Another Socialistic Rant from the American Chemical Society

Rudy Baum is again on his Communistic/Socialistic rant. For those who may not be familiar with Rudy, he is the Chief Editor of Chemical and Engineering News, the face-piece magazine of the American Chemical Society. We don't know what Rudy calls himself, but it is clear from his writings that he is a dyed in the wool Communist/Socialist. Since the ACS keeps him on as Editor in Chief, it is also apparent that the ACS similarly has these Socialistic leanings.

In the July 18 issue of C&E News, Rudy presented an editorial entitled "What Kind of Nation?". That is merely a title, since his editorial actually concerns the US debt ceiling and future budgets.

He starts out by saying that it's not about freedom. He says the European nations have a social welfare system more developed than that of the US and yet they are more free. We all know that Western Europe has become strongly socialistic, and Rudy apparently thinks that is a great development.

More specifically, Rudy is now bemoaning the fact that the House of Representatives cut the Food and Drug Administration budget by $87 million. This is a 10% cut, with the remaining budget almost 3/4 of $1 billion per year. There's no question that food safety is important to the American public, but the American public also has some responsibility in what they purchase and what they eat. There is such a thing as a market force. If word gets around that Company A's product seems to be less safe than Company B's, Company A will soon be out of business through decreased sales. A socialistic government seems to ignore that fact. Rudy supports his rant against the cut by saying that 28,000 more people will end up in the hospital in 3,000 will die. With his great intuition, apparently he is able to collect these facts by ignoring that those people to whom he refers, are likely to be mostly sick and in process of dying anyhow.

Rudy's second rant is against cutting budgets for state parks. He says the parks will close and people will no longer have access to them. Baloney! State parks can charge admission fees directly to the public in the same manner as most entertainment enterprises, such as sporting events and amusement parks. If the public doesn't want to lay out funds for entrance fees, it is obvious that it is not that much interested. Government should not be telling people what they should be attending by some kind of subsidization making it look like it's a free entrance, when in fact they have paid through the nose through taxes.

Rudy's last rant is against a House Committee's bill that terminates funding for the James Web Space Telescope. The JWST was supposed to be a replacement for the Hubble telescope. The original budget was $5 billion. It is now $1.5 billion over budget and up to three years behind schedule. Rudy says that's not uncommon for such projects. My point of view is that if proposers of projects cannot estimate their costs within 30+ percent, they should not bother to make an estimate. However, I suspect that the original $5 billion budget was intentionally placed at the low end, in a deceptive maneuver to gain approval and with the assumption that once the project is going, it would be easier to gain additional funding. Congratulations to the Subcommittee for their bill. I personally like the pictures from the Hubble telescope, and it would be nice to obtain better pictures from the JWST, but after all they are just pictures, and we can't afford it.

Rudy's final comment is that the US is not broke. He is correct in that statement, but more accurately should say that the US is not broke yet. When the government spends $4 billion more per day than its income, without any hope of a significant change, it is only a matter of time before we will be broke. He says we are losing faith in the future and unwilling to protect our citizens from bad food and substandard drugs, invest in the infrastructure and continue to advance science. I agree to that but only because Rudy, the US President, and Congress apparently do not understand money.