Reid suggests that the Democrats might compromise in budget talks
Are they blinking finally? Harry Reid (D-Nevada) suggested yesterday that the Democrats might be willing to compromise in budget talks.
Are they blinking finally? Harry Reid (D-Nevada) suggested yesterday that the Democrats might be willing to compromise in budget talks.
The pigs rule! Congress to NASA: follow the authorization act.
In other words, Congress wants NASA to spend money (Pork!) on a rocket it can’t complete for the cash provided.
Senate Democrats and the White House offer $20B more in cuts.
This is further evidence that the political winds favor trimming the government. However, to find out how serious the Democrats are we’d need to find out some details about their specific proposed cuts.
More on the space war over NASA from Jeff Foust of The Space Review. Also read this Aviation Week article.
Overall, it is still a mess, with much of the money allocated to NASA a complete waste that will not get us into space.
He has a point: Fred Barnes argues that the Republican incremental approach to cutting the budget makes sense politically. Key quote:
The end zone is far away, however, and impatience won’t get Republicans there. Impatience is not a strategy. It may lead to a government shutdown with unknown results. To enact the sweeping cuts they desire, Republicans must hold the House and capture the Senate and White House in the 2012 election. Then they’ll control Washington. Now they don’t.
Frenzy in Washington grows over nation’s debt.
I like the headline alone, because it suggests the political tide might finally be turning in the direction of actually cutting down the size of federal spending. And the article itself reinforces that sense.
Budget negotiations — and the possibility of a shutdown — are coming to a head.
The pigs continue to squeal: Five anti-hunger organization leaders plan open-ended fasts to protest proposed cuts.
The NASA space war mess.
Congress is now looking to flatline or cut NASA budget (or not enact new ones) while also playing its own game of telling NASA to do things it simply does not have the budget to do. A new slow motion train wreck is in the making.
Another example of the great disconnect: Just when you think they finally get it.
If you think the state of the federal budget is irrelevant, read this: House prices predicted to drop another 20%.
The data in the article above is depressing, and suggests the consequences for the unrealistic craziness of the past decade have not yet played out entirely.