Tag: budget

NASA’s Space Launch System, costing billions per year, will only make its second manned flight in 2025.

8:50 am

The competition cools off! NASA’s Space Launch System, costing billions per year, will only make its second manned flight in 2025.

SLS is to make its maiden flight in 2017, when it will carry an empty Orion crew capsule to near-Moon space and back. Another flight would follow in 2021 and, depending on factors both technical and political, could see a crew of astronauts travel to a captured asteroid NASA wants to redirect to a high lunar orbit using a yet-to-be-built robotic spacecraft.

Notionally, SLS would next fly in 2025, giving the rocket a launch rate of once every four years. NASA has been spending about $1.8 billion a year on SLS development, including construction of a rocket test stand in Mississippi, and associated launch infrastructure at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Add in the cost of the rocket’s companion crew capsule, the Lockheed Martin-built Orion, and the tab rises to nearly $3 billion a year. [emphasis mine]

At that launch rate, the NASA’s space effort is slower than China’s, which has a pace that I consider extremely tortoise-like.

But don’t worry, buckos! NASA will be keeping the seats warm in its thousands of government facilities, employing thousands of government workers doing little or nothing.

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Detroit announces that it will default on its debt today.

10:01 am

Coming soon to a blue state near you! Detroit announces that it will default on its debt today.

The City currently faces approximately $17 billion in total liabilities. Detroit is insolvent and cannot meet its financial obligations without a significant restructuring.

It is important to note that Detroit has been run exclusively by Democrats for about a half century. Thus, this bankruptcy is an entirely partisan event, supported by voters who blindly insisted on one-party rule, and never questioned the incompetence or corruption of that Democratic Party.

And please, don’t argue with me by mentioning examples where Republicans screwed up. They have their own lock on stupidity, corruption, and failure. The point here, however, is to recognize that the failure in Detroit, as well as all of the recent other cities that have gone bankrupt, is because of decades of liberal Democratic rule, where money got funneled to unionized city employees at the expense of the taxpayers, with no regard to cost or affordability.

And if you doubt me, read this history of Detroit’s last fifty years.

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A new report from Social Security has raised its predicted unfunded liabilities over the next 75 years by one trillion dollars.

2:23 pm

The day of reckoning looms: A new report from Social Security has raised its predicted unfunded liabilities over the next 75 years by one trillion dollars, for a total of $9.6 trillion.

According to the report, “Through the end of 2087, the combined funds [OASI and DI] have a present-value unfunded obligation of $9.6 trillion.” That is “$1.0 trillion more than the measured level of $8.6 trillion a year ago,” states the report, in reference to the data available for 2011. That $9.6 trillion shortfall equals approximately $83,894 per household based on the Census Bureau’s latest estimate that there are 114,430,000 households in the country.

The report also looks farther into the future and saw the shortfall rise to $23 trillion.

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After warning repeatedly last year that the sequester would damage the economy, NBC now says “Nevermind.”

5:26 pm

Doing the work of the Democratic Party: After warning repeatedly last year that the sequester would damage the economy, NBC now says “Nevermind.”

It wasn’t just NBC. I can’t count the number of news sources and politicians that screamed “We’re all gonna die!” because sequestration was going to cut the federal budget a mere few percent. I said it then and I say it now: They were lying.

That news organizations participated in this lie however was particularly shameful. It didn’t take much research or thought to realize that these were lies. For NBC and other mainstream news organizations to not do that research tells us a great deal about how unreliable they are.

And by the way, remember the long lines threatened at the airports due to sequestration? We had those for about one day, and then things returned to normal. More evidence that it was all lying crap coming from this administration, forced upon travelers to make some dishonest political points, which were further aided and abetted by a lapdog press.

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The journal Science struggles to find the harm done from NIH’s 5% cuts from sequestration.

9:35 pm

The journal Science struggles to find the harm done to NIH from sequestration’s 5% cut.

Given that sequestration lopped off a staggering $1.55 billion from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) budget this year, it shouldn’t be hard to find examples of how the cut is harming research labs. Although sequestration “has already dealt a devastating blow,” said NIH Director Francis Collins at a Senate hearing last week, it turns out it’s not that easy to spell out the damage.

First of all, this cut was hardly “staggering.” All it did was bring NIH’s budget down to $29.15 billion, which is almost exactly the budget the agency had in 2008. Somehow, NIH managed quite well with this amount of money in 2008, and in fact probably wasted quite a bit of cash even then.

Second, this fact — that the cut wasn’t really that “devastating” — might explain why Science can’t find any obvious damage to any program. In its budget articles the journal routinely makes it a point to lobby for more money for scientists. Thus, we shouldn’t be surprised when it tries to spin any cut — or even a small reduction in the rate of growth — as a disaster. The fact that Science still has trouble making that spin seem believable in this case is solid evidence that sequestration was a good idea, and that there was a great deal of fat that could be trimmed from the budget.

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New estimates of the 2013 federal deficit show it will be the lowest deficit since 2008.

9:40 am

Good news? New estimates of the 2013 federal deficit show it will be the lowest deficit since 2008.

The CBO claims that much of the reduction comes from new revenue, but I suspect that the real cause was sequestration, which actually forced real cuts in federal programs for the first time since Obama took office.

I put a question mark on the “good news” above in that the deficit will still be higher than $600 billion, and that spending is still out of control. This drop is merely the tiniest glimmer of hope in a black storm of disaster.

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America the fallen: Twenty-four signs that our once proud cities are turning into poverty-stricken hellholes.

10:18 pm

The day of reckoning looms: America the fallen: Twenty-four signs that our once proud cities are turning into poverty-stricken hellholes.

It is important to note that every single one of the cities cited in this article has been under Democratic Party rule for decades. While the decline is not entirely their fault, their tax-and-spend policies combined with a passion for heavy regulation certainly share much of the blame.

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Since 2010 total government spending per household has exceeded what each household earns per year.

12:55 pm

The day of reckoning looms: Since 2010 total government spending per household has exceeded what each household earns per year.

In other words, even if the federal, state, and city governments took 100 percent of your income in taxes, they still wouldn’t get enough money to pay their expenses. And since government spending has continued to rise since 2010 amid a stagnant economy, this situation has worsened, not improved. Worse, in 2012 the public voted in favor of accelerating this situation by voting for more Democrats in the Senate, while keeping a spendthrift Democratic President in power.

We are going bankrupt. It is only a matter of time.

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The words of NASA’s chief: “NASA is not going to the Moon with a human as a primary project probably in my lifetime.”

12:17 pm

The words of NASA’s chief: “NASA is not going to the Moon with a human as a primary project probably in my lifetime.”

He’s right. Instead, others will do it. And the ones who do it from the United States, privately financed for profit, will do it quickly, efficiently, and often, three things NASA has not been able to do at all since the 1960s.

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NASA has indicated that the first manned launch using a commercial space carrier has slipped by a year.

9:26 am

NASA has now indicated that the first manned launch using a commercial space carrier has slipped by a year.

The reasons are as yet unclear, though it is suspected that the main cause is the decision by the Obama administration to cut the funds of this program under sequestration. As Clark Lindsey notes, however, there is no reason that some of these private companies won’t go forward and fly other passengers on their spaceships, ahead of the NASA flights. Specifically, SpaceX and its Dragon capsule should easily be ready to go well ahead of 2017, and will likely be earning enough cash from its commercial launches to pay for development even if the NASA subsidies get delayed.

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The coming Obamacare chaos

10:13 am

The coming Obamacare chaos.

The article is a very detailed summary of the many problems caused by Obamacare, from increased unemployment to loss of healthcare insurance to higher premiums to higher debt. Everyone should read it. However, the most important question is laid out in the very first paragraph:

The biggest political problem faced by so-called “liberals” and so-called “progressives” in President Obama’s second term is how to prevent voters from holding them politically responsible as the public comes to realize how badly they were lied to during the first Obama term to win passage of Obamacare.

It is going to be the number one priority of all Democratic politicians and their allies in the mainstream press to somehow find a way to blame Republicans for Obamacare. The question will be whether they will succeed.

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An audit of California’s fiscal state has found it to be $127 billion in the red.

9:54 am

The day of reckoning looms: An audit of California’s fiscal state has found it to be $127 billion in the red.

Were California’s state government a business, it would be a candidate for insolvency with a negative net worth of $127.2 billion, according to an annual financial report issued by State Auditor Elaine Howle and the Bureau of State Audits. The report, which covers the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, says that the state’s negative status — all of its assets minus all of its liabilities — increased that year, largely because it spent more than it received in revenue. [emphasis mine]

None of this is a surprise. California voters chose Jerry Brown and the Democrats to lead them into more debt.

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The collapse of household income since 2009.

3:03 pm

The collapse of household income since 2009.

A comparison of the graph in the article above with the changing federal debt (both graphs below the fold) is quite revealing. The steep drop in household income in 2009 lines up precisely with the steep rise in federal deficits beginning in 2009. I wonder if they have anything to do with each other? The article also notes the possible negative impact of Obamacare. How could they think such a thing?
» Read more

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Science and sequestration in context

11:00 am

On March 21, the House accepted the continuing resolution proposed by the Senate for the year 2013. This continuing resolution will fund everything in the federal government though September of this year, and includes the cuts imposed on March 1 by sequestration.

As it always does, the journal Science did a specific analysis of the science portion of this budget bill. As usual, they looked only at the trees, not the forest, comparing the budget changes up or down for the 2012 and 2013 years only, noting how those changes will impact each agency’s programs. As usual, Science also took the side for more federal spending, assuming that in each case any cut was sure to cause significant harm to the nation’s ability to do cutting edge science.

I like to take a wider and deeper view. Below is a chart showing how the budgets for these agencies have changed since 2008. They give a much clearer perspective of the consequences of sequestration and the cuts, if any, imposed by Congress on these science agencies.
» Read more

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Cyprus has agreed to confiscate a percentage of the savings of large depositors in order to satisfy demands from the European Union creditors..

10:10 am

The day of reckoning looms: Cyprus has agreed to confiscate a percentage of the savings of large depositors in order to satisfy demands from its European Union creditors..

This is only a hint of what’s coming for us here in the U.S. Like the European Union, eventually the federal government is going to go bankrupt, and when that happens it (being the politicians in charge) will then decide that the savings and pensions of private citizens will have to save them somehow.

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The Democrats in the Senate passed their first budget in four years yesterday.

9:19 am

Pigs fly! The Democrats in the Senate passed their first budget in four years yesterday.

The budget cuts practically nothing while increasing taxes by almost $1 trillion, which essentially illustrates how little the Democrats want to bring the debt under control. That four Democrats who face a tough election in 2014 voted against the budget also suggests that the Democrat’s traditional spendthrift approach might finally be becoming dangerous at the polls.

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NASA has issued a clarification specifically excluding its press announcements from the suspension of all public outreach efforts.

9:00 am

NASA has issued a clarification specifically excluding its press announcements from the suspension of all public outreach efforts due to sequestration.

I am not surprised. These budget cuts are aimed at grabbing the most publicity as possible, without harming NASA’s ability to lobby for funding. Ironically, the truth is that much of NASA’s education and outreach work can be cut, will not be missed, and so these cuts should illustrate this fact quite effectively.

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Having lost its earmarked government funding in 2011, the Pan-STARRS telescope has now replaced those funds with a private donation.

10:14 am

We don’t need no stinking government: Having lost its earmarked government funding in 2011, the Pan-STARRS telescope has now replaced those funds with a private donation.

I find it interesting that while the lost government funds equaled $10 million, they are now able to achieve essentially the same goals with a private donation of only $3 million. This suggests, not surprisingly, that there was a lot of extra pork in the government funds that the facility could manage without.

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NASA has clamped down on travel expenses, reducing it by 30 percent in the past year.

7:11 pm

My heart bleeds: NASA has clamped down on travel expenses, reducing it by 30 percent in the past year.

I’ve been to too many science conferences where there was a whole slew of NASA engineers and scientists from all across the country, there because they were getting a free ride from the taxpayer. Often it was absolutely worthwhile for NASA engineers or scientists to be there. More often, it was a complete waste of money that could have been used elsewhere to better effect.

In related news: NASA’s inspector general has suggested the agency could save a lot more money by closing many of its almost 5,000 facilities nationwide.

Here too I’ve visited many NASA operations and found the work being done there redundant, completely unnecessary, or there was no real work being done at all. In the last case a lot of what I’ve seen is featherbedding, this time imposed by Congress to keep the money flowing to their constituents as pork. Unfortunately this last fact will probably make it very difficult to shut any of these facilities, as our representatives, from both parties, appear completely uninterested in serving the country. They’d rather act as union reps for these government employees.

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The budget battle at NASA

10:49 am

Two stories today highlight not only the budget problems at NASA, but also illustrate the apparent unwillingness of both Congress and Americans to face the terrible budget difficulties of the federal government. In both cases, the focus is instead on trying to fund NASA at levels comparable to 2012, before the Obama administration or sequestration had imposed any budget cuts on the agency.

It is as if we live in a fantasy world, where a $16 trillion dollar debt does not exist, and where money grows on trees and we can spend as much as we want on anything we want.
» Read more

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The Democrats in the Senate are about to introduce their legally required annual budget — for the first time in four years.

9:16 am

Pigs fly! The Democrats in the Senate are about to introduce their legally required annual budget — for the first time in four years.

Not that this budget will do much to solve the federal debt, as it will likely continue the out-of-control spending and is expected to be loaded with new taxes galore.

On that note, has anyone but me noticed this tendency of the modern Democratic Party to grab and grab and grab? They want a blank check in spending, for their own uses, while repeatedly demanding as much money from everyone else as possible. In another time, this behavior would have been perceived as somewhat power-hungry, even tyrannical.

And then there’s this: “We don’t have a spending problem.” Guess who said it.

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