Of course, under Paul’s philosophy there would have been no satellite industry in the US in the first place until private industry figured out how to make a profit developing private space rockets for private industry. Sort of like the 1950 movie ‘Destination Moon’ when private companies got together to build the first space rocket to the Moon. So much for science fiction:-)

In reality, of course, private companies have no loyalty to the United States. Profits are their god. And the only destination private companies seem to be interested in right now is China and their cheap educated labor!

Too bad Paul won’t cut the 780 billion dollar military budget by 25%. That would save us $195 billion annually. Cutting the extremely inefficient Medicare and Medicaid budget by 25% which would save us an additional $169 billion. Cuts in those two programs alone would save the American tax payers $364 billion annually.

But the most serious problem US citizens and private businesses located in the US have is private health insurance inflation which makes US products significantly more expensive than our foreign competitors and is also the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States. And most labor strikes in the US are related to the rising cost of private health insurance.

That was the original line of reasoning in developing our incredible and justified nuclear arsenal. Unfortunately between then and now, we decided to also become the world’s policeman. I know that this line of reasoning is simplistic, but it has painted us into a corner from which we can’t seem to free ourselves.

I wouldn’t argue with that where there is an obvious short to medium term return on investment, but it seems less likely for basic research (“pure” science) where there may be no obvious benefit until way down the road. Has there ever been any kind of study to confirm or deny private industry does such research better than public sector?

As many noted a year or two ago, a revival of Republican fortunes does not mean a return to Bush era policies. Big government design bureau projects like Constellation are unacceptable now, and will continue to be for some time to come.

I hope he fails as badly as his policies would fail this country.

This does show how Rand Paul, and many Tea Party people, will be marginalized and ineffective. They will propose large cuts that are not good for the US and that have no chance of being enacted. The NSF does have a large role in coordinating research and paying for research that will not pay off in the short term. Commercial research has to pay off quickly.

My-my, what a surprise.

To those who look at reality, no shock.

Others who thought Tea-Partiers would look at NASA like DoD, welllll……