The timeline for some things is way longer than 10-20 years and, in cases like data collection, we simply lose out forever.
What we're seeing right now, and it's not just the US, are policies that risk depriving future generations of data that may be critical to solving problems 50 or 100 years from now. If you say that collecting water quality data is a waste of money because we don't have problems with water quality, that's a permanent decision that can't be reversed and will adversely affect future researchers. It's incredibly frustrating.
In the bridge example above, even with bridges failing after 30 years, the average person won't be able to assess whether or not it was a success or a failure. You'd have to know the cost of initial construction, lifetime maintenance costs, replacement cost, the value gained from short term savings, etc.. Coming up with a calculation to categorize it as a success or failure could be difficult if everyone is acting in good faith. Throw in politics, partisan interests, propaganda, etc. and it seems almost impossible.
No matter what side people fall on politically, everyone should consider unbiased, non-partisan data collection a vital government service. If you disagree on how the data should be collected, do it both ways and debate the merits as long as you want. Just make sure the data stays available.
What we're seeing right now, and it's not just the US, are policies that risk depriving future generations of data that may be critical to solving problems 50 or 100 years from now. If you say that collecting water quality data is a waste of money because we don't have problems with water quality, that's a permanent decision that can't be reversed and will adversely affect future researchers. It's incredibly frustrating.
In the bridge example above, even with bridges failing after 30 years, the average person won't be able to assess whether or not it was a success or a failure. You'd have to know the cost of initial construction, lifetime maintenance costs, replacement cost, the value gained from short term savings, etc.. Coming up with a calculation to categorize it as a success or failure could be difficult if everyone is acting in good faith. Throw in politics, partisan interests, propaganda, etc. and it seems almost impossible.
No matter what side people fall on politically, everyone should consider unbiased, non-partisan data collection a vital government service. If you disagree on how the data should be collected, do it both ways and debate the merits as long as you want. Just make sure the data stays available.