Why snail research is important

On a Bill Maher show, "Stephen Moore, libertarian economist and Wall Street Journal columnist" kept pounding away that we must reduce the debt and one way to do that is to cut funding for science grants, like $2 million for snail mating research.  "19-year-old Zack Kopplin, science advocate and history student" retorted that government-sponsored science often gives far better returns than many investments.  He gave as an example that the government investment in genome research paid back 140 times the investment.  See "College Kid Forced To Remind Know-It-All Economist That He's Actually Not A Scientist".

Warning: this segment deteriorates into a shouting match!

I might add, would we be reading these stories if the government hadn't invested in the Internet decades ago?  Would we have had Google if the government hadn't given a California university a grant to study search algorithms?

About the snail mating research, "it's to prevent children in developing countries from getting parasitic worms…"  Why should we protect these children from parasitic worms?  Parasites increase poverty.  Poverty leads to corruption.  Corruption leads to terrorism.  Two million dollars is a much better investment to prevent terrorism than two hundred million dollars and rising per F-35, a plane that still has many problems.

Mantra should be "Tax and Invest"

For at least thirty years Republicans have been accusing Democrats of "tax and spend" as if all the evils in the country were caused by taxation and government spending.  As too often is the case, the Democrats have been on the defensive rather than making strong arguments for taxation and spending as necessary to invest in a civil society.

E. J. Dionne, Jr. stated this counter-argument succinctly, "And it should be expanding public investments in the nation’s future, not cutting them."  - "Can America still lead?" Washington Post, 2011-08-07, republished in the Star Tribune, 2011-08-09

I scribbled a few notes on our copy of the Strib about how inconsistent "tax and spend" complainers can be:

Spend on nuclear power subsidies, but don't invest in medical care for its side effects.

Low taxes for mining companies but no investment in the health care and safety of their workers or in the repair of the destruction of the environment.

Spend on a mammoth war machine, but little investment in conflict resolution.

Republicans used to invest

Once upon a time Republican politicians invested in the infrastructure of our country. Lincoln was very instrumental in building the transcontinental railroad. Eisenhower was instrumental in building the interstate highway system. Both of these transportation systems transformed the United States, saved millions of dollars in transportation costs, and increased investment in other areas.

Now it seems the only "investment" Republican politicians want to make is in destruction, a so-called strong defense.

Everything else Republicans look upon as costs and taxes. Opportunity costs are not part of their accounting. They just don't see the costs that can be saved by investing in schools and colleges, in health care, and alternative energy. And they ignore the opportunities that these investments will create.