But it's not zero sum. You don't have to do this linearly. It's not social safety net first, everything else after. It's both at the same time. That's not how funding prioritization works.

And again, even if it was, there are plenty of things to deprioritize before you deprioritize research or space exploration.

This is the problem with even having this conversation here. Why bring it up here at all? This is not the thing where you go "oh, but don't we have other priorities" unless you're actively opposed to this being a priority because holy crap, are there worse priorities to go after.

Honestly, this argument is so American it's not even worth it.

Oh, and for the record, I'm not backpedaling. If anything I was pulling punches up front because hey, a lot of people get swayed by conservative propaganda arguing that useful stuff shouldn't get funded because they defunded other useful stuff. I was being nice.

I think I'm done being nice, which means "don't talk to Americans about politics, it's a waste of time" policy is back online.