Why do we spend so much money on NASA. It does not benefit us?
Your question is already decades old. http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2008/05/ernst_stuhlinge.html NASA is a research agency, not a welfare agency. It is not there for giving you free spaceflights, but for researching technology and gathering basic research data. I bet you use satellite TV - but do you know how much technology invented by NASA you are already using when you do so? The electrical thrusters used for making communication satellites cheaper and allow longer missions for example, had been invented by NASA, Ernst Stuhlinger (see above) was one major figure in the development. Or do you know that the most accurate topographic maps of the world had been created by a single Space Shuttle in 11 days? (STS-99, SRTM) The Apollo missions helped solving many riddles about the origin of the moon, about 90% of the knowledge of the lunar geology is from these 3 years. What research will finally bring you, is not known in advance. Research about the details of magnetism in thin layers of different metals resulted in discovery of the Giant magnetoresistance. This in turn allowed building larger computer hard drives - but when the research projects started nobody expected such result, and even when the phenomena was discovered, it took a moment until people realized what the research was good for. And so it is with NASA. You don't know what it will be good for before. You can have some good reasons to research something, but if you would already know what the results will be, you don't need to research it. Also: Currently we are limited to just one planet, which is pretty fragile. It would be better having back-up.
Why does the US spend more money on terrorism than on car accidents or cancer research?
A seriously flawed question which may portray seriously flawed thinking.The first flaw is the assumption that the amount of money spent will necessarily equate to a desired outcome. But we needn’t look far to find the flaw in that kind of idea. I want to increase my sales by 100%, therefore I will double my advertising budget.It’s not just how much you spend, but how you spend. Automobile accident deaths attributed to drunk driving today are half the number of such deaths since the founding of MADD in 1980. MADD, a volunteer organization when it started, brought the problem of impaired driving to the public consciousness. The agenda included activism among legislatures and a broad public awareness campaign. The application of funds and energy at the grass roots level paid huge dividends.The nature of the problem to be resolved. In the case of cancer, we are dealing with a problem which is only now at the earliest stages of being fully understood. Cancer refers to a huge taxonomy of disease types whose successful treatment varies widely. In the case of terrorism, which has also shown itself to be resistant to convenient treatment, the vectors (people) are better understood and managed.Socioeconomic considerations. Disease and accident are not consciously directed enemy actions, and their impact has been absorbed by society over many centuries. But an enemy which deliberately deploys terror to advance their agenda to overthrow entire societies presents a more profound challenge with very sweeping consequences.And that’s just for starters.Hope it helps.
Should the US spend more money on school lunches or should the US spend more money on military?
Beans or Bullets? That is the age old question. Our current military is “overkill” — we could stop being the worlds policeman for a while and take care of business at home. But powerful special interests push it the other way and I am not optimistic. Hungry school kids cant afford lobbyists.
Why Does The USA Spend More Money on Prisons then Schools?
More people in the United States are being arrested and incarcerated even though crime has dropped. 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation’s overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tougher sentencing measures. Also The USA puts more people in jail then any other developed country, and leads the World in incarceration rates. Incarceration rates has Tripled since 1980 Private Prisons also cost more money for tax payers. Why is The USA Spending more money for Prison then schools????
Should the u.s. government be allowed to spend more money than it takes in?
Every government owes a fiscal duty to its citizens to return a balanced budget or even a small surplus. If a government can't balance its budget, then it has to resort to borrowing, which means part of its budget is spent on interest to service its debts, which means less money is available for public services. If spending continues to exceed income, government gets deeper and deeper into debt and finds it harder and harder to raise money to service that debt. This leads to financial crisis, like that experienced by several EU nations. Spending more money that it takes in shouldn't be allowed. If government were a company, the management would all have been dismissed for incompetence long ago. Unfortunately. it is not illegal for government to mismanage its money. The only mechanism to control government spending is the legislature, who are part of the problem because they continue voting to give citizens services which the government cannot afford, rather than losing the support of their voters by proposing unpopular cuts. I can't see any reasons why a government should be allowed to spend more money than it takes in, except as a short-term emergency measure, to be rectified as soon as possible..
Does America spend too much money on defense ?
20,000$ a second is what America spends on it's defense while NY firefighters have to fight to get help and so do many people who can't afford health-care . Does this seem right ? Why are they spending so much on our defense ? And does this behavior welcome wars in the end verses deter it as I'm sure you'll reply ? Does all that defense spending actually make us more vulnerable ? After all who want's to just build all those tanks bombs and missiles and not use them ? It's kinda useless to go through all that training if you're not going to use it . Right ? So does beefing up our military do the opposite of what your thinking and actually make us more vulnerable due to the inherent desire to go to war and therefore the chance for all out world war ?
Why did Clinton spend more money fighting STDs than in fighting malaria, which killed 16 million when he was?
Because he got a few STDs from the interns he had "relations with" ;)