A House panel has told the Department of Energy to get rid of underperforming research grants.
Though this article focuses on what it considers “whopping” cuts, I must point out that the total cuts to the DOE simply bring its budget back to its 2008 level, hardly a draconian cut.
How the recently dissolved California Space Authority wasted millions of dollars in federal earmarks and grants.
Sadly, this story is typical of many quasi-public/private authorities, most of which have nothing to do with the aerospace industry. There is a lot of one hand washing the other, using money the federal government nonchalantly gives away as if it is water.
White House chief of staff can’t defend Obama’s “indefensible” (his word) economic policies.
NASA is about to decide on its shuttle heavy-lift replacement, and it looks like it will be almost entirely shuttle-derived.
As I have said previously, this rocket will almost certainly never fly. NASA has to start over after spending billions and years developing Constellation, and is being given less money and time to do it.
And even if I am wrong and this rocket does fly, I bet it will do only one flight and then be retired as too costly.
An evening pause: If the government can do it, why not everyone?
Some pigs win, some lose: Republicans refuse to cut farm and ethanol subsidies, but cut international food aid instead.
The cowardice of politicians from both parties to honestly face the federal deficit problem sadly continues.
Though some progress has been made, the negotiations over the debt limit and the budget still appear deadlocked.
The pork goes on: The shuttle’s end has still left NASA with a half billion dollar pension bill.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled today that the union law passed earlier this year is legal.
Europe has decided to shrink the design of the gigantic Extremely Large Telescope (yes, that’s really its name) by 13% to save money.
Obama to announce plans today to cut government waste.
Though I applaud any effort to reduce the federal government’s out-of-control spending, to me this paragraph suggested strongly how symbolic and superficial this announcement by Obama will be:
One of the campaign’s first steps will be targeting waste and duplication among federal websites. The administration will halt the creation of new websites, as well as shut down or consolidate one-fourth of the 2,000 government websites in the next few months.
For one thing, having an employee launch an extra website is hardly very costly, as you are already paying that employee’s salary. Will they be laying off these workers as well? I doubt it.
For another, shutting down websites is hardly a demonstration of transparency in government.
