About cutting investment in science

Donald Trump’s straw boss, Elon Musk, is proud of the number of people he has fired from the government. This noble feat was accomplished without the time-consuming burden of evaluating the qualifications of those he tossed out.

His actions required no brains or skill, two qualities not needed or wanted in the Trump administration. Seemingly, the salary savings alone are justification enough and damned be the repercussions. 

For those who have managed companies without experiencing six bankruptcies or multiple fines and penalties, it is clear that losing valuable employees is detrimental to any organization.

Of course, Trump had a different experience: “Fail, fail, fail, then ask Daddy to bail me out.”

Sadly, there is no bailing out for the people damaged by Trump’s and Musk’s ignorance.

ANOTHER VIEWPOINT from the March 24 Sun Sentinel
Let’s scrap science. What’s the worst that could happen?

By Logan Suits

In 1800, about 50% of all children born didn’t see their fifth birthday. Over 200 years of science and advancement later, that number is less than 1%. Science saves lives — which is why the attempts to cut it are so appalling.

Today, researchers are working hard in thousands of laboratories across the country. They’re working for you — so that next time you go to the doctor, your doctor will be able to help you.

Whether it’s new treatments for emerging infectious diseases or innovative ways to treat things that have ailed humans since the dawn of time — like cancer and heart disease — these researchers are working on finding answers to diseases that claim thousands of lives. Diseases that you might have one day.

Their work is in danger. Recent funding cuts have made labs across the country worried. The National Institutes of Health, which funds the majority of laboratories in universities, has recently made drastic changes to funding that will make it impossible for some labs to function.

Worse, scientists have been reporting that meetings to review their funding applications have been canceled, leaving their funding in limbo.

What would happen if we stopped this progress?

First, we’d stop going forward. We’ve made huge strides in important issues that we should keep making. Since 1990, recent medical advancements saved an estimated 200,000 children in the U.S. alone. There’s still more work to be done, though — child mortality remains higher in the U.S. than in other highly developed countries.

We need to keep moving forward.

Second, and perhaps worse, we’d start going backward. New strains of bacteria that are resistant to every drug we use to treat them (so-called “superbugs”) are becoming more and more prevalent.

Some scientists are worried that you could get a paper cut, the wound could get infected with resistant bacteria, and there’d be nothing a hospital could do to cure it.

We could be moving toward a world where a healthy adult could die from a scratch — just as it was before penicillin. Scientists estimate that by 2050, 39 million people will die from antibiotic resistant infection.

In this world that requires new medical solutions to difficult challenges, the United States could choose to be a leader. Becoming a leader in this is not the costly investment some believe. For every dollar invested in medical research, there is $1.24 saved in health care cost, and over two dollars of economic activity created.

Financial issues are always a concern, but failing to fund research means the government will pay more in health care cost and collect less in taxes.

Funding cuts to medical research aren’t just amoral for the lost lives; they also don’t make financial sense.
With the broad funding cuts being considered, it’s important that we look back and see how things used to be, and how far medical science has taken us.

Research has been one of the best investments the United States has ever made, and we shouldn’t ever forget it.

Logan Suits is a Tampa native and a Ph.D. candidate studying antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus aureus.

Musk’s belief is that virtually all federal agencies are teeming with lazy, useless employees doing nothing but wasting taxpayer money. His “solution” is to randomly fire at least half the employees, regardless of their quality and accomplishments.

Thus, he was saved the effort of actually understanding what the agencies and their individual employees did. This approach, “if the horse is too slow, cut off two legs,” did nothing to improve efficiency. Quite the opposite, it guaranteed reduced efficiency.

What may have improved Twitter’s profits does not work with a federal agency that has no profit motive but rather a service motive. It has quite a different goal.

The idiocy of this juvenile approach is ignorantly:

1. Assuming random federal agencies must be inefficient, without any measure of “efficiency” for each agency. The measure will differ depending on the agency.
2. Assuming there is no difference between productive and non-productive people so, “Fire ’em all.”
3. Failing to install new systems that would improve efficiency, but rather, assuming that fewer employees will be more efficient.
4. Failing to set goals for the agency and the employees, so the efficiency can be measured.
5. Wrongly claiming that federal taxpayers will benefit from reduced federal spending. (In reality, federal taxpayers benefit when the government spends more- i.e., adds more growth dollars to the economy- than when the government spends less. 

While they take billions from the federal government, Trump and Musk have caused irrecoverable damage to the economy, federal employees, and taxpayers.

Presumably, that was the plan all along, a plan to widen the Gap between the rich and the rest. 

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

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https://www.academia.edu/

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