Sent. It’s just my old anonymous.space@yahoo.com address.

It’s also fair to criticize it for wanting to explode it in the out years, or at least promoting policies that will have that effect.

Hmmm….let’s check with the treasury department:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

Total Public Debt 1/22/08: $ 9,188,640,287,930.39
Total Public Debt 1/20/09: $10,626,877,048,913.08

In other words, the real deficit for the last 363 days of the Bush administration was $1.44 Trillion. The difference between Obama’s first deficit ($1.82 Trillion estimated) and Bush’s last deficit is about 25%. Yes, the deficits are going up but the real jump (from essentially zero in 2000) occurred during the previous administration.

The previous administration has left the US with a yawning structural deficit. It is fair to criticize the current the current one for expanding but we should be clear that the bulk of the deficit did not originate with it.

I did not “play with words”. I simply showed that your argument has no basis in fact.

You claimed that the Administration is funding large deficits with one hand while cutting good programs like Innovative Partnerships with the other. I simply pointed out that the Administration had nothing to do with the House cuts to Innovative Partnerships and in fact requested the funding for Innovative Partnerships in the first place and has actually opposed the House cuts to those programs in writing.

Pointing out that someone’s argument has no basis in fact is not the same thing as playing with words.

And I’ll reiterate, it’s fine to criticize the Obama Administration (or any other White House), but we need to do so based on facts, not falsehoods.

“Obama’s administration has created deficits vastly exceeding any in history”

Another falsehood — this statement is just factually untrue. The U.S. ran higher deficits during WWI and much higher deficits during WWII. See:

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1900_2014&view=1&expand=&units=p&fy=fy10&chart=G0-fed&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&title=US%20Federal%20Deficit%20As%20Percent%20Of%20GDP&state=US&color=c&local=s

There may be much to criticize about the Recovery Act, the bank bailouts, or the auto bailouts. (I would certainly make such criticisms myself on a different, appropriate blog about the federal budget or the U.S. economy.) But your argument about the deficit is again based on made up, untrue claims, not facts.

I’ll reiterate a second time, it’s fine to criticize the Obama Administration (or any other White House), but we need to do so based on facts, not falsehoods.

“a tiny fraction of which could have paid for a fully funded space program.”

How is our civil space program not fully funded? Between the stimulus and the FY 2010 budget request, there’s actually a small increase to NASA’s budget versus the last Bush II budget for NASA. The NASA budgets in 2009, 2010, and 2011 are a combined $2,001 million higher. The FY 2010 budget request for NASA is $957 million less than the FY 2009 budget request for NASA in 2012 and 2013. And the House has proposed cutting the White House’s FY 2010 budget request for NASA by another $670 million (although the Senate appears likely to reverse that cut). The net is a $374 million increase to NASA’s budget from 2009 through 2013.

Moreoever, the money is coming earlier, which increases NASA’s purchasing power. This is also what the Constellation program has wanted for years — more budget before Shuttle retires so that Ares I/Orion development could follow a more natural development curve that was less constrained by Shuttle flyout costs.

Unfortunately, although Constellation was given what it wanted, NASA’s own estimates just for Ares I development have ballooned from $28 billion to $35-40 billion, and NASA’s own projected costs for Constellation through first lunar landing have nearly doubled from $57 billion to $92 billion.

The problem is not the budget. Rather, the problem is that Ares I and Constellation costs overall are skyrocketing and far outstripping the budget, whether it’s the accelerated Obama Administration’s budget profile or the old Bush II Administration’s budget profile.

Regardless of what’s happening with the federal deficit, NASA’s human space flight programs are still projected to get about $10 billion per year or over $100 billion through 2020. That’s a massive amount of taxpayer dollars for a program with a record of very few tangible returns. It’s not a question of whether it’s enough but how well it’s being spent.

FWIW…

Ah, so much longing for the Bush administration. At least they demonstrated they could take car of this nation really well: 9/11, Katrina, 2 wars without ends, seem to be the best examples coming to mind. Then financially they clearly put us on a path to wealth with the real estate bubble, and the financial speculation that they did not even understand themselves. It’s great that we had Hank Paulson, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, all three great fiscal conservatives. Otherwise it could have been a real mess! Oh but wait! Paulson started the bail out with a neat little $750M request because of the real estate mess thaat was orchestrated by whom? Greenspan maybe? Interest rates anyone? Ah and yeah Bernanke is still here but we do have a new entrant Tim Geithner. blahblahblahblah…. Space program blahblahblah… Very constructive and creative criticism. At least now we are going somewhere.

How about some real criticism about what the current WH is CURRENTLY doing? Unfortunately it would not belong to SPACE POLITICS. There are way more important issues than Space that need criticism BUT they are not about Space: It looks like they clearly and (un)fortunately are doing the right thing for Space. It does not mean y’all or even I have to like the results. Sometime therapy is not nice. Go blame the program leadership about the management and technical performances, those who were hired in the first place to do the job way back when.

Hey Major Tom, how would you say? Something like “Stones, glass houses, and all that.”

You want to claim that the deficits are huge, be my guest. But don’t imply its all about Obama, or that means there will be no money for space.