Congress, NASA

Still playing the waiting game

Three debate about NASA in Congress revolves around three procedural issues: when will the House take up a NASA authorization bill (and what it will look like), when will appropriators follow suit with funding, and since a final FY11 funding bill won’t be done until after October 1, will any policy changes be incorporated into a continuing resolution (CR)? Yesterday saw insights into, although not action on, all three.

In a meeting with reporters Tuesday morning House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer included a NASA authorization bill on “an ambitious to-do list” for the House between now and a planned adjournment on October 8. That statement didn’t make clear what bill the House would take up, although Florida Today reported that the House could take up the bill next week “if [Rep. Bart] Gordon and [Sen. Bill] Nelson reach a compromise.” That suggests the House is unlikely to vote on an unamended version of the bill the House Science and Technology Committee approved in July, something that would require a formal conferencing process to resolve differences from the Senate version and that others warned wouldn’t be feasible with the limited time remaining in the current session.

Meanwhile, Sen. Bill Nelson told CQ that the CR would not make any changes to NASA, including adding extra money or making other policy changes. Republicans, the report states, have said they would only support a “clean” CR without any changes, thus NASA programs (including, presumably, Constellation) would continue under the CR at current FY10 funding levels. Work on the final appropriations bill, he said, would have to wait until the lame duck session after the November mid-term elections.

59 comments to Still playing the waiting game

  • amightywind

    The GOP rolls out the new ‘Contract for America’ today. Congress will be distracted. NASA will be funded by a continuing resolution. There will be no agreement on NASA this year. A GOP congress will structure NASA much like it was before the dismal ‘Obama Years’. Ares I/Orion will be operational in 2015.

  • A GOP congress will structure NASA much like it was before the dismal ‘Obama Years’. Ares I/Orion will be operational in 2015.

    You better make that date 2019 Windy:

    From http://www.parabolicarc.com/2010/09/21/battle-nasas-budget-rages/#more-16925: There probably isn’t enough money to actually do the House version rockets at all even without a compromise, as we’ve noted previously. The House bill total for their Ares/Orion look-alikes is considerably less than the amount the Augustine Commission said was already inadequate for NASA to do the original Ares/Orion.

    Only a true ideologue would think this is good policy.

    Pass the pork please.

  • That NASA Engineer@KSC

    Much bigger issues will persist in the absence of leadership, culture change, and a focus on balanced, sustainable, longer term outlooks, regardless of the budget being approved sooner rather than later. The people who favor more R&D, or a focus on the next big program, or preserving an existing capability, or on more advanced space transportation technology have grown so far apart as to achieve a level of dysfunction that makes any budget this year merely a small bit of new information about the battlefield. But the battle among these warring parties would simply continue.

    A budget leaning more to a large program, a Constellation follow-up, or sequel, with very little R&D, and no attention to advanced space transportation, commercial or anything else, is begging for a continued uprising in the ranks. Strong arm leadership can seem to make the battle go away, for a while, but as previous Administrator Griffin discovered, two things happen. For one, the efforts to revive R&D and thinking other than about the Shuttle replacement simply go underground, guerrilla style. Asymmetric warfare ensues. And the big guys never have the patience or adaptability for that. Second, the large program gets complacent, losing all focus on costs, schedule and sense of balance with the agency. The 800 lb gorilla in the room that is waiting to take funding from anyone else becomes its own worst enemy. It provides for the competition all the ammo that’s needed to cause lots of questioning about the big program, and rightly so.

    Alternately, a budget that starts with balance, commercial, R&D, advanced concepts, plus an understanding of a need for significant change in ways of doing business, to achieve any follow-on to Shuttle, requires a group of leaders who will work together, rather than see each other as competition, or as “reserve funding” (should they be able to seize money from Peter to pay Paul).

    Until this systemic issue is addressed, any budget now, next month or next year, merely sends some information to the complex motivations involved about how the last battle went. And so they regroup for the next one…and the one after that…and so on.

  • amightywind

    Alternately, a budget that starts with balance, commercial, R&D, advanced concepts, plus an understanding of a need for significant change in ways of doing business, to achieve any follow-on to Shuttle, requires a group of leaders who will work together

    The rise of the Tea Party is a signal that America is tired of the mushy middle. Those non-core NASA special interests have ridden the coattails of NASA HSF funding for too long. The budget needs to make clear choices. NASA’s budget does need balance, it needs to provide a follow on program to the shuttle. Your rhetoric is mind numbing.

  • Ferris Valyn

    Your rhetoric is mind numbing.

    Whereas yours is mind destructive

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 9:41 am

    you are certainly a good rep of the tea party…having gotten it wrong about the Falcon 9 second stage, misstated about a NASA administrator serving twice; you just dont learn to think before you speak…or you are doing it on purpose and having a good time.

    either way…tea party

    Robert G. Oler

  • Bennett

    you are certainly a good rep of the tea party

    He’s not even that. I’ve met a few of the serious folks who align themselves with the Tea Party, and windy doesn’t represent their thinking at all.

  • windy doesn’t represent their thinking at all.

    FTFY.

  • amightywind

    having gotten it wrong about the Falcon 9 second stage

    Although SpaceX tried to deemphasize the fact that the second stage lost attitude control, I think we can all agree that the first flight of the F9 was a mixed result at best.

    He’s not even that. I’ve met a few of the serious folks who align themselves with the Tea Party

    The Tea Party is a big tent. There is room for anyone who believes they are Taxed Enough Already. It is that simple. You shouldn’t feel embittered by what is about to happen in this nation’s politics.

  • Ben Russell-Gough

    Oh… kay did that last sentance creep anyone else out as much as it did me?!?

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 11:33 am

    I think we can all agree that the first flight of the F9 was a mixed result at best…

    I dont think we can…nor can we excuse without you expressing remorse the goofy statements you made about it…nor the lack of knowledge when you make a statement as fact such as “no NASA administrator has ever served twice”…or something to that effect.

    Facts are important things and the “fact” that you are quite willing to be sloppy in your statements to assume things which are not facts as them speaks volumes to why you are here.

    My “guess” is that you are just a troller trying to gen up reaction and that is why I rarely respond to you…the other possibility is that you dont have a clue what you are talking about…and I (sadly) dont really think that.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bennett wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 10:44 am

    you are certainly a good rep of the tea party

    He’s not even that….

    Bennett. there are certainly some reasonable people in the “Tea partY” who are trying to “form a more perfect union”…and then there are those that are not, those that are mostly dupes to the corporate shills who are actually putting the thing together.

    All political parties are to some extent run by “elites” who use the masses to sort of get their way…feeding them (the masses) various sound bites and propaganda to stir them up and drive things in a direction which benefits the folks at the top. This is true of all parties and has been true since the dawn of The Republic here…and is what makes politics the oldest profession.

    But this has reached a simply absurd state with the GOP and now with the Tea Party. Again there are some serious people who are trying to push things even things I disagree with, because they really believe in them and have thought through the belief system…but for the most part the “Party” as a whole is run by a lot of very wealthy people who are doing not much more then pushing easily lead people toward certain positions whose only goal is to ensure the greater corporate takeover of the US and its government facilities.

    “Winds” babbling about space and space politics is pretty much corporate boilerplate…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    on a off topic

    From a facebook page, I guess started by Keith C…of NASA watch (if so this is a good move Keith)

    “Frank Sietzen Recovery Page
    Frank is currently in the Intensive Care Unit at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC after having suffered a stroke at the beginning of September. Frank is awake and in stable condition and is making steady progress. We’ll be providing updates on his progress in the days and weeks to come.”

    if you are on facebook and have not you might want to drop by and add a comment.

    Frank is a good egg whose wit humor and good grace is keenly missed.

    Robert G. Oler

  • for the most part the “Party” as a whole is run by a lot of very wealthy people who are doing not much more then pushing easily lead people toward certain positions whose only goal is to ensure the greater corporate takeover of the US and its government facilities.

    This is loony tunes.

  • Bennett

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 12:04 pm

    All political parties are to some extent run by “elites” who use the masses to sort of get their way…feeding them (the masses) various sound bites and propaganda to stir them up and drive things in a direction which benefits the folks at the top.

    I agree with that part

    …but for the most part the “Party” as a whole is run by a lot of very wealthy people who are doing not much more then pushing easily lead people toward certain positions whose only goal is to ensure the greater corporate takeover of the US and its government facilities.

    This may indeed be true, but the folks who are working to change the republican party into a champion of fiscal responsibility? I wish them the best of luck. I hope they manage to wrest control away from the Country Club Elites who have raped, pillaged, and sold our country down the river in the name of corporate profits.

    Sorry for MY off topic post. Back to lurking.

  • That NASA Engineer@KSC

    Oh well, this got off topic fast…LOL.

    Or perhaps, looked at another way, there is a relation? In a zero-sum game, taking the assumption that the NASA budget does not go up appreciably from year to year, and shifts must have both winners and losers (as perceived by these). In the politics of the day it’s possible that a similar “zero-sum” outlook is in play in National politics. So long as debt, or “future money”, could smooth the situation over, then things were more amicable in the body politic. Once that option no longer exists (as it can not keep growing forever) then the “zero-sum” behaviors manifest themselves (mostly negative).

  • Major Tom

    “… NASA will be funded by a continuing resolution. There will be no agreement on NASA this year. A GOP congress will structure NASA much like it was before the dismal ‘Obama Years’. Ares I/Orion will be operational in 2015.”

    Republicans in Congress are insisting on a clean CR, which will include no language allowing Constellation to ramp up its funding in FY11 to the levels necessary to meet a 2017-2019 IOC. (Even with unrestricted funding, J-2X, the long pole in the Ares I tent, won’t be ready until 2017, per GAO.)

    Moreover, a clean CR will include no language to stop NASA from forcing Constellation contractors to budget for termination costs. As one Senate staffer states, this means that there will be even more Constellation (and Shuttle) layoffs during the CR.

    nasawatch.com/archives/2010/09/nelson-dont-loo.html

    If the Republicans in Congress wanted to resurrect Constellation after the election, they’d preserve its workforce and accelerate its funding during the CR.

    They’re not doing either.

    “The rise of the Tea Party is a signal that America is tired of the mushy middle. Those non-core NASA special interests have ridden the coattails of NASA HSF funding for too long… it needs to provide a follow on program to the shuttle.”

    The Tea Party has no civil space platform or priorities.

  • Bennett

    That NASA Engineer@KSC wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 12:48 pm

    I wanted to thank you for your earlier post. The view from within NASA is fascinating to those of us on the outside.

  • The Tea Party has no civil space platform or priorities.

    If if did, though, it would favor a more cost-effective program favorable to private enterprise. It wouldn’t like big-government pork at NASA any more than in any other agency. Speaking of which, there was an interesting presser on the Hill yesterday afternoon by the Institute for Liberty.

  • Justin Kugler

    I thought the IFR presser was interesting, too, Rand. The House seems to have fewer and fewer allies in their approach these days.

  • I’d love to see both Gabby and Grayson go down in November (and I think it’s likely), but it probably won’t be over space policy…

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bennett wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 12:46 pm

    This may indeed be true, but the folks who are working to change the republican party into a champion of fiscal responsibility?…

    the “little people” (grin) who are doing this, the average “joe/jane” of the movement hope this, but are going to be frustrated when reality sets in.

    The folks who effectively “run” the Tea Party, the folks allied with Dick A and the Murdock people are using the notion of out of control spending as a lever to ramp up the “average” people…all the while they were either silent, or supportive during the Bush years when spending just got out of control.

    it is a lever now for a couple of reasons…non tea party people (like me) are becoming scared to death of the spending, the spending under Obama has not been very effective, and few of us see it solving much of anything…but the leaders of the tea party movement are merely using it as a wedge issue…as I said they were either silent or in agreement with all the spending Bush did…its just an issue to try and manuever the debate onto terms where federal spending starts to benefit them and the institutions that they represent.

    The reason that the “average” people are going to be frustrated is that really there are no easy answers to the spending that dont affect the “average people”. Go ask the over 60 group (which is a lot of the tea party) if they are willing to see “their” benefits cut and the answer is “no we paid into them”…but of course most everyone who is getting benefits has paid into them. A friend who is getting unemployment paid into it for the two decades he had a job…until the airlines started laying off. Now there are some who are pepetually “low income” but that addresses the next issue…who is willing to pay more taxes for the war, the drug benefit etc…and again most of the well heeled tea party people quickly start backing down…

    But it is easy for the leaders of the tea party to blame illegal aliens, or the poor or whatever for all the tax ills…and really it is the middle class entitlements which are not carrying their freight by tax dollars.

    when I was on the school board I first saw this (and I got elected three times but left for an overseas assignment)…everyone would yell “cut middle management instead of raising school taxes”…so then you would cut…the cheerleading coaches, the this or that…and all of a sudden “well we want that program”.

    this is space politics. The defenders of the program of record argue “its never been funded well” (this is Mark Whittington’s latest claim as he blast Rand on his blog)…It matters not to Whittington that the entire Cx effort has consumed more then the EELV’s or Musk and his two rockets and Dragon…or that the bureaucracies are blaoted Whittington LIKES the program so now he makes excuses for it.

    “its a small part of the budget” (which doubtless he would like to see his taxes go to)…or “it counters the chinese”…

    It is no different then “I paid into Social security” even though the payments come no where near paying the benefits.

    Most of the tea party people are either gullible or well meaning people who seriously do not understand politics. It is like the person on McCain’s facebook page who told me that a well known homebuilder person in Houston had helped McCain pay for the “build the dang fence” ad. Yeah sure doubtless. That same well known homebuilder is one of the greatest employeers of illegals in Houston and Texas. His sites are routinely raided by ICE. His own home was even raided by ICE where most of the folks who were building the addition to it, were tossed.

    go figure.

    Robert G. Oler

  • For example:

    “Keep your grubby social-ist hands off my Medicare!”

    Heh! :-)

  • The folks who effectively “run” the Tea Party, the folks allied with Dick A and the Murdock people are using the notion of out of control spending as a lever to ramp up the “average” people…all the while they were either silent, or supportive during the Bush years when spending just got out of control.

    This is utter BS. The Republicans lost the Congress in 2006 because the base was fed up with the earmarks, spending and pork. After this coming election, they’ll have one more shot at getting it right, or there will be a new party, tea or otherwise.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Rand Simberg wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 1:49 pm
    The Republicans lost the Congress in 2006 because the base was fed up with the earmarks, spending and pork. ..

    I am sure that you want to believe that, but the polls dont support it.

    The GOP lost the house and the senate because the “middle” of America left the GOP and went and voted Democratic because mostly of the war in Iraq…

    the notion that “if the base stays home the party loses” is one that is the rally cry of an intemperate base that like a small child demands attention; but it is rarely accurate.

    the base turned out in record numbers for McCain (or more correctly Sarah Palin) in 08…but the middle left him.

    Robert G. Oler

  • The GOP lost the house and the senate because the “middle” of America left the GOP and went and voted Democratic because mostly of the war in Iraq…

    And the base stayed home. And it was because of spending.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Rand Simberg wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 2:32 pm

    “And the base stayed home. And it was because of spending.”

    there is little or no data to support that analysis.

    OVERALL turnout in the 06 election was not depressed nor in certain key races like say VA Senate was the “red” turnout in VA counties (particularly southern VA) depressed or even down by any statistically significant way for “off year” elections.

    Of course when the notion of the election is to “appeal” to a base turnout (such as Bush did in 00 and 04) then to be sure every vote of the base is important and every vote really counts…particularly as the folks in the middle leave…

    there is no data to indicate that had the base turned out in an “off year” at the same level that they turned out in the Presidential years that it would have made up for in other then a few races the desertion of the GOP by the middle. ( it is accurate that base turnout was lower in VA in 06 then 04…but that is typical for off year elections and the turnout in 06 mirrored other “off years)

    The theory of base politics by the professionals is that one drives up base turnout while driving down “middle” turnout…this was the notion behind the Swift Boat ads of 04…the notion of base politics by the “base” is that if only someone who is a product of the base can get the nomination then the base will not only turn out in record numbers but also the middle voters will see the light and then go with the “base”…the bases of both parties BTW both believe this.

    There is no data to support that although we are certainly going to get a chance to see if it works in 10. The Senate Majority Leader should be losing by double digits…but so far that has not taken hold… Even Karl of Rove has seen that this notion is unlikely to work in Delaware…where the GOP seems to have tossed a sure Senate seat for “the witch”.

    The “base” turned out in record numbers for McCain in 08…they even beat the 04 election of Bush (Palin was a good flogger)…but sadly for Mccain this time the middle also turned out…and voted in record numbers for Obama…this is why previously red states were lost.

    The base of both parties is always exaggerating its importance in elections.

    Robert G. Oler

  • I should add that what is particularly stupid about Robert’s paranoid theory of the Tea Parties being directed by Dick Armey and the corporatist money men, is that if it were really true, there’s no way that Christine O’Donnell would have won the primary in Delaware.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Oler is, of course, delusional about the Tea Party, which is an actual popular uprising against big government.

    There is no “Tea Party” platform about space. There have been, however, Tea Party protests against the Obama space plan in Texas and Florida. One supposes that they do not regard a well funded government program as “pork” or think that the Obama space plan would benefit commercial space, aside from lining certain pockets.

  • DCSCA

    amightywind wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 8:25 am
    “The GOP rolls out the new ‘Contract for America’ today.” <– "Garbage in, garbage out,"' as the saying goes. Bear in mind, the 'faux thinker' pitching the last one of these proclaimations, Gingrich, once floated the trial balloon suggesting disbanding NASA, labelling it's mission 'accomplished' long ago. His balloon was quickly reeled in when wiser minds prevailed.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Rand Simberg wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 3:02 pm

    I should add that what is particularly stupid about Robert’s paranoid theory of the Tea Parties being directed by Dick Armey and the corporatist money men, is that if it were really true, there’s no way that Christine O’Donnell would have won the primary in Delaware…

    lol…that hardly is a truth table.

    but that aside, the actual realities behind Christine the witch (or the keeper of sexual purity) victory are the realities that makes the tea party a party of goofs.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 3:34 pm

    Oler is, of course, delusional about the Tea Party, which is an actual popular uprising against big government. ..

    financed heavily by various corporate interest who need “‘cannon fodder” to hurl in the battle for more tax money.

    Robert g. Oler

  • Vladislaw

    From the Christian Science Monitor

    Who’s picking up the tab for the tea party?

    “Love ‘em or hate ‘em, tea party gatherings are the grassroots real deal. Organic, earnest groundswells of populist sentiment and full-throated political expression that have upset the political establishment left and right. Effective too, as they beat mainstream candidates from Delaware to Nevada to Alaska.

    But just beneath the surface are professional fund-raisers, foundations, and political action committees – some of which have been around for years – pushing an agenda that neatly matches the conservative/libertarian aims of most tea partyers.”

    and:

    “The Koch brothers
    For example, in a recent investigative report in the New Yorker magazine, Jane Mayer details the links between billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch and the tea party movement. She writes:

    “By giving money to ‘educate,’ fund, and organize Tea Party protesters, they have helped turn their private agenda into a mass movement. Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist and a historian, who once worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Dallas-based think tank that the Kochs fund, said, ‘The problem with the whole libertarian movement is that it’s been all chiefs and no Indians. There haven’t been any actual people, like voters, who [care] about it. So the problem for the Kochs has been trying to create a movement.’ With the emergence of the Tea Party, he said, ‘everyone suddenly sees that for the first time there are Indians out there – people who can provide real ideological power.’ The Kochs, he said, are ‘trying to shape and control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies.'” “

  • Of course they want to, but that doesn’t mean they are, or can:

    “What we’ve got to realize is that the dam has broken and there’s all this pent-up energy coming out, and it’s hard to harness,” says Burford, a local tea party organizer in the rural north Florida town of Jennings. “The fact is, there’s not a lot of real harnessing that can be done. It’s going to tend to carve the river bed the way it wants to.”

  • Vladislaw

    For the Koch brothers i think it is a ‘be careful what you wish for” moment. Just because you can stampede the herd .. doesnt mean you can always control where it goes.

  • I think it’s more of a pack than a herd…

  • Wodun

    It is always interesting to see under what circumstances and what people and organizations, it is ok to dig into their method of financing and diagram their organizational relationships.

  • Wodun

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    So if you were against spending under Bush are you now OK with it under Obama? Obama spent more money in his first 1.5 years than Bush did in 8. That is with 2 recessions, 2 wars, Katrina, and 9-11. Even taking the wars into consideration, spending was trending down until the Democrats took over congress.

    2006 was the “Culture of Corruption” campaign by the Democrats. It was not about Iraq and Afghanistan.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Wodun wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 6:45 pm

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    So if you were against spending under Bush are you now OK with it under Obama? Obama spent more money in his first 1.5 years than Bush did in 8.

    ..

    no he did not

    Robert G. Oler

  • Wodun

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 6:58 pm

    I will concede that point ^^ to you but you can’t argue that spending, the deficits and debt has not increased under Obama and the Democrats, are you suddenly for run away spending?

    You are very critical of the lack of outrage over spending in the Bush years but seem to be not so outraged in the Obama years. Claiming hypocrisy on one side while engaging in your own.

    http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/
    http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/05/past-deficits-vs-obamas-deficits-in-pictures/

    And one you might like a little more.
    http://www.cafetax.com/2010/09/bush-vs.-obama-spending-the-truth/

  • Wodun

    I guess I should use more appropriate terms. I erred in using the term spending.

    Obama will add more to the debt in 2 years then Bush in 8. It really is pretty close at the 1.5 year mark too.

    Looking at last years deficit and this years projected deficit, Obama will add close to $2.8 trillion to the debt compared to approximately $2.1 trillion from 8 years of Bush.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Wodun wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 7:33 pm

    “I will concede that point ^^ to you but you can’t argue that spending, the deficits and debt has not increased under Obama and the Democrats, are you suddenly for run away spending?

    You are very critical of the lack of outrage over spending in the Bush years ..”

    then you dont read very carefully. I post under my own name so its not hard to see the post that I’ve had since Obama became President where I am quite critical of how badly the stimulus money was spent.

    Spending was going down under Bush because Bush had learned the trick of taking things off budget. But like Obama most if not all of the spending Bush did was “bad spending”.

    It was spending without value designed to reinforce both his goofy political theories in terms of foreign policy and the nutty ideas he had on the economy…ie continuing the notion of trickle down.

    The only real thing that Obama has changed is that his spending trickles down from state governments instead of in Bush’s case from the corporations and the super rich. I think that both venues are a bad use of tax dollars…I have been very critical of both the TARP and the stimulus package…as well as the war in Iraq and now Obama’s “tar baby” approach to Afland.

    I dont MIND THE SPENDING if the spending has value and worth…and I think we need spending on infrastructure.

    I just get frustrated when people who supported Bush and all the idiotic spending he did, leap on Obama and dont acknowledge that they were at least silent when Bush did his

    Robert G. Oler

  • amightywind

    It was spending without value designed to reinforce both his goofy political theories in terms of foreign policy and the nutty ideas he had on the economy…ie continuing the notion of trickle down.

    The Bush Tax cuts and business friendly policies led the nation out of the Clinton recession and the 9/11 shock. His crusade to establish democracy to the benighted middle east was nothing short of heroic. Especially when compared to Obama’s cynicism and economic malaise.

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 9:58 pm

    The Bush Tax cuts and business friendly policies led the nation out of the Clinton recession and the 9/11 shock….

    and into the abyss of what we are facing today.

    it is an excellent example of the cure killing the patient

    Robert G. Oler

  • Rhyolite

    Wodun wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 8:22 pm

    Where on earth did you get the idea that Bush added only $2.1 trillion to the debt in 8 years of Bush? Treasury department publishes the the daily total outstanding public debt on its web site:

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

    Here are the actual debt numbers:

    Date Total Debt
    1/20/2001 $ 5,727,776,738,304.64
    1/20/2009 $10,626,877,048,913.08

    So Bush added $4.9 Trillion to the debt in eight years. Keep in mind that he inherited a surplus so his borrowing was heavily back loaded – in the last year of his administration alone, 1/20/2008 and 1/20/2009, he added $1.4 Trillion to the debt.

    For comparison, after the first year of the Obama administration the debt was:

    Date Total Debt
    1/20/2010 $12,327,380,804,696.82

    So the first year of the Obama administration added $1.7 Trillion to the debt, an astounding sum, but only 21% more than the debt added in the last year of Bush administration. They are basically in the same awful league.

    The $2.1 Trillion that you quote is probably a cumulative total of the official budget deficits. So how do you end up the debt growing at almost two and a half times the rate of the official budget deficit? By excluding all of the “emergency” supplemental spending, which has exploded over the last ten years. These include:

    – The 2001 Stimulus Bill
    – 9/11 Costs
    – The Airline Bailout
    – Both Wars
    – Katrina Costs
    – The 2008 Stimulus Bill
    – The Fannie and Freddie Bailouts
    – TARP

    That amounts to Trillions in spending and is by no means a comprehensive list. Additionally, the most often quoted official deficit numbers do not include the amount of the Social Security surplus that is “loaned” to the treasury.

    Enron moved its debt off-balance-sheet to hide its losses. The official budget deficit numbers were created and quoted for the same reason: to deceive people about the true financial condition of the US. Fiscal conservatives have plenty of reason to be angry with the Bush administration and, likewise, you might want to reconsider what ever source you got that figure from – they deceived you as well.

  • Wodun

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 9:16 pm

    then you dont read very carefully. I post under my own name so its not hard to see the post that I’ve had since Obama became President where I am quite critical of how badly the stimulus money was spent.

    Thinly veiled insult? Obviously posting under your real name doesn’t change how offensive you can be at times. I post under an alias, in the long tradition of people who use the internet. Even though I use an alias, I try not to be a jerk but I am not perfect, especially when talking politics. I don’t think I have ever said anything that was out of bounds or offensive.

    Spending was going down under Bush because Bush had learned the trick of taking things off budget. But like Obama most if not all of the spending Bush did was “bad spending”.

    The third link was to a left leaning blog that added on those “off budges” costs, and deficits were still trending downward until the housing crisis. 2008 would look a lot better if you add back in the TARP funds that have been repaid.

    I just get frustrated when people who supported Bush and all the idiotic spending he did, leap on Obama and dont acknowledge that they were at least silent when Bush did his

    I also get frustrated when people rant about spending during the Bush years but are silent when it comes to Obama, especially when they keep bringing Bush spending up as an attack against the Tea Party, so I throw that attack right back at them. I’m sorry I can’t read your every post but you have to admit, you do sound hypocritical on the subject from time to time. Which is ok, everyone is every now and then.

    They might not of been protesting in the street but they were not silent. The Tea Party didn’t like the out of control spending by either president. The true test of the Tea Party, will be if they vote out the candidates they support now, if they go back to business as usual in a future election. The way the Tea Party has turned on the Republican establishment, holding their candidates accountable is a real possibility.

    So here we are, arguing on the internet about who spent more (Obama =P) or who’s spending was worse (toss up), likely we agree on both cases to some degree. We even argue about who’s space plan was better (they both suck). Meanwhile, in DC, our heroes are squabbling like we are.

    A CR isn’t good for anyone. With a deficit of $1.4 trillion, how big of a target is NASA? Pretty small. You could cut their entire budget and not make a difference. With a deficit of $1.4 trillion, how big of a deal is it to throw NASA and extra $5 billion a year? Not a big deal at all.

    The sad thing is, neither Bush nor Obama gave their plans the funding they needed to succeed.

  • Coastal Ron

    Wodun wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 8:22 pm

    Obama will add more to the debt in 2 years then Bush in 8. It really is pretty close at the 1.5 year mark too.

    If you’re only going to look at the raw numbers starting from when Bush & Obama took office, then you’re going to miss the trends and underlying reasons for the trends.

    When Bush took over, the trend was that there was going to be around $850B surplus by 2009. Then 9/11 happened, then Bush invaded Iraq, he pushed through his tax cuts without corresponding cuts in spending, then pushed though the unfunded Medicaid Prescription Drug legislation (was $400B, then 1 month after passage was $534B – oops!).

    All of that was pushing us into the red, and then the Bush Recession came along (lucky him, it happened on his watch, it gets his name). One of the things people forget about recessions is that when people lose jobs, then they don’t pay taxes, and businesses pay less (less revenue and income). Government is far from a nimble thing, so it keeps spending at the same levels (like Constellation), and that drives the deficit up correspondingly. Bush created TARP, and the Treasury started doing it’s thing to try and keep panic out of the financial markets, but all the while debt keeps piling up and Bush tries to spend his way out of a crisis.

    Then Obama takes the oath.

    The Bush Recession is still shedding jobs at a high rate, along with it tax revenue, and that combined with continued government spending means the trend that Bush put us on has inflated the debt even more. See this chart:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Federal_Debt_as_Percent_of_GDP_by_President.jpg

    Now even if a Republican President and a Republican Congress had been in office, the debt would have continued to pile up, mainly because of the programs and actions of Bush.

    Obama and the Democratic congress don’t get off scott free, but their impact has been far less that what the Bush legacy has been, and continues to be. We’re still paying for Iraq, Afghanistan (where my nephew just survived an IED), Medicaid PD, and the Bush tax cuts (where was that extra revenue it produced?).

    So if you want to look at the calendar, and look at the debt clock, then yes, Obama gets tagged with the high numbers. But if you’re looking for the reasons why, you have to be a little smarter…

  • Coastal Ron

    As a postscript to my above post, and to tie it in to the NASA budget, it gets back to the prevailing philosophy in Congress after the election.

    If the Democrats retain the majority, then they will try to spend their way out of the recession. They probably won’t succeed (Tea Party effect), but spending during a recession has a number of proponents, and it has worked both in the past and in other countries. Nevertheless, NASA is not getting extra, and will be lucky if they only get a modest reduction in budget.

    If the Republicans gain the majority, and they listen to the Tea Party newbies, then NASA is in for a significant cut. None of us have heard much about what the Tea Party thinks about NASA, and they may not even know yet, so the most likely outcome would be an across the board spending freeze to some previous level. That’s not good news for any big program, including any Constellation holdovers, new launchers or Orion.

    What does this mean for NewSpace is NASA gets a big budget cut?

    Orbital Sciences and SpaceX still have COTS/CRS, as long as the funding is not cancelled with the ISS. SpaceX may not go any further than Dragon cargo, but they will rack up flight heritage with their 15 COTS/CRS F9/Dragon flights, so they will poised for commercial crew whenever it gets funding to man-rate Dragon (unless they go public and do it on their own).

    Orbital will likely just stick with cargo. Boeing will wait for NASA funding for commercial crew. Bigelow will try to do some full-scale tests, but they don’t have enough funding or business to close the commercial crew business case for Boeing or SpaceX on their own. Dream Chase will sit unfinished. The Google Lunar X Prize might get enough backing to actually launch contestants to the Moon – I hope.

    Without NASA R&D money, the NewSpace market kind of moves along slowly.

    All of this is big time speculation, and my $0.02

  • Robert G. Oler

    Wodun wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 11:47 pm

    Thinly veiled insult?..

    wrong again. I am not shy. IF I wanted to insult you I would come right out and do it…usually I start, if I care by just pointing out how wrong a statement is, but I can do far more and nothing is “veiled”.

    As someone else pointed out most of what you posted is simply wrong. As is the claim that “spending was winding down”. Bush almost never stopped spending. There was no emergency that couldnt go off budget and usually was something that had to be done with little or no thought…take the TARP. We went from a “solid economy” to quote Dick Cheney to about three months later having to bail out every bank insight and if we didnt do it, we were going into a depression.

    Just like if we didnt attack Saddam we were going to have Mushroom clouds all over.

    I am also not silent about the bad spending under Obama. I WAS willing to give it a chance, heck who knows itmight have worked, but almost from day 1 I have been saying “the vote he will regret is the vote on the Stim bill”..

    IN the end Bush killed the US economy and we will be lucky if we recover in the next two decades. It (the economy) had as all economies have problems from administration to administration but all the cures that the GOP threw in smoked it.

    I dont think Obama has even come close to a cure…but the ride over the next decade is going to be in my view painful.

    As for space politics…Obama’s original plan had enough money for what he wanted to do…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Wodun

    Rhyolite wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 11:38 pm
    The $2.1 Trillion that you quote is probably a cumulative total of the official budget deficits.

    You are correct, except that the cost of the wars was added in but not the other items you listed. After looking at the site you linked not only was I wrong about the $2.1 trillion but also that the deficits were trending downward when you include the off budget items.

    So please allow me to join in flaming myself :)

    From 2004-2008 the only year the real deficit dipped below $600 billion was in ’07 and just barely at $500 billion.

    That same site has Obama’s total addition to the debt at $2.8 trillion from his inauguration to today. Bush’s was as you stated at $4.9 trillion. So Bush averaged about $600 billion/year and Obama’s is about $1.5 trillion/year.

    And probably most important of all, the off budget items accounted for roughly $2.8 trillion, over double the official deficits.

    So Obama is definitely on track to out pace Bush, which says a lot, and we can agree

    So the first year of the Obama administration added $1.7 Trillion to the debt, an astounding sum, but only 21% more than the debt added in the last year of Bush administration. They are basically in the same awful league.

  • Wodun

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 22nd, 2010 at 11:54 pm

    You left out the tech bubble bursting. There are other underlying factors than the ones you listed, but I generally agree with what you said.

  • Wodun

    Robert G. Oler wrote @ September 23rd, 2010 at 12:19 am

    As someone else pointed out most of what you posted is simply wrong. As is the claim that “spending was winding down”. Bush almost never stopped spending.

    Since our posts crossed in the night, I will say directly to you that I was wrong with my numbers. I am wrong from time to time and have no problems admiring it. But I stand by my statement that the Tea Party wasn’t happy with the spending under either administration.

    We can agree to disagree on your views about the Tea Party.

    What do you think about China’s plans to visit the Moon?
    http://spaceports.blogspot.com/2010/09/china-gear-up-for-moon-mars-and-venus.html

  • Robert G. Oler

    Wodun wrote @ September 23rd, 2010 at 12:55 am

    But I stand by my statement that the Tea Party wasn’t happy with the spending under either administration…

    no problem, I’ve made bad post before, the trick is to correct them.

    There are two “tea party” groups. I concur that a lot of people were upset with the Bush spending, but take Whittington for instance. He didnt have a bit of problem with the war spending. To him it is all part of some glorious American empire teaching the folks in the mideast a thing or two…

    Where the people started to buzz off the spending was with the TARP…and that has where the fracture started…

    The corporate people behind the tea party movement, the Koch’s for instance have an agenda which they are using the tea party angst about as a sort of stalking horse for. Their agenda is to stay connected to the federal treasury….

    As for the Chinese. Nothing that they do in space alarms me. The PRC is in the same position that the US was after WW2…they have modern industry, they are cash happy, and slowly but surely feeling burst of nationalism. Nothing wrong with that, we did it after WW2…

    What I am worried about is the US remaining a superpower, particularly an economic one. Obama’s space policy helps that.

    Robert G. Oler

  • I just get frustrated when people who supported Bush and all the idiotic spending he did, leap on Obama and dont acknowledge that they were at least silent when Bush did his

    And yet when it is pointed out to you that many were not, and that it was one of the reasons that the Republicans lost Congress in 2006, and that they lost the White House two years ago for the same reason, you put your pudgey fingers in your ears and say “La La La, I can’t hear you..”

    This is why few take your off-topic political keyboard diarrhea here seriously.

  • Coastal Ron

    Wodun wrote @ September 23rd, 2010 at 12:37 am

    You left out the tech bubble bursting. There are other underlying factors than the ones you listed, but I generally agree with what you said.

    Good catch. Bush certainly had his own uncontrollable financial situations like the tech bubble, 9/11 and Afghanistan. But unfortunately for him, his spending habits, and the current recession, have put us into a deep, deep hole, and it’s going to take a while before anyone (Obama or his predecessors) can take credit for finally reducing the deficit.

  • Wodun

    At the risk of hubris, revenues were increasing for a time there. Too bad on and off budget spending wasn’t decreasing at the same time.

    Instead of bashing Obama, I’ll take a turn at Bush. His ownership society programs helped create the housing bubble.

  • Rhyolite

    Wodun wrote @ September 23rd, 2010 at 12:35 am

    Fair enough.

    Part of the problem we face is that journalists in this country are largely innumerate. Misleading numbers get into the main stream and take on a life of their own. The partisan media just makes it worse.

  • Rhyolite

    Coastal Ron wrote @ September 23rd, 2010 at 1:30 am

    “it’s going to take a while before anyone (Obama or his predecessors) can take credit for finally reducing the deficit.”

    Get the deficit back to where we were in the late 90’s could be done in 10 years or so. That’s what it took after the 80’s. Unfortunately, I don’t see anyone who has the political will – that worries me more than the deficit itself.

  • Wodun

    Rhyolite wrote @ September 23rd, 2010 at 3:58 am

    Part of the problem we face is that journalists in this country are largely innumerate. Misleading numbers get into the main stream and take on a life of their own. The partisan media just makes it worse.

    Considering I got my numbers from the partisan media, I would have to agree with you :)

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