In looking at the federal budget, you are ALWAYS going to have the "What you're doing is waste; the money would be better spent on what I want done."

This is the nature of politics: The struggle of one or another person or group to control the power that resides in the association of a number of persons." And by "number of persons" I mean from two persons up to the entire population of Earth. That struggle, I repeat, is what politics is.

Jimmy Jones and Mary Doe want to go to a movie. He wants to see a shoot-em-up, and she wants to see a romantic movie. (Or maybe he really wants to stay home and spend the time in bed.) The push and pull by which they make a decision is politics! Each wants to control the power that resides in their association.

This is no different in nature from the national goals/budget discussion about scientific expenditure.

Dave Oesterreich