New member Norm Smith celebrates with long-time members Marina Firestone and Carmita Sanchez-Fong
At the CoFiA annual meeting in December, new friends joined the organization, and current members renewed their commitment. Joining is easy–just download the application from this web site and mail to us at the address given (P.O. Box 448, 181 Fort Lee Road, Leonia, NJ 07605) with your “set-your-own-price” membership fee. Many people have chosen to make a donation as well as becoming members–if this is your choice, it’s not (quite) too late to get a tax credit for 2013.
Of course we are always looking for people who want to volunteer their time and talents as well as money! Send us an email (info@communityoffriendsinaction.org) to let us know what you would like to do.
The way I saw it was that if the population of the US (around 300,000,000 ppleoe) had to pay for it through taxes, it would mean ~167 dollars each by rounding up. Divide that by every month is around ~14 dollars a month per person. If like you’re ideas for splitting the cost between taxes and cuts were to happen then ~7 dollars per person per month would be what it would take. That honestly doesn’t seem like much. Then perhaps the whole lottery thing and with outside donation plus the fact that the project might not even cost as much it could be lowered to 5 or 4 dollars a month even. For something large like this the more the cost can be distributed the easier it is to pay. Perhaps a mixture of all these suggested ideas would be best. Slight tax raises, cuts, donations, private funding and lotteries can all play a part and end up making the cost much much easier to pay. Maybe a formula that would work without upsetting the taxpayer’s wallet too much would be:50% of the cost payed by cuts in other areas. ($500,000,000,000) ($25,000,000,000 a year)20% of the cost payed by private funding. ($200,000,000,000) ($10,000,000,000 a year)10% of the cost payed by taxes. ($100,000,000,000) ($5,000,000,000 a year)10% of the cost payed by donations. ($100,000,000,000) ($5,000,000,000 a year)10% of the cost payed by lotteries. ($100,000,000,000) ($5,000,000,000 a year)The cuts I think is a realistic and reachable figure. The private funding and the lotteries and donations are most likely not going to be the same over 20 year, sometime when they produce less funding, higher taxes, when they produce more than expected, lower taxes. It might result in a little fluctuation in taxes but most likely not noticeable and a difference of $15-$30 between years won’t cause any riots. This could be a nice plan I think for the funding but I’m no economist so this is just approximations and wishful thinking. A very real possibility if the government does take on this project though is that they may seek the help of allies. Although we wish and hope for a US owned enterprise, the cost in monumental and would be way easier to bear between allies. However, the cost isn’t so bad that a huge amount of nations is needed. Imagine if the cost was split between a close ally or something. US/UK perhaps. Then immediately the cost is halved and is much more achievable. Perhaps more close allies can be used, US/UK/Canada/France or some other nations. The then the cost is reduced even further. Of course this type of project would be far harder to split and cooperate on than a space station like the ISS, but imagine if 5 close allies worked together on it. The cost would be only 10 billion a year, an immensely smaller number. Of course, one of the main driving forces behind this idea is that of raising US morale and making our young ppleoe become interested in space and science and mathematics again and also to provide US jobs so neither you nor I like this idea of a united effort on this very much.Oh well, I’m sure if this is ever undertaken, the means to pay it will be found. Best of luck to ya mate.-Jon
I’d like to find out more? I’d care to find out more details.