I would have voted against the stimulus package too. But I would have signed the letter as well,..

you would not have the courage to submit a bill? As a “member” of Congress you could do that?

Robert G. Oler

Robert Oler and Ferris Valyn reminds us that Democrats both voted for the stimulus bill and now want to spend the money on space. I am at a lost to understand what difference that makes. ..

.that you do not understand it is illustrative of why the GOP is in trouble…despite an administration which seems (at least now) to be self destructing.

The purpose of the stim bill was to create 1) jobs and 2) infrastructure which could further a recovery.

that is not a bad goal, particularly in the economic shape that the last administration left The Republic. FDR in the Depression illustrated the theory. Electrifying the south, building Aircraft Carriers, and some of the other grand projects 1) kept people employed 2) kept or created infrastructure that was essential to the future of The Republic and 3) actually created things of value. Enterprise, Hornet, Yorktown, and Wasp were all built with WPA funds. They kept the shipyards which would be badly needed in future years open and as it turned out carried the brunt of the fight in WW2.

It is hard to argue that the WPA funds spent on those ships (particularly the first three) did not get repaid in value to The Republic. Big E alone might have done it.

The folks who voted against it for the most part had voted for enormous deficit spending under Bush. OK the stim bill was the largest at one chunk but the Iraq war alone added to more spending all deficit (since it was off budget) then the stim bill had.

So now they got religion on the stim bill…or more likely it was just that the spending was proposed by a Dem administration.

At least the Dems were honest about it. They thought we should deficit for mostly the same reasons FDR did it. I dont think that they spent it very well and most of the jobs that were “created” or “saved” even if real wont change the economic momentum like the WPA funds on the Yorktown class ships did (Wasp was not a Yorkie class CV BTW).

If Olsen and the rest of the GOP had a measure of sense, they would have demanded changes in the stim bill for their vote, and at least on a district by district breakdown directed the spending at something “useful” that would ahve made the job and future situation in their district better.

As it is they now have the worst of all worlds. They voted against the spending, now want it, and want it for jobs that dont have a chance of helping the recovery.

Me? I would have voted for the stim bill, but in return for my vote gotten some changes in how it was spent in my district and had it programmed for things which 1) put people to work and 2) made the district better after the jobs dissapeared because of completion.

Robert G. Oler

I would have voted against the stimulus package too. But I would have signed the letter as well, mainly because I recognize that we live in the political universe we live in and not the idealized one where ones political enemies must always be pure but oneself can be just a venal as one wishes to be.

Ares is a small but yet another tired legacy of GOP spending over the 2001 to 09 era where there was other then to its corporate base (which prospered…) no value to the rest of the country.

Dems have that problem as well, but they are not the ones claiming to be fiscally responsible.

Robert G. Oler

Most of the Florida political leaders who asked for additional money are Republican, and also demanded tax cuts. However the Democrats also failed to explain why taxpayers in other parts of the country should have to pay more for a huge new project (Constellation) that does not benefit them.

..

yes almost no one can explain that.

Robert G. Oler

Nice Try Mark.

As we say “that dog wont hunt”.

A big country or an individual can in any sort of “sane” existence AFFORD the things that it is willing to actually pay for.

There are two ways to afford things, one is by paying cash for them (ie revenue comes in and money in terms of expenditures goes out) or by taking out a loan which one is obligated to repay. That is really not much different then the paying cash method except in almost all cases one usually pays some sort of premium for the use of other people’s money.

Nations do a form of that. We deficit spent in WW2 because our very survival was at stake (something that could not be said since) AND in some modest fashion although not aimed at it, the spending created the infrastructure that created new economies and economic conditions which grew the economy at an amazing rate for at least two maybe three decades. This allowed either the funds to be repaid or the “note” on them to be trivial in terms of tax revenue.

NONE of the deficit spending that the last administration has any chance of being a net multiplier in terms of our economic value. It was all fat instead of protien…and that included all the spending on Ares to date.

It was not just that the 9 billion spent so far was inefficient (all federal spending mostly is)…it is that what it has been spent on has no chance of every “pumping” our economy to make us more competitive or to allow revenue to repay the cost. Not only are we as a generation willing to tax ourselves to pay for the things we want, but what we WANT HAS NO CHANCE OF helping future generations pay for our spending.

From Iraq to tax cuts for Rush Limbaugh to Ares all the spending the last administration did has been “feel good” spending…it has not done a thing to create a better America, as must be obvious from how things are today.

So when Republicans who voted for Bush’s massive spending, then got cold feet on Obama’s massive spending stand up and say “now that it is authorized we would like some of it”.

The kindest word is hypocrisy.

“Oler also uses an old liberal democratic trick of blaming Republicans for everything. He should be reminded that Democrats signed the letter too” LOL

on the Palin facebook page I am labeled an “intellectual”…

I dont blame Republicans for everything…although I do blame them for two useless wars, tax cuts that got the nation into deep debt, OBL being alive I blame on Bush personally, and Ares I blame on Bush/Griffin.

Dems signed the letter as well. But they also voted for the stim bill. It is their trough, they get to decide where it is spent. So that way when we are still in this mess because they spent it badly in 2012. I can help toss them out.

Robert G. Oler

Ironically, if NASA were continuing the Shuttle program it would be relatively easy to get the funds to support it as an ongoing effort, previously approved. However having taken the position that the Shuttle and even the ISS are of no importance and can be dropped, after telling the public for decades that they would produce practical benefits, it will be really tough for NASA to convince the taxpayers to fund Constellation, an expensive new program that doesn’t appear to to do anything that will help the average person.

The difference is that Democrats voted for ARRA.

Oler, by the way, plays a game that liberal Democrats have loved playing with the space issue for decades. One can only suggest that a big country can afford a civil space program as well as teachers and highways. One would suggest that all three should have money spent on to the most effect.

Oler also uses an old liberal democratic trick of blaming Republicans for everything. He should be reminded that Democrats signed the letter too. There is no partisanship when it comes to feeding at the toughth

First none of the people who signed this letter have any hope whatsoever that the money will be reprogrammed. IF THEY DID then each of them or collectivly would put a bill in motion in the House in particular which would attempt such a measure.

The letter is simply an aggrandizing effort to try and shift the blame for any changes in NASA off of them individually to someone else, preferably the Administration.

Second there is the act of voting against the bill and yet now after all the heavy lifting has been done trying to change it by “letter”.

When the stim bill came out all the members of the GOP voted against it. They did not try and modify it, or direct its spending to something more useful, they just voted no. Now to come and try and put their fingers in the pie is absurd.

Finally none of the members of the GOP who voted against the stim bill can explain why spending money at NASA on human spaceflight is any more or less stimulas then spending money on teachers in the Clear Creek Independent school district.

Yes the CCISD has taken stim money to keep teachers employeed. I dont think it is a good use of the money and I abhor a local school district taking money.

BUT lets program out the money and see where the effort goes. Say 100 teachers (thats to many) kept their jobs and instead we had to lay off 100 “somethings” at JSC. The very same money goes into salaries for both groups BUT AT THE VERY LEAST with teachers the kids get educated.

If we kept a lot of folks at JSC behind their desk…what does the nation get for that?

Olsen cannot answer that question and it is his district.

Lets play a game.

Assume that the 600 million dollars it took to fly Ares 1X for its “Mythic” two minutes could either have done that or finished making Texas highway 646 four lanes from I-45 to Highway 6.

which in the end better serves The Republic by creating jobs.

Understand the answer and you see the how badly full of horse excrement the GOP is now.

Robert G. Oler