Last week, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal gave the Republican response to President Obama's address to Congress. In his speech, he included the following comments:
Democratic leaders in Congress -- they rejected this approach. Instead of trusting us to make wise decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history, with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest. While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a "magnetic levitation" line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.
Lately I have been thoroughly perplexed by tendencies of Republican party members to summarily dismiss science and technology because of the price tag. First, Senator McCain blasted Obama's request for the Adler Planetarium's - a $3 million "overhead projector". Now volcano monitoring is wasteful spending! I wonder if residents of Oregon and Washington state might disagree since they live right under those volcanoes.
I'm old enough to remember the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980, certainly Governor Jindal is as well. Needless to say, the mission of the USGS does matter, and I hope that Americans still realize that science and technology is important. And with over 150 active volcanoes in the U.S. right now, "volcano monitoring" can save lives!
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