Are Republicans for space exploration and Democrats against it? It sounds overly simplistic, given that NASA has traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress. In an article in The Space Review, though, Jeff Brooks offers at least some anecdotal evidence that many Democrats, at least at the grassroots level, oppose the Vision for Space Exploration, in large part simply because it was proposed by President Bush. He argues that space exploration in general fits with the progressive roots of the party, given the potential for clean energy and unlimited resources from space. As he writes, “The space program can provide the solutions to many of the problems Democrats care about, while the pursuit of egalitarianism, international cooperation, excellence in education and other Democratic issues can contribute to a successful space program.” However, what Brooks doesn’t say is that support for that agenda doesn’t necessarily translate into support for the Vision for Space Exploration as outlined by Bush nearly two years ago: ideas like the utilization of space resources for the benefit of Earth are never explicitly mentioned as goals of the program.
Meanwhile, just because the Vision was proposed by a Republican President and funded by a Republican-led Congress doesn’t mean that all conservatives support the effort. Human Events reports that the Cato Institute once again has NASA on the chopping block. In a new book, Downsizing The Federal Government, Cato Institute Director of Tax Policy Chris Edwards has deemed NASA “obsolete”. Why? “We can’t afford it,” he told Human Events, adding that “the private sector is exploring space travel of its own.” This is the same old argument that Cato has been pushing for some time, with little effect to date.
Brooks seems “shocked, shocked” that liberals oppose space exploration. There has been a thread of that opposition in the left for over a generation. Anyone remember Walter Mondale?
Cato, by the way, is more of a libertarian than conservative think tank, and it’s therefore not surprising that it opposes a large scale space exploration program.
Liberals often oppose military spending, and the aerospace companies that do space are also often beneficiaries of military spending. It’s not surprising liberals wouldn’t consider it worthwhile to send money to those companies, given that those companies probably support the conservatives more than the liberals.
Wasn’t Mondale’s mistake with the space shuttle that he wasn’t pessimistic enough about how it would turn out? I mean, even he didn’t say the operating costs would be as high and the flight rate as low as they ended up being.
I really liked this article for the simple reason that the Vision (not the Architecture) may still need to be sold across the aisle, especially if we have a party change in the Whitehouse. I’ve been doing some informal suveying of the DNC party base to see what a Democratic President would do to the Vision and all seem ready to flush the entire thing. They have no alternative other than a return to “pure science” so I think its something that really needs to be worked on.
There may be some bipartisan support in Congress due to the spending that happens in Democratic districts but that doesn’t directly translate to support by a Democratic Whitehouse.
I am another so-called “liberal” who is a fervent supporter of America (both public & private sectors) pursing a robust program of human space exploration. Kudos to Jeff Brooks!
Given the accumulated baggage associated with the word “liberal” perhaps the term “leftie libertarian” needs to be coined.
perhaps the term “leftie libertarian” needs to be coined
The problem is (not being an expert by any means) it is not a 1-d line, but a 2-D. There is a social side and a economic side. You could very well be progressive socially economicly conservative, or vis-versa. Conservative and liberal have kind of lost there meanings as most “conservatives” (like me) are really 18th century liberals.
Nolan Chart
As another “crossover” Democrat, I too very much enjoyed this article. In fact, I once wrote a similar piece for Space News, from a different point of view but making many of the same points,
http://www.speakeasy.org/~donaldfr/democrts.html
I, too, find it very difficult to support this disaster of a President in anything at all, but somehow someone among his handlers managed to get this one thing right. While many of the President’s supporters seem perfectly willing to do so, I will not sell my nation or humanity down the river just to maintain my ideological purity. The VSE as a whole, while not all of its latter-day details, deserves and gets my active and public support.
All that said, the two greatest threats to an expansive, publicly funded space program for our country are this administration’s ongoing disaster in Iraq and their inability to comprehend the basic concepts behind balancing a check book. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush’s black-and-white view of the world is also seriously undermining the private space industry. Somebody needs to ask how we are going to expand into the Solar System if exporting civilian space equipment is off limits — while we happily sell the things that actually kill people to almost all takers.
— Donald
Regarding another article in this week’s Space Review, ever since I covered the Ph-D proposal many years ago for a long-dead journal, after being introduced to the late Dr. Singer’s work by Tim Kyger, I have thought the idea extraordinarily important. While it’s mentioned, I don’t think Jeff or his sources sufficiently address the synergistic nature of such a mission. By going to the Martian moons, you do the lowest cost possible mission (at least in energy terms) and you get Mars and one or two carbon-asteroids in a single flight. If you believe, as I do, that the asteroids offer the key to truly confident travel about the Solar System (they are located almost everywhere, at every conceivable delta-V, and they offer many resources to potentially live off the land), you can gain experience working on asteroids while you do a cheaper-than-landing Mars mission. You might also get a lot of resources to support a Mars infrastructure from Photos, not least oxygen to breath and burn in rocket engines. Dr. Singer also pointed out that you can teleoperate rovers on Mars in realtime from a Photos base, without the time delay of doing so from Earth.
I have long thought Phobos should be our single highest priority after the moon, and I’ve never understood why this idea consistently fails to capture the imagination of the space community.
— Donald
I don’t see that John Glenn or whoever is any smarter about this business than George W. Bush.
A pox on both of their houses.
Libertarian: Someone who wants more dope and porn and cheap labor and lower taxes.
alt.space Libertarian: someone who wants lower taxes and less buuu-rockracy and a gu’men contract.
> Brooks seems “shocked, shocked” that liberals oppose space exploration. There
> has been a thread of that opposition in the left for over a generation. Anyone
> remember Walter Mondale?
Anyone remember John F. Kennedy, who started the first Apollo program? John Glenn? For that matter, do you remember that the NASA employees union endorsed John Kerry for President?
Sorry, Mark, but your vision of space exploration as a state “program” run by civil servants is (and always has been) a liberal vision. Ronald Reagan, the only truly conservative President of modern times, saw no value in merely sending civil servants to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
> Cato, by the way, is more of a libertarian than conservative think tank,
> and it’s therefore not surprising that it opposes a large scale space
> exploration program.
Actually, it’s the Evil Libertarians who want large-scale space exploration, Mark. You want to launch four guys in a Constellation capsule three times a year. We want to launch thousands. Your space exploration program is tiny, almost non-existant.
Again, I’ll quote the words of Ronald Reagan: “Libertarianism is the heart and soul of conservatism.” Being a big-spending big-government Republican does not make you a conservative any more than being a big-spending big-government Democrat makes Bill White a “libertarian.”
> There may be some bipartisan support in Congress due to the spending
> that happens in Democratic districts but that doesn’t directly translate
> to support by a Democratic Whitehouse.
The Democrats don’t need to buy liberal votes, and the Republicans can’t. (Again, the NASA employee union supported John Kerry; even the administration’s VSE waterbearer, Keith Cowing, says he still voted for Kerry.) If a moderate Republican like George W. Bush can’t get NASA’s support, after gifting them with a 6% budget increase, who can?
At the same time, Republicans (at least in this Administration) see no need to please their free-market supporters, figuring they will vote Republican no matter what.
As a result, we end up with basically the same policies no matter which party is in power.
Cato should take a longer view. Colonized planets do much more for liberty than saving a few bucks now. I do, however, think that we would do well to channel money going to NASA into prizes or subsidies for space accomplishments.
Edward,
While the leadership of the NASA’s Public Employees union endorsed Kerry, I strongly suspect that a substantial majority of the rank and file voted for Bush. To have not done so would go strongly against the grain of the demographic that largely comprises the workforce at NASA.
Colonized planets do much more for liberty than saving a few bucks now.
Why is that?
Paul, the answer to your question is easy. Because of easy communications and “globalization,” humanity on Earth is quickly becoming homogenized into a single global culture, which will ultimately lead to a single political entity. While the term “cultural diversity” does not seem to have much pull on this list, the lack of it is probably bad for our species — cultural, political, and biological diversity means that you have more chances for someone to survive is something goes wrong or if some old idea no longer works. We risk becoming another Egypt isolated in a defined area and with little outside contact. Egyptian art, governance, and technology at the beginning of the Dynastic period was almost indistinguishable from those at its end three thousand years later, and the society was quickly subsumed by Rome. Is that really the fate we want for ourselves, confined to the limited and defined area of Earth’s dry-land surface?
The globalization process is also irreversible on our small planet, short of a calamity that none of us are likely to want. A multi-planet species could reestablish the physical, political, cultural, biological, and technological diversity of the world of even a few hundred years ago, a condition that would make our survival much more likely.
I consider this the single most important reason for a human space effort.
Edward: Ronald Reagan, the only truly conservative President of modern times, saw no value in merely sending civil servants to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Huh? Wasn’t it Mr. Reagan who started, and disastrously mismanaged, a project to send a few civil servants no farther than low Earth orbit?
— Donald
Mike said:
> I strongly suspect that a substantial majority of the rank and file voted
> for Bush. To have not done so would go strongly against the grain
> of the demographic that largely comprises the workforce at NASA.
Huh? What makes you think civil servants are a demographic that vote Republican? They’ve always been a solid Democratic block. I’ve heard quite a few NASA employees say they joined because they admired JFK and don’t think the US military should be in space.
Donald said:
> Huh? Wasn’t it Mr. Reagan who started, and disastrously mismanaged, a
> project to send a few civil servants no farther than low Earth orbit?
No, the space station was managed by James Beggs, Dan Goldin, Sean O’Keefe, and Mike Griffin. Reagan was never NASA Administrator, nor die he approve Space Station Freedom not for “a few civil servants” but because NASA told him it would help open space for ordinary Americans. In those days, NASA was still claiming they would soon make it possible for ordinary Americans to fly in space. NASA also told him the station would cost no more than $8 billion (and, no, they did *not* say “excluding transportation costs”).
It’s an interesting bias that blames Reagan for the space station but excuses the NASA employees who misled him. It’s also interesting that you blame one Republican for starting “a project to send a few civil servants no farther than low Earth orbit” while calling for another Republican to support a more expensive project to send fewer civil servants to the Moon.
Reagan may have listened to bad advice and chosen the wrong means, but there’s no doubt his goal was to open space to the American people (“the real America,” as he called them).
Trying to paint him as a Kennedy elitist who just wanted cool trips for a few government employees is simply wrong.
Edward, I know of no practical evidence to support your contentions regarding Mr. Reagan’s spaceflight beliefs. Certainly, the decisions his administration made were not all that different from others.
The decision to start the Space Station was Mr. Reagan’s, no matter who within his Administration thought it up or advocated for the idea. The pointless planning and re-planning that ultimately helped result in the Station’s vast cost also began during Mr. Reagan’s watch. Once upon a time the buck stopped with the President, and the executive agencies and civil servants were not blamed for their boss’s mistakes. For better or worse, it was Mr. Reagan’s administration, and thus Mr. Reagan himself, who set the space program on its current path.
Also, I wasn’t “blaming” anyone for anything, at least not here. I was only pointing out that it was Mr. Reagan who approved and started the Space Station project.
— Donald
> I know of no practical evidence to support your contentions regarding
> Mr. Reagan’s spaceflight beliefs.
“Mister” Reagan??? After the hissy fits Kieth Cowing and others have thrown about people calling Griffin “mister” instead of “doctor,” it’s interesting to see you “mistering” a former President.
As the Gipper would say, there are a great many things Democrats don’t know.
> Certainly, the decisions his administration made were not all that different from others.
Really? You don’t see any significant difference between Reagan’s space policies and those of JFK/Bush I/Bush II? You’ve decided Apollo and Constellation don’t matter, after all???
What other administration started a program to fly American teachers in space and return them to the classrooms?
What other President had regular White House luncheons for space entrepreneurs? (What other President has even had one?)
What other President approved major programs with the explicit goal of opening space for the American people, rather than just sending probes and government employees to explore “for” the people?
> The decision to start the Space Station was Mr. Reagan’s, no matter who
> within his Administration thought it up or advocated for the idea.
Yes, but Reagan did not decide to start a $100-billion space station — he decided to start an $8-billion space station.
Kennedy approved Apollo *knowing* it would cost well over $100-billion (in today’s dollars). He boasted that he chose to go to the Moon because “no other goal would be more costly to achieve.”
Bush also knows that ESAS will cost over $100-billion.
There’s a difference between approving a program you think will cost $8 billion plan and approving a program you know will cost over $100 billion.
There’s a difference between approving a program you think will help open space for the American people and approving a plan that you know won’t allow anyone but a few NASA employees to go.
So, what is your gripe with Reagan? The fact that Freedom/ISS has “pointless” redesigns? They weren’t pointless, they were necessary — because NASA couldn’t build the space station it promised to build for $8 billion.
VSE is likely to have multiple redesigns, too. It’s already had one, when Griffin threw out O’Keefe’s plan and substituted ESAS.
So, why do you rail against Reagan for approving a space station that grew into a $100-billion project, while applauding a new project, already budgeted at over $100 billion, to be build an equally limited space station on the Moon? Is it just because the Moon is a cooler place for astronauts to hang out than LEO?
Ed Wright Wrote:
“Huh? What makes you think civil servants are a demographic that vote Republican?”
Not all civil servants are equal. I am a civil servant for a state environmental protection agency. At least half of my section, which largely consists of Biologists and other soft science majors (I am a hard scientist btw). About 40% are female and Bush still carried my section.
The demographic of NASA is quite largely Male, Engineering and Hard Science majors and by the average age, not just out of college. By all rights Bush should have gotten at least 70% of that crowd, I would bet my bottom dollar he got at least 51%. These arent a bunch of social servants at HUD or panzies at the State Department by any stretch.
The fact that some Union Bigs Wigs endorsed Kerry means little, their influence over the rank and file of a group of workers, especially higher than average IQ Professional Scientists and Engineers that proabally resent being told who to vote for will be microscopic at best. The UMWA endorsed Kerry yet Bush handily carried West Virginia.
Dr. Griffin in the all-hands meeting last week said “When I was with the DOD I had $5 billion/yr to develop technology. I wish I had that, but we have to fly missions. If we don’t fly missions, I don’t know what we’re developing technology for.”
I hope he has read the National Aviation and Space Act. NASA was originally created to develop technology, not so we can go to the Moon or Mars, but for the benefit of the country, primarily by advancing the technology of flight. When anyone at NIH or NIST or DOE wants a project funded, they have to prove it’s worth the money. Soon that will also be true for NASA.
The next administration, whether under McCain or Clinton, will have to face a huge deficit. It will ask what useful science or technology will come out of VSE. Public support will crumble the first time taxes are mentioned. Or maybe you don’t remember Apollo 12? Nixon was president.
Scientists won’t support manned flight because it produces less science than robotic systems. ISS may retain some funding to avoid breaking international agreements. Manned flights to the Moon and Mars will not produce any financial return, and won’t provide sufficient scientific or political benefits to win continued support, until the cost of human spaceflight is reduced by at least a factor of ten.
It’s time for NASA to return to its original mission, the one that was forgotten, not when the Moon race ended, but when it began.
Donald, thanks for stating why you support space exploration & colonization. This is far and away my main reason for being zealously pro-space, and it is a viewpoint that I have heard expressed from all quarters, without regards to political affiliation or even beliefs. I wish it could be more emphasized among pro-space advocates, but it is a difficult point to state susinctly. You’ve done the best job of it that I’ve ever seen.
And now I shall attempt to gracefully sidestep the more fracticious political debate by tactfully neglecting to point out that it was the allegedly “conservative” Reagan who started the modern era of exponential big-government deficit spending, a practice that was only reined in by Clin– whoops!
> I am a civil servant for a state environmental protection agency. At least half of my section, which
> largely consists of Biologists and other soft science majors (I am a hard scientist btw). About 40%
> are female and Bush still carried my section.
How many people in your section? I suspect it is not a statistically significant sample.
> The demographic of NASA is quite largely Male, Engineering and Hard Science majors and by
> the average age, not just out of college. By all rights Bush should have gotten at least 70%
> of that crowd,
What are you basing that on? I’ve read (can’t remember where) that the overwhelmng majority of scientists voted for Kerry in the last election.
If you want to compare anecdotal evidence, again, my personal observation of NASA employees is that most tend to be fairly liberal, often professing to admiration for JFK and anti-militarism as reasons for working at NASA. Not uniformly, but it seems to tend that way.
Aerospace company employees, on the other hand, seem to support military spending that benefits them, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into support for other military spending, for the military in general, or for the Republican party. There are plenty who want Joint Strike Fighter and ISS because they will “create jobs” but still hate Bush.
I remember Lockheed made a big donation to Kerry just before the election. (They may have made a similar donation to Bush, but I don’t remember hearing about it.)
> higher than average IQ Professional Scientists and Engineers that proabally resent being told
> who to vote for will be microscopic at best. The UMWA endorsed Kerry yet Bush handily
> carried West Virginia.
True, but mine workers don’t worry about being ostracized at wine and cheese parties.
Or maybe you don’t remember Apollo 12? Nixon was president.
The decision to end Apollo was made by the Johnson administration. The later moon flights were running on inertia, to close it out.
With respect to Reagan, I wrote a piece about his space policy (and one little-known aspect of it) when he died last year.
Nathan, it makes no more sense to blame Reagan for deficits than it does to credit Clinton for reducing them. In both cases, it was Congress that was largely responsible. Sadly, the only way to get real deficit control is a Republican Congress with a Democrat president, so they won’t give him (or her) the spending that (s)he wants.
“What are you basing that on? I’ve read (can’t remember where) that the overwhelmng majority of scientists voted for Kerry in the last election.”
Depends on what classifies as a Scientist.
Social Scientist?, Biologists? I’ll buy Kerry took those but I doubt he carried the Hard Sciences.
I am in a math department, and my wife is in a physics department. I estimate that Kerry carried both departments (at the faculty level) by at least three to one. We both have some friends who almost certainly voted for Bush, but they are a rare breed in math and physics.
A lot of mathematicians and physicists are happy with basic conservative and libertarian concepts like balanced budgets and economic growth. But even much of that group has been alienated by a lot of what Bush has said and done. In particular, in regard to space policy, the most likely reaction is that the VSE speech is both ludicrous and insincere. The only way to make the VSE look good is to infer logic between the lines of drivel.
Certainly, Nathan, glad to see someone else on this list has a sense of history and our place in it!
Bob, I would be glad to have NASA “go back to its original mission,” but only if another agency takes over the exploration role. Traditionally, this was done by the military in general and the Navy in particular. But, “physical human exploration” is every bit as important as “science” or “aerospace technical development.”
I’m agnostic on who does it, and I’d certainly agree that NASA has generally done a rather poor job of it, but I believe it is essential to a healthy society so _somebody_ has to do it.
— Donald
“I am in a math department, and my wife is in a physics department. I estimate that Kerry carried both departments (at the faculty level) by at least three to one. We both have some friends who almost certainly voted for Bush, but they are a rare breed in math and physics.”
Two academics in two departments at one college in a very blue state. Most Scientists and especially Engineers are not employed in the Carl Sagan wing of academia.
> Depends on what classifies as a Scientist.
> Social Scientist?, Biologists? I’ll buy Kerry took those but I doubt he
> carried the Hard Sciences.
Remember “Scientists for Kerry” with their “48 Nobel Prize Winners” and “5000 scientists and engineers”? Remember the Union of Concerned Scientists? The American Federation of Scientists? Scientists Against Nuclear Exchange? AAAS? APS? Bob Park? Carl Sagan — a perennial favorite at NASA? The current director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who openly campaigned for Kerry?
That’s just off the top of my head. Of course, that’s still anecdotal — I still can’t find that danged article! — but I see very little evidence that scientists lean to the right and a great deal of evidence to the contrary.
> Two academics in two departments at one college in a very blue state.
> Most Scientists and especially Engineers are not employed in the Carl Sagan
> wing of academia.
A lot of government aerospace is concentrated in blue states — California and Washington — and academia tends to be left-leaning everywhere. If you’re at some small agricultural college in the mid-west, I suppose it might be different.
You might consider the posters here as evidence. Nathan Koren works for KSC, but he’s as strident as Donald. I think Donald’s website actually provides a good insight. His frank description of Apollo as white-collar welfare would be howled down as politically incorrect, except that it’s coming from someone is advocating more welfare (as a way of buying votes for the Democratic Party).
Mike, here’s another example. An MIT engineering professor and NASA contractor who says she decided to become an engineer instead of a lawyer because she “despised Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.”
http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2000/02/16/davanewman/index.html
I’ve seldom heard NASA employees express it that bluntly, but many would share her view that “Space was no place for war.” (I guess they prefer to keep war on Earth, where it belongs.
Donald: Thanks!
Rand: I’m sorry, but you’re incorrect. Carter had a Democratic congress, yet managed to keep deficit spending relatively under control (rising from $55 to $74 billion annually). Clinton also had a democratic congress during the first two years of his administration, yet began reining in deficit spending during that time (from $259 to $226 billion). In contrast, deficit spending increased dramatically under Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43 (by 172%, 46%, and 1,618%, respectively, through 2004), regardless of which party controlled the legislative branch.
These numbers, by the way, come from the Congressional Budget Office. They are not adjusted for inflation, however doing so would make Carter look better and Bush 43 look even worse: http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0
Congress is neither the problem nor the solution. Congresscritters have a universal and bipartisan appetite for whatever they believe will benefit their home districts. This transcends any party philosophy, and translates into: pork, pork, and more pork. It is the executive branch which has the responsibility to act for the good of the country as a whole, and thus both the credit and the blame national deficits must go to them. Even though it is clear that recent Democratic presidents have performed far better in this regard than recent Republican presidents, I do *not* attribute this to any particular party philosophy. Rather, I believe it has to do with the character and fiscal intelligence of the president himself.
Take Reagan, for example. He *preached* small-government endlessly, but in fact increased the federal payroll dramatically. He wanted his weapons spending, and wouldn’t let anything as ephemeral as “fiscal discipline” stand in his way. Although he made some token cuts to social services (remember how the Republicans gloated about gutting the NEA’s insignificant budget?), these in no way offset his hugely increased spending. Bush 43 is very much in this mold, only moreso.
Moreover, what Reagan and every subsequent Republican president has TOTALLY failed to understand is that, from the perspective of the balance sheet, there is NO DIFFERENCE between lower revenue and increased spending. None at all. Thus it is as ridiculous to equate fiscal conservatism with “tax cuts” as it would be to equate fiscal conservatism with “spending increases”. From a fiscal perspective, there the two are one and the same.
This is what I mean by the “fiscal intelligence of the president”. Clinton, whatever his other faults, understood this principal extremely well, talked about it in so many words, and successfully implemented his policy with this in mind. I do not believe that Reagan understood this principal, and I know for a certainty that Bush 43 does not.
Finally, I will admit that this analysis is harsher on the Republican presidents than it ought to be, because deficit spending is not an entirely bad thing, and in fact is entirely appropriate to palance out the low points in the business cycle. Carter should probably have done more of it, for example. However from the narrow-but-vital perspective of balanced budgets, its clear that congress is not culpable one way or the other, and that recent Democratic presidents have been far superior to recent Republican presidents, the end.
Ed: I’m sorry, but you must have mistaken me for somebody else. I’m an architect in Portland, Oregon. I’ve never been to KSC, nor do I frankly give two shits about it. My enthusiasm for NASA only extends as far as they’re willing to allocate prizes (well, I’ve also been known to get excited about some of their planetary explorations — you’ve got to admit that the MERs are freakin’ cool). Otherwise, my money is (or would be, if I had any) on SpaceX, Mojave Aerospace, Bigelow, Xcor, Blue Origin, Armadillo, X-Rocket, et cetera et cetera. I know that you and I have clashed swords frequently, but it’s always been about style rather than substance. Please believe that I am as thoroughly on the pro-private-space bandwagon as it is possible to be.
Okay, jeeze, that was a way too long comment…
Even though it is clear that recent Democratic presidents have performed far better in this regard than recent Republican presidents, I do *not* attribute this to any particular party philosophy. Rather, I believe it has to do with the character and fiscal intelligence of the president himself.
Then please explain (again, recognizing that this is off topic, Jeff) why it was that Clinton’s “plans” to reduce the deficit varied so much (from a few years, to many, beyond his Constitutional term in office) until the Republicans won the Congress.
Rand, they didn’t. Please re-read my post, and look at the CBO numbers again. Or anybody else’s numbers, for that matter, if you don’t trust the CBO. Clinton began reducing deficit spending immediately, before the Republicans won Congress. And he completly eliminated deficit spending during his term in office, not “a few years, to many years beyond” it.
So, do you think you could un-drink the partisan kool-aid for a minute and allow yourself to argue with, like, actual facts? I’m not a rah-rah Clinton supporter, and I’m not even a Democrat, but I don’t see how you can argue with those numbers; Moreover, if you look at his early speeches on the subject, you can very clearly see that he intended to balance the budget in more or less exactly the way that he, in fact, did. Heck, I’ll trade your acknowledgement of this truth for an acknowledgement that Bush 43 (who I generally despise) didn’t propose the VSE “just to make himself look good”, but rather, actually, proposed it for more or less for the exact reasons that he said he did. See? I can be non-partisan too!
> what Reagan and every subsequent Republican president has TOTALLY failed to understand is that,
> from the perspective of the balance sheet, there is NO DIFFERENCE between lower revenue and increased spending. None at all
“From the perspective of the (government balance sheet…” — that says a lot.
“Liberals” look at spending solely from the perspective of the government bureaucrat or politician, who wants to spend as many tax dollars as possible on a limitless array of programs.
Reagan say it from the perspective of the *taxpayer*, who has to work for those dollars, which the bureaucrats and politicians take away and spend so freely.
The difference between tax cuts and spending increases may not matter to those who merely spend taxpayer’s dollars, but it matters a *lot* to people who have to earn those dollars.
That’s why Reagan trounced you guys in election after election. “Liberals” might not care how much burden the common taxpayer has to bear, but taxpayers certainly did.
> Ed: I’m sorry, but you must have mistaken me for somebody else. I’m an architect in Portland, Oregon.
Oops. Pesky Alzheimer’s.
Ed, first of all, no problem ’bout the Alzheimer’s. Happens to me all the time.
Secondly, your implication that “liberal” is somehow antithetical to “taxpayer” is deeply offensive. I am a liberal, and I pay an assload of taxes (not because I am wealthy, but because I am self-employed and must therefore pay double). So do all my liberal friends. So please take that rhetoric and shove it. It is untrue un every possible respect, and serves no other purpose than to insult.
Thirdly, and recognizing how deeply off-topic this thread has become, but damnit I’m tipsy tonight and feel like fighting — Reagan argued from the perspective of a *stupid* taxpayer, rather than a *smart* one. That this got him some political traction doesn’t make him right; politicians get traction out of stupid ideas all the time.
Regardless of whatever rhetoric you want to use, it’s simply indisputable that nations, like individuals, MUST EVENTUALLY RECKON WITH THEIR CHECKBOOKS. Given the outrageous taxes that I pay, I would of course *love* to pay less. However I cannot sanction the destruction of my nation in the process. And that is what ongoing deficit spending entails: the eventual destruction of the nation that I love.
There are three, and only three, eventual outcomes to rampant deficit spending:
1.) Deficits created today can be made up with taxes payed tomorrow. A *lot* of taxes payed tomorrow, because now you’ve got interest to pay, too. If this is the sort of country you want to create, move to Sweden.
2.) Deficits created today can be made up with budgets cut tomorrow. A *lot* of budgets, not just your hated entitlements programs (which I’m not so fond of, either). As in: you like having non-toll roads? Water? Police & firemen? A military? Think again. If this the kind of nation you want, then move to some country that is undergoing an IMF structural adjustment. Or maybe Somalia. Not a lot of national budget, there.
3.) Deficits created today can be resolved by defaulting on the debt. Looking at Argentina can only give you a *hint* of what this would entail, because the entire *world* runs on dollars, and an American debt default would lead to a global monetary collapse. If this is the kind of country you want, then you should DEFINITELY move to Somalia.
Those are the three options. Cheap, idiotic, feel-good Reaganesque homilies about “the common man” can have real long-term impacts, and this is how. In order to preserve both the individual *or* the nation, you’ve got to consider the needs of both. You respond to my looking at things “from the government balance sheet” as though thinking these things through is some sort of crime. Truth is that I’m all in favor of reducing taxes for individuals — like myself, like ALL liberals — when doing so doesn’t create persistant deficit spending, thus causing the destruction, one way or another, of the country that I love.
Clinton began reducing deficit spending immediately, before the Republicans won Congress.
By being lucky enough to inherit a recovered economy (the recession had ended before the election).
And he completly eliminated deficit spending during his term in office, not “a few years, to many years beyond” it.
But he never described any plan to do so, or he described many plans to do so, with many different timetables. He had no plan (unless it was a secret plan to bring the Republicans into Congress in 1994, in which case he executed it brilliantly).
Ed Wright’s main activity is to snarf up refreshments at space meetings so as to enhance his girth. Other than that all he ever does is post on Internet boards and criticise everybody else for everything they do or don’t do. He never tells anyone how he personally contributes to the exploration of space – commercial, personal, or otherwise. He just lives to dump on others.
If the comments on this thread are any indication, the “Grand Alliance” I talked about in my article is dead in the water.
Rand: Let me see if I grasp your hypothesis. Bill Clinton, although he *talked* about a plan to eliminate the deficit, had some inconsistancies from year to year in his plan, and therefore didn’t actually have a plan at all. The deficit reductions during his first two years in office were threfore accidental. Once the Republicans swept into power in congress, the only “plan” which they gave voice to was “more tax cuts!,” and although they largely failed in this regard, it was an effective smokescreen for their real, *secret* plan. Which was to keep taxes relatively level, and eliminate deficit spending by selflessly reducing the flow of pork into their districts, over Clinton’s howls of protest. This was their plan, and they stuck to it with the dilligence of a Rhodes’ Scholar. Such discipline! Such restraint!
Unfortunately, once Bush came into office, these very same congressional Republicans lost any and every sense of self-control, and went on the greatest deficit spending binge in American history, acting like coked-out frat boys in charge of a strip club. Such gluttony! Such excess! So this is why the sitting president has nothing whatsoever to do with the state of the budget.
Is this your hypothesis, Rand? If so, it’s an … intersesting … hypothesis.
Jubal: In sincere defense of Ed, his X-Rocket is doing good things, from what I’ve heard through the grapevine. And although I’m not sure how much Rocket Racing LLC is *directly* responsible for the X-Prize Cup or the Rocket Racing League, it’s undeniable that Ed was there first, arguing for the creation of *exactly* these kind of competitions. That’s a Very Good Thing, and I honestly respect him for it. I wish he would spend more time with those activities, and less time making enemies on the Internet. And finally, I would be a hypocrite if I did not leap to the defense of someone who is accused of snarfing the refreshment tables at space conferences.
Jeff: I’m afraid that until conservatives stop trying to demonize the very *word* “liberal”, any kind of alliance *is* pretty much DOA. The conservative movement derives its strength from its ideological purity, and will do anything to maintain this purity, even if it is in fact an utter farce. The economic conservatives and the religious fundamentalists, for example, have very little philosophical common ground. But by agreeing to advance and to never question each others’ agendas, they have been able to scrape together a tenuous majority. But they *know* that this unity is tenuous, and therefore treat any *hint* of political or philosophical diversity as a mortal threat to their power. There is a line to be toed, and the slightest deviation from it is impermissible. If they can’t stop themselves from libeling and demonizing people like McCain or Murtha, how can they be expected to parlay with any *actual* liberals?
Bill Clinton, although he *talked* about a plan to eliminate the deficit, had some inconsistancies from year to year in his plan, and therefore didn’t actually have a plan at all.
Yes, there was no discernable plan (other than to raise taxes). He talked about having a plan, with varying numbers of years before it would reach fruition, depending on the date and the audience, but there is no evidence of an actual plan.
The deficit reductions during his first two years in office were threfore accidental.
Yes, to the degree that any deficit reduction resulting from a recovering economy is accidental. What was Mr. Clinton’s “plan” for reducing the deficit that actually resulted in a reduced deficit in the first two years?
Once the Republicans swept into power in congress, the only “plan” which they gave voice to was “more tax cuts!,” and although they largely failed in this regard, it was an effective smokescreen for their real, *secret* plan. Which was to keep taxes relatively level, and eliminate deficit spending by selflessly reducing the flow of pork into their districts, over Clinton’s howls of protest. This was their plan, and they stuck to it with the dilligence of a Rhodes’ Scholar. Such discipline! Such restraint!
No one had a plan, but I appreciate the amusing strawman of my description of the history. The Republicans forced deficit reduction by forcing spending cuts. They didn’t get all they wanted (Bill Clinton shut down the government to prevent it, and then blamed it on them), but they prevented spending from growing much more than it would have had the Dems remained in control of the Hill.
Unfortunately, once Bush came into office, these very same congressional Republicans lost any and every sense of self-control, and went on the greatest deficit spending binge in American history, acting like coked-out frat boys in charge of a strip club.
They did, in fact, because Bush himself has no discernable spending discipline, and the Republicans are much less likely to attempt to rein in a president of their own party than that of a Democrat. Again, this is why I would prefer a Democrat president and a Republican Congress, were we not at war.
…it’s undeniable that Ed was there first, arguing for the creation of *exactly* these kind of competitions.
Actually, I wrote a paper on this at the 1998 STAIF conference (and the idea has been kicking around since the early nineties at least). But Ed should be credited for actually going out and investing the time and money to help make it happen.
And he completely eliminated deficit spending during his term in office…
No, deficit spending was not completely eliminated. In fact the national debt has gone up every year since 1957. The least it increased under Clinton was by ~18 billion. But this is not the same as eliminated.