Update: Senator Harry Reid laments the loss of the “Cowboy Poetry Festival” due to federal budget cuts. Seems that there is indeed some fat to be cut from the proposed $3.7 trillion budget.
The National Weather Service Employees Organization needs your help to protect against the draconian budget cuts suggested by the House for the rest of FY11. From the Member News website:
(March 7, 2011) The Senate Appropriations Committee has released a proposed alternative to HR 1 that would make a $110 million reduction to NOAA operations for the remainder of the fiscal year, rather than the $454 reduction approved by the House. Of the $110 million cut, $104 million was from earmarks that are no longer funded. This effectively only cuts the NOAA ORF budget by $6 million.
The Senate Appropriations Committee justified the higher funding levels for NOAA stating in their March 4 press release, “The House cuts an additional $340 million which would threaten critical weather forecasts and warnings.”
The sample form letter to Boehner and Cantor follows:
Dear Mr. Speaker (for Speaker John Boehner) OR
Dear Mr. Cantor (for Rep. Eric Cantor)
I am writing to ask you to support the Senate’s proposal for NOAA’s budget. This proposal will help NOAA and the National Weather Service continue the mission of saving lives and property.
The Senate’s proposal includes responsible funding levels in stark contrast to the draconian cuts included in HR1. HR1 would have resulted in the following impacts on the National Weather Service:
- Reduced staffing at Weather Forecast Offices and River Forecast Centers would result in incomplete forecast production which could prove disastrous in a significant weather event. Even in the best of cases, it will still mean incomplete forecast production at WFOs that have major product workloads for aviation, marine, tropical and public services.
- This is going to have a negative impact on the economy and on almost every aspect of our daily lives. There will be a large scale economic impact on aviation, agriculture, and the cost shipping food and other products.
- Service backup of 24 Weather Forecasting Offices has never been tested and runs a very significant risk of a missed tornado, flood or severe weather warning. It is risking lives at the onset of both tornadoes and hurricane season. This is also doubling the area of responsibility for operations and adds the risk of degraded service delivery.
- The National Hurricane Center is not immune to these cuts as furloughs and staffing cuts will add strain to the program. The Hurricane Hunter Jet, which provides lifesaving data and helps determine a hurricane’s path, could also be eliminated.
- Information that is vital for weather modeling and accurate tornado watches and warnings will be reduced and in some cases lost. Reduced upper air observations currently made twice a day could be reduced to once every other day. Buoy and surface weather observations, the backbone of most of the weather and warning systems, may be temporarily or permanently discontinued.
Recent advances in aviation weather forecasting have resulted in as much as a 50 percent reduction in weather related flight delays. The Senate’s proposal for funding will help progressive programs such as these continue and may, in turn, prove beneficial to strengthening the economy.
For the safety of our citizens, the protection of property, and the large scale economic impact on aviation, agriculture, and commerce, I am asking you to vote in support the Senate’s proposal for NOAA’s budget.
Sincerely,
——-
Bill Hopkins, the NWS Employees Organization vice president predicts lives will be affected and lost because of the budget cuts. From KSAT12 ABC in San Antonio:
Bill Hopkins, vice president of the NWS Employees Organization, said the public may be in real danger a House bill is passed that would slash The National Weather Service’s budget by $126 million.”It could potentially lead to a loss of lives, not necessarily in San Antonio, but it could in other parts of the county,” Hopkins said.Local NWS offices would likely deal with rolling closures and furloughs, leaving the Corpus Christi NWS office to take over issuing warnings for the San Antonio area.”Not only will they be watching your area, but they will also be watching their area, and there will be no increase in personnel to do this,” Hopkins said.The national NWS office said President Obama has opposed to such harsh cuts. Hopkins said the cuts would significantly affect those along the Gulf Coast.”The National Hurricane Center would be reduced to 32 hours a week,” Hopkins said.There would also be far fewer hurricane hunter flights, which are often vital parts of hurricane forecasts.According to Hopkins, large amounts of weather data would be lost.”Can you imagine flying into an airport and they lose all their surface data? There’s really drastic impacts in this cut,” Hopkins said.
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The models say so.
Bah, cut away!!
I’ve been defensive of cuts to the US EPA, but then this came into my University of Illinois e-mailbox:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accepting grant
applications for $1.9 million in funding for environmental education
projects and programs. The purpose of the grants is to promote
environmental stewardship and help develop knowledgeable and responsible
students, teachers and citizens. EPA expects to award at least 20 grants
nationwide ranging from a minimum of $15,000 to a maximum of $100,000 and
will accept applications until May 2, 2011.
These government folks have far too much money, they can find plenty of fat to reallocate.
Good, ( I am not the ex. Senator or the Turd from UK Greenpeace, how common is my name? ), the government should be looking long and hard at their role and asking the important question, ” Is this really the job of government?”.
99.9% of the time the answer should be no.
One small but symbolic sharing of sacrifice would be for the NWSEO to stop bilking the taxpayers of GS-13 pay and benefits for their senior union officials. Let these officials work a real job working real rotating shifts and conduct union business on their off time. Yes, folks, your taxpayer dollars fund union work done on public time!
Typical bureaucratic reaction: Cut the directly visible services to the public and keep the unseen gravy train flowing: all those nice, easy, bureaus to fill with worthless, though not to the sinecure holder, high paid job chair bum warmers.
Grrrr#
Being a farmer I watch the weather constantly. I’ve noticed for the last two days that the forcasters have got it wrong! Cut their funding as I think experienced farmers and fishermen can survive with out them! Anyone expecting someone else to watch out for their basic needs is setting themselves up for failure!
If NOAA doesn’t cut this “climate change” and “CO2 warming” crap, defund them and rightfully so. For that is what it is, tax-sucking crap. (excuse the language)
We’ve got to balance the budget or America will become a second-class country– period. We are already facing the time in the not too distant future when the dollar will no longer be the world’s currency. This will have huge impacts on every American’s standard of living. But as I’ve said before, any cuts made to relatively small budget’s like NOAA’s, NWS, EPA, etc. need to be matched by cuts to the bloated Pentagon budget– which is the largest portion of discressionary spending in the budget. Hundreds of billions could be slashed from the Pentagon and we’d be no less safe for it. This bipartisan study gives some areas that could be cut:
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/1006SDTFreport.pdf
When it come to making the really tough budget cuts, Ron Paul is my hero, and though I’m an Independent, it brings me great joy to see his suggestions on cutting the Pentagon so upsetting to other Conservatives who think the Pentagon should be untouchable. So yeah, go ahead and wack a big segment off the budget of the NWS… it needs to happen for our countries financial future…but at the same time, aim that same meat cleaver toward the bloated Pentagon.
Well how about all the people who will die, if they don’t cut taxes, so those folks, can buy food, or pay the heating bill, or get fresh water to their house, or buy gas so they can go to work to get money to pay the rent. How about all those people.
I’m one of those people; why do you suppose I am still working; I really thought Bush 41 was going to cut taxes, I really thought Clinton was going to cut taxes, I really thought Bush 43 was going to cut taxes, I really thought Obamination was going to cut taxes. Instead, they all make me take the money out of my retirement funds, and send it to the IRS or the Bankrupt State of California; because they think that somebody my age should die and leave their retirement fund to the State; instead 0f retiring, and going fishing.
I found this interesting and have added the bold borrowing in the quote:
By THOMAS G. DONLAN in Barron’s [March 7, p. 39]
“Draconian” budget cuts are what the nation needs.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424052970204794404576178811719241914.html
“. . . all our taxes only pay for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans programs, federal retirement funds and some lesser “mandatory programs.” This year the U.S. is borrowing for all its regular government programs, all federal and military salaries, all military and civilian procurement, and all the interest on the national debt.”
As pointed out this the “close the parks” strategy played out in city and states all over the country when discussing budget cuts.
The odd part, in this time of union discontent, is for a new to me public employee union stand up waving a red flag – “Look at us”…
I suggest they go on strike before the cuts. That’ll show everyone.
I recall similar arguments with air traffic controllers………sigh, we learn nothing.
The brass tacks are we don’t have any money. We’re broke, and to quote a favorite movie of mine, “This is a $hit sandwich and we’re all going to have to take a bite.”
In a perfect world, we’d have weathermen that are accurate 100% of the time. We’d have cowboy festivals for all! We’d have police when we need them and they’d all act properly. We’d have all the fire coverage necessary for all lives 100% of the time. We’d have an infrastructure adaptable and always running at peak performance. Heck, in the perfect world, we’d have satellites and spaceships that made it to outer-space. All the hungry would be fed. A chicken in every pot. Two cars in every garage. And low interest mortgages for low income people. Well heck, while we’re dreaming……free houses for everybody!!!
But we don’t live in a perfect world and we’re not going to get there. Nor would it be desirable. Not here. Not now. Later, in the bye and by.
It is past time for this nation and its people to quit with their crying, whining, and generally wallowing in self-pity. Grow a pair and realize that me and my tax money doesn’t exist so that everyone can have a job and that we know when and why a storm is coming. Believe it or not, I’ve got other priorities. Should I whine every time someone wants to show a bit of respect for the contributions of the common man and perhaps show a bit of responsible care for the monies given by myself and the millions of others?
Yeh, my job is so important that people across this nation should continue to indebt themselves unto poverty, else the world will forget how to rotate. Get real.
I would have more sympathy personally if the NWS actually didn’t spend money on the climate change gravy train. If they spend money on that, they have too much money. Pure simplicity really.
Any organization that spends money on climate change has too much money and their budgets should be shrunk yearly until they spend zero on it.
Just my two cents.
As for lives lost…well pffsfsddfs. If you are going to play that card, let the pro-life people play the lives lost due to abortion. Otherwise, give us good information and shut your trap. Those scare tactics have been going on since I was a little kid, and frankly I don’t fall for anything like that anymore. In fact, I just tune out anything the second you bring up those scare tactics and just think the cuts are appropriate. This is why these cuts are needed. This is also why we all need to write our representatives and support these cuts. If the agency has enough time to promote itself and grand-stand to this extent, well again like I said, they have too much money.
@R. Gates
FYI: All government spending is discretionary.
In AUbama, we have a little thing called proration. When the government runs short of dough, they cut spending across the board until it matches the available dough. Problem solved.
With this system, the budget crisis on the federal level would be solved this fiscal year. Sure, there is pain. But, we could all share it together.
Here’s some savings for you. Most states have now adopted the Common Core State Standards and are working towards a standardized assessment based on these standards. Graduating with a high school diploma depends on whether or not you pass the test and will mean the same thing whether you are from Mississippi or Illinois, Main or Oregon. Then let the schools post their test results (along with whatever bells and whistles they have added to the standards) and diploma earning graduation rate. Parents can then choose what state they want to live in if a high quality school is to their liking. Under these circumstances, I don’t see any need for a federal department of education.
Cut entire departments. Pussy foot’n around with pennies here and there isn’t going to do a thing with our over-spending government. And in my mind, not even Republicans have the courage to make these needed cuts.
Don’t suppose there are any plans to start cutting the War Budget, the one keeps getting USA into deeper doodoo?
R. Gates says:
March 8, 2011 at 4:43 pm
“We’ve got to balance the budget or America will become a second-class country– period. We are already facing the time in the not too distant future when the dollar will no longer be the world’s currency. This will have huge impacts on every American’s standard of living.”<——————-Agreed.
“But as I’ve said before, any cuts made to relatively small budget’s like NOAA’s, NWS, EPA, etc. need to be matched by cuts to the bloated Pentagon budget– which is the largest portion of discressionary spending in the budget. Hundreds of billions could be slashed from the Pentagon and we’d be no less safe for it.”
(Bipartisan my behind.)
“When it come to making the really tough budget cuts, Ron Paul is my hero, and though I’m an Independent, it brings me great joy to see his suggestions on cutting the Pentagon so upsetting to other Conservatives who think the Pentagon should be untouchable. So yeah, go ahead and wack a big segment off the budget of the NWS… it needs to happen for our countries financial future…but at the same time, aim that same meat cleaver toward the bloated Pentagon.
=====================================================
Well, yes and no. Is the military budget bloated? Yep. Should we start cutting now? Don’t you think we should get done with Iraq and Afghanistan first?
Equating a tax dollar that goes to entities such as the EPA with a tax dollar that goes to national defense is fallacy. There is no more important role of the government than to provide for the defense of this nation. My thoughts and knowledge being that the people, regardless of the circumstance, left to our own devices, will make things work. We always have and we always will. All that is necessary is the provision that this nation be unencumbered by external forces. We can take care of the rest on our own.
We could, and should first start with the redundancy programs. There is no reason why NASA’s and NOAA’s roles overlap. And now the EPA wants to get into the act. For what? Do we really need two/three organizations that fudge numbers and generally misleads the populous? Do we have a redundant military? (Well, actually, yes but that lends to an entirely different conversation.) But, for practical purposes, we can consider the U.S. military as one unit. Cut the redundant programs. On administration alone the savings would be significant.
We need to get over the belief that the federal government or any government is a jobs program. It is not! Any job in a government detracts and subtracts from the general wealth of the people. While cutting redundant programs, we need to identify what is necessary, what is a luxury and is extraneous. Cowboy festivals and gifts to really cool artwork and grants to entities that hand out clean needles and condoms and political leaning public paid media……we could consider these for the axe without doing away with other more meaningful programs.
The need to cut with bigger scissors :
Deficit for month of February 2011 larger than deficit for entire year 2007:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/7/government-posts-biggest-monthly-deficit-ever/
2007 deficit:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2007/10/05/deficit-for-fiscal-2007-slides/
James Sexton says:
March 8, 2011 at 5:54 pm
The brass tacks are we don’t have any money. We’re broke
Just print more money. Printing money is a great solution. Every nation should print money all the time.
/sarc
“Printing money……..debasing the currency……. has always been a disaster. And it’s going to be a disaster for the United States as well.”
Jim Rogers
What no one seems to understand is that government employment has long since reached “critical mass”. Ronald Reagan tried starving them out. In a case with which I was closely associated at the time, he cut DOE’s hydrothermal division division discretionary budget from hundreds of $millions to tens of $thousands. Not a single layoff occurred in the branch that administered those funds. Then he cut that branch’s budget below payroll. Again, not a single layoff occurred. Their buddies over at DOD, which was flush under Reagan, simply hid them out at various National Labs where they shifted to another federal payroll and where they didn’t even have the security clearances required to to productive work.
Over the next few years in America cowboys will have plenty of opportunity for writing dark poetry about America. America is heading to a crash. Invest in China, India, New Zealand, and Brazil. Be careful with investing in America It’s going to be ugly and sad in America.
How much longer can this continue?
@ur momisugly Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
March 8, 2011 at 7:54 pm
Over the next few years in America cowboys will have plenty of opportunity for writing dark poetry about America. America is heading to a crash. Invest in China, India, New Zealand, and Brazil. Be careful with investing in America It’s going to be ugly and sad in America.
So you are expecting TEOTWAWKI? You do understand that if the USA goes down so does the rest of the world, right?
Spring tornado outbreak forecast posted on the 2nd, Cost to public a couple clicks of the mouse, http://www.aerology.com/national.aspx
to check the results you can compare to ^my sites^ maps to so far;
2-27=18 tornadoes http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/110227_rpts.html
2-28=18 tornadoes http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/110228_rpts.html
3-05=10 tornadoes http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/110305_rpts.html
3-06=3 tornadoes http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/110306_rpts.html
3-08=3 so far today http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/110308_rpts.html
Richard Holle says:
March 2, 2011 at 12:32 pm
Tornado production is a result of Lunar declinational tides pulling air masses from more equatorial areas into the mid-latitudes, so the peak production times when they form can be predicted as the periods from Maximum North culmination to three days after, a couple of days when the moon crosses the equator headed North, and as the moon reaches maximum South declination and several days after.
These effects are due to the production of the primary and secondary tidal bulges in the atmosphere, that arrive at the same time as the ion content of the air masses reaches a local maximum. Between the induced charge differential between the +ion concentrations riding on the more equatorial sourced air mass, established ahead of the dry line front of -ion concentrated more polar air mass, that sweeps in from the West, forcing the precipitation into the rapidly moving narrow band of severe weather from which the tornadoes form on the trailing edges.
The periods when these effects will be most likely to occur this spring,
2-25/28 for three days, which we just had, around max South.
3-5/7 slight chance of small outbreak
3-12/17 starting in Arkansas through Kentucky and the Ohio river valley
3-25/30 Starting Texas/Oklahoma/Arkansas through Ohio river valley the beginning of a long period of very wet activity most of April.
4-5/8 start up of activity
with the re-enactment of the 1974 outbreak most possible in the period
4-8/13 Maps of the expected precipitation can be found on my site, bearing in mind that the tornado and severe activity usually forms in the fast moving part of the frontal and not usually in the areas of heaviest total daily precipitation.
On the maps show on my site you can expect to see the tornado development in the areas with the “netted” looking precipitation patterns due to the usual nature of the part of the front where they occur.
1974 is one of the analog years for my forecast method, which is why I mention we may see a replay of that out break. It is also why I am in Mesa Az., instead of Kansas this spring.
Welcome to the Tea Party boys and girls.