Comments on: DeLayed reaction

By: Donald F. Robertson

Donald F. Robertson — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 00:54:19 +0000

Yes, Mike, he did decrease NASA’s budget and I would rather he hadn’t. I have never argued that Clinton was a perfect President.

But, he was doing that because he didn’t just talk deficit reduction, he was actually trying to do it — unlike any Republican President to date.

Mr. Clinton’s space policy was far from perfect, and in many ways it was inferior to Mr. Bush’s. However, while cutting NASA’s budget, he also vastly increased the agency’s efficiency (far more successful missions were flown); he saved the Space Station (and by extension the Shuttle) from almost certain cancellation (which I concede may not be an entirely unmixed blessing, but was hardly “anti-space”). Further, most of these policy initiatives came from Mr. Gore and any Gore administration would almost certainly have been very pro-space.

N.B., I consider Mr. Gore’s loss one of the great losses of recent politics. His political views were probably closer to mine — what I call an “environmental technocrat” — than any other politician to have made it to high office, or likely to do so in the near future. In other words, he broke the cliche of the “anti-technology Democrat” versus the “anti-environment Republican.” Given that the best policy probably really is somewhere between the two extremes, he would have been the best President.

— Donald

By: Mike Puckett

Mike Puckett — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 23:42:04 +0000

Clinton had eight years of a good economy and all he did was cut NASA’s budget in real dollars for the first time since the winding down of Apollo. To suppose another four years would have been anything but more of the same is ludicrous.

Clinton may have made VSE a reality inadvertantly in that his and Goldin’s cuts to the shuttle budget may have help doom the Columbia and provided the catalyst for VSE.

By: Donald F. Robertson

Donald F. Robertson — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 22:16:46 +0000

Not at all. In WWII, if I recall correctly, we were helping allies who had been attacked and were asking for help. Later, we responded to an attack on our soil.

Does this new policy mean that we will preemptively attack _everyone_ who _might_ attack us? With no consideration of likelyhood or relative threat? Does this mean we are now going to attack Iran, North Korea, or, for that matter, Russia? Saudi Arabia (a nation that really did attack us on 9-11)?

That’s a lot of wars for a close-to-bankrupt country to finance. All other problems with that strategy aside, where does the money for Moon / Mars come from?

Someone earlier asked a fellow Democrat on this site how he, personally, had been hurt by Mr. Bush’s policies. That’s easy. Because of this damned vendetta in Iraq, we cannot afford to do the things we want to do in space.

— Donald

By: Mark R. Whittington

Mark R. Whittington — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 21:20:52 +0000

Donald – Like FDR did in WWII with his Europe First strategy? 9/11 taught us that waiting for an enemy to hit first–Saddam or anyone else–is a bad thing.

By: Donald F. Robertson

Donald F. Robertson — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 22:18:21 +0000

Just maybe Clinton would have saved un-tolled national treasure — that could have been spent on, say, Moon / Mars initiatives — by confining the war to the nation and people who had actually attacked us.

By: Mark R. Whittington

Mark R. Whittington — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 22:12:03 +0000

Rand – Certain Clintoin would have spent less, though mainly because he would have punted after 9/11 just as he did after every other terrorist attack on his watch.

By: Rand Simberg

Rand Simberg — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 20:58:01 +0000

Based on his prior history, I think it likely that he would have kept spending under far better control

He had no history of keeping spending under control. That didn’t happen until the Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994. That said, certainly another four years of Clinton would have resulted in reduced spending more than under Bush, assuming the Republicans retained the Hill.

By: Donald F. Robertson

Donald F. Robertson — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 19:56:18 +0000

And, yours is an oversimilification in return. Clinton would have had to deal with the same hard times, but he would not have used credit card economics in anything like the disasterous scale we are seeing today. Based on his prior history, I think it likely that he would have kept spending under far better control, he probably would not have cut taxes, and he certainly would not have done so primarily for people do not directly stimulate the economy, at least in the short term. (The rich invest their money, often overseas, while the poor spend their money right away, providing a direct and immediate stimulous to the economy.)

By: Dogsbd

Dogsbd — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 19:26:41 +0000

>and if we’d had four more years of Clinton economics we might even have been able to pay for it.

That’s an oversimplification/exaggeration of the highest order. The economy was already entering a slowdown before Clinton even left office. And the economy would still have taken a huge hit on 9/11/01 regardless of who was in the White House.

He was simply lucky to have been in office during a booming period that was due in only a small part, if at all, to any policy he authored.

By: Donald F. Robertson

Donald F. Robertson — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 19:13:19 +0000

Just as it is an oversimplification to say that Republicans are evil (I could have lived with McCain (sp?) as President and I have to admit that, even though I frequently disagree with him, our current governor in California is doing a pretty decent job), it is an oversimplification to say that Democrats are “anti-space.” Democrats vote the way they do because the choice is always presented as space vs. social programs. When the two were presented in a supportive, synergystic fashion (Johnson’s support of Apollo as part of a “social engineering” effort to industrialize the south – which the south benefits from to this date), Democrats support it. Clinton found a social purpose to justify the Space Station that moderates in both parties could subscribe to (helping to bring Russia peacefully into the global economy), and pretty much saved the program (for better or wose!). Based on his history, Gore, whatever his other faults, would almost certainly have been a strong supporter of spaceflight, and if we’d had four more years of Clinton economics we might even have been able to pay for it.

— Donald