when the children discover that there is not cake, it’s the job of the politicians to blame someone of the opposite party.

There are no easy solutions. The only thing I can recommend, and will do myself, is to be a productive citizen who does not add to the bickering but adds to the civil discourse about the ideal that our country is (on its better days) slowly edging towards.

Don’t Push Research Funding Off the “Fiscal Cliff”

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If Congress does not come to an agreement, automatic across the board cuts will hit in January 2013. There are many dramatic effects in these cuts, but in my biased but I think well-founded view, none is more damaging to the long-term economic future of our country than cuts to research funding.

Overall, the sequester will result in 8.7% cut (or $12.5 billion) in federally-funded research. The estimated reduction in GDP in the next 10 years due to these cuts is between $200 billion to $860 billion (source).

Most of the growth the United States saw in the twentieth century is due to it being the world leader in scientific discovery and technological innovation. Decreasing funding to research (when it was supposed to be doubled) is absurdly irresponsible.

Forget the Economy: How to Pick Who to Vote For Tomorrow

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The “economy” has been widely hailed as the main concern on the minds of the American people. Unfortunately, the simple truth of the presidency (according to the constitution and according to modern reality) is that the president has very little power to affect the economy. His power in this domain almost exclusively rests with the bully pulpit: the persuasive power of the loudest megaphone in Washington DC.

The following are the powers and roles of the president as I see it, and how that effects who I’ll vote for tomorrow (Tuesday, November 6, 2012):

  • Nominate Supreme Court justices. To me, this is the biggest reason not to mess around with your vote and choose the party that best represents your views on policy, domestic and foreign. In the next four years, it’s possible that we will see 4 justices retire. Ginsburg is 79, Scalia is 76, Kennedy is 75, and Breyer is 74. Gibsburg and Breyer are left-leaning on most issues, Scalia is famously right-leaning, and Kennedy is often the swing vote.
  • Start wars without declaring them. On at least 125 occasions the president (throughout U.S. history) has deployed troops without authorization from Congress. In my book, this is where Obama’s cool and collected approach is very important. I hope, that if Romney wins, he has a similar approach. Even if I disagree with the decision, I hope the decision is made through a careful deliberation process that’s influenced by balanced reason and not blind ideology.
  • Bully pulpit: Really, most of the president’s power lies in the fact that we all pretend that he is important (because the media pretends he is important) and thus give him “power” by listening to him. He can use his giant megaphone to influence Congress, public opinion, and international relations. What’s very important to remember, however, is that this power of persuasion grows exponentially in a time of real crisis (such as a terrorist attack or a natural disaster). At those times, we tend to take off our partisan hats and follow the words of the commander and chief with loyalty and unwavering determination. Hence, we want to pick a president who is best in a time of crisis.

I have many friends who are voting for Obama and many who are voting for Romney (though I’m not speaking to them this week for fear of mutual destruction). I even have one friend who is voting for Gary Johnson, who despite being the goofiest politician I’ve ever heard, is quite brilliant. I’m personally voting for Obama, despite many of my objections to what I saw in the last four years, because:

  • I want to maintain a balance of left and right on the Supreme court.
  • I want less undeclared wars not more, even though both candidates I believe will be far more hawkish than I would like.
  • I want a president that the rest of the world likes, respects, and wants to work with. In poll after poll, Obama beats Romney about 80% to 20% in the rest of the World. The gap is biggest in countries that our close allies, except Israel which is one of the only countries where Romney leads (with a whopping 57% to 22%).
  • As a scientist, I am depressed at the blatant disrespect towards science in the Republican party. I’m not talking about global warming or stem cell research or evolution. I’m talking about fundamental scientific research. I wish this wasn’t so, but it certainly makes me lean heavily to the left on this issue, where science is rightful seen as the main force of progress and economic growth that made this country what it has come to be throughout the 20th century.

I try not to grow cynical about politics, but it’s damn hard… Please make sure you vote tomorrow, not for any reason, but because it may help spark a conversation with a friend about a political issue you both care about. Who knows, that spark might start a fire.

20% of Americans Believe We Did Not Land on the Moon

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Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, passed away today. To many people he remains one of the symbols of the never-ending drive of technological progress. To me the Apollo 11 program always served as a reminder of the power of competition in engineering. The Russians sent Yuri Gagarin into space several years before, and the United States had to “respond”. That’s how our little civilization makes steps towards a greater understanding of the universe through science.

But more than anything else, to me, the Apollo 11 mission represents the absurdity of the human mind to gather evidence for any claim it fixes on. The first conspiracy theory I ever heard about was the one that claimed we never landed on moon. This was in middle school when I first moved to the United States. I remember being given an overwhelming amount of “evidence” for this, and being facinated by the idea that something so widely accepted could be completely faked.

My natural skeptic quickly caught on to see that most of the conspiracy theory evidence was not well grounded in any kind of science (but mere paranoid speculation). However, I do distinctly remember that it was fun considering the possibility that the government could fake this thing. Why was it “fun”? Well…

We live our life under thousands of basic assumptions. Everything from the idea that fruits and vegetables are good for you, to the idea that neither Zeus nor Poseidon are currently practicing Gods. And when one of these fundamental assumptions are questioned, the fabric of our existence feels unstable. In a certain sense that is very unsettling, but it’s also exciting on a philosophical level. I think that’s why a lot of people believe in these conspiracy theories. There are many. All it takes is someone to keep a blog or write a book, and the conspiracy theorists are sure to start jumping on board like ants around a new food source.

Anyway, in rememberance of Neil Armstrong, I’d like to celebrate our first steps into space and hope to see many more in the 21st century (despite the shrinking popularity of NASA in Congress and the general public).

PS: A good site for skeptical questions and answers is Skeptics.StackExchange.

Celebrating The Only “Left-Handed Gay Jew” in Congress

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Barney Frank announced his retirement from Congress after 45 years of service.

He didn’t shy away from speaking his mind, and usually did so in a damn entertaining way. I think it’s fair to say that there are very few people in Congress that can outdo him in witty trash talk.

The reason I’ve always respected him is that he had the guts to come out as gay on his own accord in 1987 (the first to do so) and served openly since then. As he said: ”I’m used to being in the minority. I’m a left-handed gay Jew.” But he was also a liberal, and all those factors attracted a s*** storm of vile commentary from his critics.

I always take my hat off to men and women that stand tall, with or without the approval of others, especially in political office where being different in any way is a heavy burden.

Here is a recent interview with him on Charlie Rose:

Deficit Reduction Super Committee Fails

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Breaking news: Congress is dysfunctional.

Republicans think they’ll win the presidency and Senate next year so they don’t want to agree to anything now, and instead are going to wait a year when they’ll be able to push their plan through with much less resistance.

Democrats found some backbone (fragile though it is) and are not giving up their push for higher revenue (tax increases). So now, they’ll get to run all year on the fact that those evil Republicans held them up from doing anything good for America.

It’s infantile politics at it’s purest, and it makes me ashamed. Sure, partisan bickering has always been a part of our political process, but in this case it seems that the (financial) stakes are higher.

Debt Ceiling Debate and the Trolley Problem

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The debt ceiling debate boils down to the trolley problem which states:

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?

The majority of the country and Congress is saying we have to “flip the switch”. The debate is over the specifics, which are so insignificant it’s ridiculous. Then there is a group of tea party members that don’t want to flip the switch. They want to stop the train, and if that’s not possible, let it run over the five people and learn a valuable lesson from that. This is an admirable position is some very distant abstract universe, but is just not in touch with reality and the consequences of real people’s lives in the short and long term.

To reiterate, the current plans proposed by Republicans and Democrats are virtually the same. The Republicans propose slightly harsher cuts, and make the avoidance of cutting harder, but really, there are two reasons no agreement has been reached:

  1. The Republicans (and to some degree, the Democrats) still think they can come out the political winner in this, while the other side comes out the political loser.
  2. Tea Party members are ideologically immovable (I’m trying to put it as nicely as possible here).

Meanwhile, the train is flying down the tracks…

* Illustration above is by Frank O’Connell (NY Times)

Metric System Adoption in the United States

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The United States is one of only 3 countries that has not adopted a metric system of measurement. The SI (international system of units) is the most popular standard: Meter, Kilogram, Second, Ampere, Kelvin, Candela, Mole.

Given that SI is a standard system of measurement in science, and that U.S. is one of the leading nations in scientific and technological innovation, it’s a constant source of confusion for me why U.S. has not yet adopted the metric system.

There have been many attempts by the federal government to encourage the use of the metric system, such as the 1975 Metric Conversion Act. However, the private sector has simply refused to change, and so progress has been slow.

One are where the metric system has successful “infiltrated” in America is the Nutrition Facts label on most products. Though my libertarian friends may collapse in horror, I think these are the types of government-enforced overhauls that are required for complete adoption of the metric system. For example, we could replace all speed limit and road signs to include both miles and kilometers and then declare that in 2020 we will switch completely to kilometers.

Then again, few politicians could effectively argue that the enormous cost of such a program justifies the long-term benefits. It’s a tough sell to average Joe who takes a chug of his 22 ounce beer bottle every time his favorite running back runs for a gain of a couple yards.

92% of Afghans never heard of 9/11

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Raw Story report talks about an ICOS survey’s conclusion that 92 percent of Afghanis have never heard of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. To me, this is a shocking statistic.

There are others:

  • 40% believe that US is on their soil in order to “destroy Islam or occupy Afghanistan”
  • 43% could not name one positive aspect of democracy
  • 61% said they didn’t think Afghan forces would be able to keep up the fight against the Taliban when Western forces withdrew.

Why is there such a lack of information? Because Afghanistan is one of the poorest nations on Earth. We cannot hope to progress in the “war on terror” (I hate that term) when most of the Middle East either doesn’t know our motivation or sees us as an occupying, greedy, power-hungry force.

Do our politicians, or the citizenry, comprehend the state of misinformation and poverty in Afghanistan? I don’t think so, because if they did, they would not sit idly by as our soldiers are shipped off to the graveyard of empires.

I’m calling my congressman. Here is the main number for Congress – the Senate and House – in Washington, DC: 202 225-3121