Obama to defund space program...

[gypsyman]

I guess some of you are right. Why take one area where our country was a leader in technology, and lets put more into bailing out busness's and banks. Maybe by the end of the ''big O's'' term, we can all have flat screen tv's, sit around smoking Kools and drinking our malt liquor. gypsyman

[Squib]

the welfare system is gonna crash, the government better nationalize Kool and malt liquor soon (high gravity malt liquor anyways!)

[ironglow]

   ...And the beat goes on..ACORN will get millions, Endowment for the Arts will get many $$$$, HUD will get billions, Congress votres themselves a $10,000 raise...but we must abandon 97% of our technological development programs...SMART MANAGEMENT !

[45-70.gov]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weGtoY-Vlik

[Oldshooter]

Poor old adolf, even I have seen that video of everything you could think of him being P'd off about, Sadly the only thing about obama that would up set him off is the fact that he is black I havent see that one yet!   

[Cabin4]

Benefits allegedly attributed to the space program:
http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html

Lets look at this list and can we really all confirm that all these alleged accomplishment are crucial to our life/country? I will also contend that since our Governmet is so good at telling us the truth, we can all atest that this list is actually 100% true??

[Dixie Dude]

Transfer payments NEVER pay back.  We had 13% living in poverty in 1960, 3-4 trillion dollars in welfare and food stamps later in 2000, we had 13% living in poverty.  Nasa and/or any research and development pays back millions over time and improves our standard of living.  Defund Nasa and spread the wealth around.  

If I have two children, one goes to college, works hard, and makes a life for himself.  The other a bum, and doesn't want to go to school, wants to stay at home.  If I let him stay at home and feed him, he will never learn.  He has to go out on his own and make it.  A parent can't keep supporting a child.  Any able bodied person should provide for themselves through some kind of work, even if it is cutting grass, digging ditches, or flipping hamburgers.  They may have to live in a mobile home or a small apartment, but they must do it so that they won't be dependent on others or the government.  We can't keep affording this.

I heard the other day that in the height of the Great Depression, Roosevelt only spent 12% of GDP, Obama wants 30% in next years budget.  Between the Feds, state, and local taxes, we are now a socialist nation.  We must cut taxes AND spending to stop the insanity.  

[Squib]

we have the individual/civil rights of a democracy but that is the only thing I see different about america, and the "rights" are becoming "priviledges" to be revoked imo

[lgm270]

Anyway, wasn't all this palaver over cutting NASA down in response to GOPer rhetoric about cutting taxes and paring down the size and expense of big governmnet..??  BTW...NASA does alot more than just civilian space industry research and  promotion. A couple of things they could do would be to look into 99942 Apohis and P/2010A2; and flare #1045.....

So what government programs and largess would you cut..?


..TM7

I would cut out any public assistance to illegal aliens, for starters.  Why are Americans obigatted to provide for  the poor of the Third World? 

The Space PRogram was enormously beneficial to the US.  It provided cutting edge technology, medical advances, jobs, and was a unifying and uplifting program.  Can you really not see the difference between bailing out  Jew bankers on Wall Street and illegal aliens, on the one hand,  and funding scientific programs that benefit the entire world and keep America  first, on the other?

[Dixie Dude]

That's what gets me.  Nasa's budget is only about 0.5% of the total Federal budget.  If we had spent just the money going to illegals and foreign aid on Nasa, we would already have mining colonies on the Moon and Mars.  Thousands of jobs would have been created just to make equipment to use there, since there is no manufacturing on either yet.  It would be high tech lightweight equipment, from bull doziers to green houses.  By the way, the moon has platinum scattered all over the surface in mediorite rocks.  We need lots of it for catylic converters. 

[teamnelson]

I told my son, who had aspirations to pursure aerospace engineering, that our abandonment of space puts to death the last great American dream. No more frontiers to explore, no more grand leaps of human ability. No reason to innovate. We give the dreams of millions of Americans who saw sputnik cross the sky over to Russia, and concede that they can own space. America is curling up in the fetal and sucking its thumb.

So what grand vision do you have to inspire a generation? Survival? Greed? Global Warming?

[Dixie Dude]

The only thing that really kept this economy going is homebuilding the last 10-15 years.  Since we are not making much at factories anymore, this kept plumbers, electricians, framers, HVAC installers, concrete and masonary workers, roofers, and bankers busy.  Now that homebuilding has ground to a halt, we are not going to get people jobs until people are ready to build again.  Baby boomers are ready to retire, so there goes the building boom.  Only silver lining is the shortage of workers when the boomers retire.  This won't begin hit until the late 20 teens, then all that knowledge and skill is going to be retired.

[MGMorden]

The only thing that really kept this economy going is homebuilding the last 10-15 years.  Since we are not making much at factories anymore, this kept plumbers, electricians, framers, HVAC installers, concrete and masonary workers, roofers, and bankers busy.  Now that homebuilding has ground to a halt, we are not going to get people jobs until people are ready to build again.  Baby boomers are ready to retire, so there goes the building boom.  Only silver lining is the shortage of workers when the boomers retire.  This won't begin hit until the late 20 teens, then all that knowledge and skill is going to be retired.

A valid point, but don't worry TOO much.  If you get a lot of unemployed people eventually somebody will start a business and put them to work.  America is big enough and has enough natural resources to make enough stuff to provide for ourselves - we just have to get back to doing that, which we'll be forced to soon enough.  As our currency devalues, the price of foreign goods goes up.  At the same time as people lose their jobs, domestic labor costs are coming down.  Eventually it'll reach equilibrium.  We'll have less buying power than we did before, and there's gonna be some shakeup in the meantime, but we'll survive. 

[Dixie Dude]

For China and the US it is a catch 22.  China sells 45% of everything they make to the US.  They in turn buy our T-bills.  If they cash in the T-bills too fast, it will cause us to have high inflation to pay for them, then we can't afford their products.  Problem is we are going to have high inflation sooner or later unless the economy bounces back fast, which it doesn't seem to be doing. 

[lgm270]

Great  posts Dixie Dude.

[moorepower]

After getting a spinning head reading all this...stuff, I hope most realize, we would not have affordable PC's to even be using the internet! The only way to reduce our debt and the deficit is to drastically reduce entitlements such as social security, which by the way was NEVER intended for a retirement program/school for your kids/........, medicare, medicaid, welfare that account for around 55-60% of the budget. Remember a large chunk of the farm bill is food stamps and school lunch programs. People used to think they should pay for their kids food, instead of every one else pay for it. Most that get govt. support have cell phones, cable t.v. and enough to pay for a six pack and two packs of smokes a day, but insist they are owed our help. I would rather fund NASA and pull out of the Balkin States with our military.

[Dixie Dude]

We don't need to maintain bases in Europe anymore, nor in Japan.  Spend the money on reactivating our mothballed ships and carriers.  We can rapidly deploy Marines and aircraft almost anywhere with them if need be.

[teamnelson]

Gents, other nations have been where we are and didn't make it. Millions of poor hungry people with nothing to do is not always an opportunity but rather a threat. Germany in the 30's lest we forget that option. Another is seen all over eastern Europe and Africa - chaos & violence. I'll be skeptical of the guy who has a great idea to put us all to work. We need free markets more than just jobs. Can you picture the posters of smiling comrades building windmills & recycling Japanese cars?