US might lose its top credit rating even if debt limit agreement is reached
The day of reckoning looms: The U.S. might still lose its top credit rating even if a debt limit agreement is reached.
Tag: budget
Long, cramped road trips ahead for US astronauts
And in a related note: Long, cramped road trips ahead for US astronauts.
Being tone deaf is not a good way to fund a government space program
Yesterday the House appropriations committee’s released budget numbers that included no additional funds for commercial space, limiting the subsidies to $312 million, the same number as last year and significantly less than the $850 million requested by the Obama administration.
This is what I have thought might happen since last year. The tone deaf manner in which the Obama administration has implemented the private space subsidies is leaving all funding for NASA vulnerable.
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NASA stalls, Texas lawmakers fume
The law is such an inconvenient thing: In a bipartisan effort, Texas lawmakers roast NASA administrator Charles Bolden for not meeting mandated Congressional deadlines for Congress’s personally designed rocket, the program-formerly-called-Constellation.
The heavy-lift rocket and capsule that Congress insists NASA build is a complete waste of money and nothing more than pork. It will never get built, mainly because Congress has given NASA less money and less time to build it than they did for Constellation under the Bush administration. Unfortunately, the reason they continue to require NASA to build it is to provide pork to their districts.
In a perfect world this funding would be cut now, especially considering the state of the federal debt.
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House spending panel cuts John Holdren’s science office budget by 55%
The House spending panel today proposed cutting the budget of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) office, run by John Holdren, by 55%.
“OSTP has chosen to disregard a strong and unambiguous legislative prohibition on bilateral engagement with China or Chinese-owned companies,” says language accompanying the 2012 bill, to be voted on tomorrow by the full appropriations committee. “OSTP’s behavior demonstrates a lack of respect for the policy and oversight roles of the Congress.”
I think the Obama administration is about to discover that ignoring the law as passed by Congress can have bad consequences.
Public debt and the peril of Obamacare
Public debt and the peril of Obamacare.
Countries with universal healthcare fall into two camps:
1. Totalitarian regimes like Cuba and North Korea, and authoritarian Third World countries in the Middle East and Africa.
2. Western nations that free-ride off of American military spending and its provision of international security, but nonetheless run unsustainable budgets with immense debts trying to pay for their social welfare states. [emphasis mine]
In other words, we had better repeal this monstrosity or we face economic collapse, probably preceded by a dictatorship.
The First Rule of Liberalism: Government failure always justifies more government.
The first rule of liberalism: Government failure always justifies more government.
“Some of them seem to believe that the government can simply keep spending beyond its means forever with no negative consequences.”
House Budget Bill Would Leave it to NASA To Apportion Bulks of Cuts
The House bill that brings NASA’s budget back to 2008 levels essentially leaves it to NASA to figure out what to cut.
If true, what this means is that NASA itself will have to choose what it considers important. The one problem is that according to this article Congress is still requiring NASA to spend $3 billion on the program-formerly-called-Constellation. which gives the agency less flexibility in doling out the cash.
Washington’s Never-Ending Scam of Fake Spending Cuts
Washington’s never-ending scam of fake spending cuts.
The politicians only get away with this because the press has let them. Which is why I always make reference back to past budgets to give some context to the so-called “cuts,” which often are exactly not that.
Obama’s Stimulus Waste: $7 million per House on Internet Access
Obama’s stimulus bill: $7 million per house to provide seven homes internet access in Montana.
The Senate canceled its July 4th Break to deal with the debt and literally did nothing
Throw these bums out! The Senate canceled its July 4th break to deal with the debt and literally did nothing.