The 2012 U.S. Election Outcome And Its Implications For Science
Posted by EQF on November 7, 2012

The information in this post might be the most helpful for board visitors who live outside the U.S.

The U.S. November 6, 2012 Presidential, Senate, House, state governor, city mayor etc. elections are now over.

Thanks Heavens !!!

Is there even one person in the U.S. who during the past few months actually wanted to see any more mud slinging television ads?

The Obama / Biden administration was reelected for another 4 year term.

So, is that good or bad for scientists and earthquake science?

Remember, the following are all personal opinions. Other people might, and many probably do, see things differently.

It is my expectation that an Obama / Biden win will be better for scientists and earthquake science than a Romney / Ryan win would have been. The Obama / Biden people seem to me to be more interested in using science to help move our world forward. Romney / Ryan would have focused more on using economic tools to get things done. And I am afraid that they would have concentrated more on helping Big Business such as the oil companies rather than environmental and scientific groups.

Had Romney / Ryan won I think that there would have been a stronger push to eliminate government agencies such as the USGS. I was absolutely stunned when I was watching the first Presidential Debate and Governor Romney turned to the debate moderator who works for the U.S. Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and actually said something to the effect that,

“If I am elected I am going to cut off all federal funding for PBS.”

I already knew that he probably intended to cut those funds. I was simply stunned to see him say it on a TV program being broadcast around the world.

Most people here in the U.S. probably like PBS. For relatively little money it provides them with endless numbers of fascinating and informative free television programs to watch. And I think that Governor Romney’s making that public threat against PBS might have been a extremely serious mistake for someone running for President. It might have helped start his downwards slide in the public opinion polls.

So, why did he do that?

My theory is that major corporations were probably some of his most important financial campaign funds backers. And they don’t like TV programs such as FRONTLINE and NOVA exposing corporate corruption and misconduct. Also, corrupt politicians don’t like to have their activities exposed by those programs. So, many of them would probably like to see PBS disappear. And I am not including Governor Romney in that group of misbehaving politicians.

So, the governor's public statement was, I believe, that “Cutting all federal funding for PBS represents getting rid of yet another useless and improper drain on U.S. taxpayer money.” But the real reason he was planning to do that was because his corporate sponsors want PBS to disappear. And agencies such as the USGS might have been included in those funding cut plans. – Just my own opinion.

The U.S. Senate will remain controlled by the Democrats. And the U.S. House Of Representatives will remain controlled by the Republicans.

That will undoubtedly result in a certain amount of gridlock where no one in Washington, D.C. can agree on anything and nothing gets done. But it might not be all bad for science. The Democrats and Republicans both say that they want to improve the economy and cut taxes. And people who understand how the political process works might be able to get the two groups to debate with one another regarding how to best use science to help move things forward and get our government to run more efficiently.

It has been my experience that scientists generally don’t like to have anything at all to do with politicians. So, in general, scientists probably won’t try to get our elected officials to do very much during the next 4 years. I myself am probably one of the relatively few scientists out there who are willing to put up with the risks that scientists can face when they try to get elected officials to do anything. And I have lots of plans for getting important things done such as getting the U.S. to develop effective earthquake forecasting programs and develop new sources of environmentally safe, affordable energy. How successful those efforts will be only time will tell.

These are personal opinions.