Aspiring to be FOX News
We often take to task those who would begrudge science research money. Politicians like to use science projects to make points about "pork", but often the projects they begrudge involve piddly dollar amounts, especially considering the pay-offs science yields. Science research has both long term and short term benefits -- more efficient food production for example, as well as employment and livelihoods for scientists, farmers, workers in start-ups, marketing professionals, accountants, and maybe even bankers. None of these positives are trivial or laughable. But politicians like John McCain won't readily point out the benefits. McCain ranted recently about about a "honey bee factory", because as always, the ha-ha-ha value of these rants is apparently priceless. 1
In 1 In Science as Political Joke Fodder we looked at John McCain's multiple attacks on science and asked why science? In "Fruit Flies, Astronomy, DNA...There Goes The Economy", we analyzed Sarah Palin's attack on olive fruit fly research in France and the source of her information, the lobby group Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW).
Yesterday we came across a Harper's blogpost that pulled information straight from CAGW talking points.2 The author criticized the $410 billion omnibus spending bill for earmarks in his "Weekly Review", focusing on two projects that have been circulating in the news:
"more than 8,000 congressional earmarks, among them provisions for improving blueberry products in Georgia and controlling the spread of Mormon crickets in Utah."
Was Harper's jumping on the whole earmarks bandwagon? We hadn't been following the earmark protests, but where did the Harper's information come from? John McCain talked about both science projects the Georgia blueberries and the Mormon Crickets in his speech to the Senate on the Bill. CAGW called out the Mormon cricket research this year and mentioned listed the blueberry research last year in its 2008 budget pork database.
Viral FOX
A few weeks about FOX News composed a video called "$209, 000 for Blueberries? From there blueberry research story went viral, to the New York Times, blogs, and sites that aggregate press releases. For politicians and media flexing against "pork", science spending is a favorite target, because face it, the organic dried blueberry lobby hardly buys a lot of advertising on FOX News.
People criticize earmarks as a way of securing funding and say that these no bid grants should go through the appropriate venues and compete for money. (I'm sure scientists might do this, if science were funded to adequate levels. Or maybe scientists wouldn't -- since this must be easier than writing a grants?) But, confusingly, some of the people who make these points about the harmful, not transparent nature of earmarks, like the group Americans For Prosperity, take distinctly anti-science positions. Americans For Prosperity for instance ran a "Hot Air Tour campaign" in 2008, where they completed a hot air balloon cross-country tour under the slogan, "Global Warming Alarmism: Lost Jobs, Higher Taxes, Less Freedom." According to the group: "Climate alarmists have bombarded citizens with apocalyptic scenarios and pressured them into environmental political correctness. It's time to tell the other side of the story." CAGW attacks particular research based on who funds their lobby efforts.
Taxpayers for Common Sense calls earmarks a "petri dish of corruption". Perhaps they make a valid point that calls for a more thorough exploration of alternative means of funding. But simply calling out research that sounds silly, as Harper's did seems less productive.3
209,000, How Much is That?
Why focus on $209,000 worth of blueberry research anyway? Why such a relatively tiny number? Is it because most people make less than that in a year and can actually fathom the number? To get perspective, consider this:
- $209,000 is the amount FOX News and Harper's are up in arms about. 209,000 seconds is 2.42 days, 1/137th of a year.
- 165 million was paid in AIG executive bonuses this week (because of "the contracts" -- pardon me while I die laughing). 165 million seconds is 1,910 days, or 5.23 years.
- In the past 6 monthes, AIG has taken out $170 billion in loans from the US government, which in seconds, is 5,387 years.
- The Service Employees International Union criticizes Geithner's trillion dollar Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) because the taxpayers absorb significant risk and there's no guarantee that the money will be used to make new loans. 2 trillion seconds is 63,377 years.
Buy a Scientist a Petri Dish, He's Corrupt for a Lifetime
It's all relative. And as we've pointed out before, scientists work for much less than your average banker. Today with AIG's multi-million dollar "retention" bonuses, 20K-40K for a scientist is small change. But every person who is kept off the unemployment rolls keeps money in the taxpayer's pocket -- so to speak -- momentarily anyway, oops, now AIG has it.
New York State Attorney General Cuomo released details today of his AIG investigation and reporting that 73 employees received bonuses of $1 million or more in 2008. Say the average scientist make 50K per year, and no bonus was over 1 million, two generous assumptions. What would taxpayers rather do with that money? Employ 1460 scientists? Or keep 73 bankers on the dole?
------------------------------------
1Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) is an organization started by the late J. Peter Grace, who was CEO of W.R. Grace & Co. for 45 years and Jack Anderson, a syndicated columnist. CAGW was an extension of the Grace Commission formed when President Ronald Reagan, who appointed J. Peter Grace to aim at decreasing the role of government. CAGW extended from the Grace Commission.
W.R. Grace is a chemical company whose pollutants contaminated Woburn, Massachusetts well water, causing cancers and resulting in a drawn out court case chronicled by Jonathan Harr in "A Civil Action". CAGW is a lobby favorite of conservatives and lobbies. We previously noted that attacks on science from Sarah Palin and John McCain originated with CAGW. CAGW works with a wide range of industries tobacco, software, pharmaceutical, to avocado growers in Mexico, targeting specific actions based on the desires of groups who pay CAGW.
2 In my opinion, Harper's is sort of a mixed bag on science and sciencey subjects. They've published some great pieces on the environment like Tom Bisell's excellent "Eternal winter: Lessons of the Aral Sea disaster", in 2002, or Erik Reece's "Death of a Mountain: Radical strip mining and the leveling of Appalachia."(April, 2005) On the other hand they've published some infuriating articles from a scientist's perspective, like Celia Farber's ridiculous "AIDS and the corruption of medical science", a misleading and factually false view on HIV and the treatment of AIDS, that was criticized by top doctors, virologists, researchers, microbiologists, immunologists, and the Treatment Action Campaign, a South African NGO. (Here's the 37 page PDF that documents the errors)
3Harper's has published some great pieces about lobbyists. See for instance Ken Silverstein's "Invisible hands: The secret world of the oil fixer", in the March issue maybe still on the newstand, or Silverstein's Their men in Washington: Undercover with D.C.'s lobbyists for hire, or his piece on John McCain and the Reform Institute.
