Tag: Congress

Some historical context in discussing the federal debt

8:41 am

Some historical context in discussing the federal debt.

When Bill Clinton was president, the national debt rose by an annual average of $193 billion; when the profligate George W. Bush was in the White House, the yearly debt increases averaged $612 billion. On Obama’s watch, by contrast, the federal debt has been skyrocketing by more than $1.5 trillion per year. It took 40 presidents and nearly two centuries, from George Washington to Ronald Reagan , for the US government to accumulate $1.5 trillion in indebtedness. The 44th president – aided and abetted by Congress – enlarges the federal debt by that amount every 12 months.

1 comment

Congress has slashed the budget of John Holdren’s White House Science Office

4:22 pm

The Senate/House final deal for the White House Science Office has slashed its budget by one third.

Frustrated that White House officials [i.e. John Holdren] have ignored congressional language curtailing scientific collaborations with China, legislators have decided to get their attention through a 32% cut in the tiny budget of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

See this story for more background.

0 comments

NASA budget compromise

8:27 am

Congress has come up with a NASA budget compromise. More details here.

Overall, the NASA budget is cut by about a half billion dollars, the total matching what the agency got in 2009. The key figures are $406 million for commercial manned space, $3 billion for NASA’s in-house heavy-lift rocket and capsule, and $529 million to finish the Webb telescope.

I predict that the $3 billion will be a waste of money, the project getting cancelled before completion.

1 comment

NASA, the federal budget, and common sense

12:41 pm

Let’s be blunt: the federal government is broke. With deficits running in the billions per day, there simply is no spare cash for any program, no matter how important or necessary. Nothing is sacrosanct. Even a proposal to cure cancer should be carefully reviewed before it gets federal funding.

Everything has got to be on the table.

Thus, no one should have been surprised when word leaked two weeks ago that the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration was proposing cutting the entire unmanned planetary program at NASA, while simultaneously eviscerating the space agency’s astronomy program. No more missions to Mars. No probes to Europa or Titan. Further and longer delays before the James Webb Space Telescope is completed. And Kepler’s mission to find Earth Like planets orbiting other stars would end mid-mission.

The Obama administration has to find ways to trim the budget, and apparently it is considering eliminating these programs as a way to do it.

Yet, the money spent on space astronomy and planetary research is a pinprick. Considering that the federal government overspends its budget by approximately $3.5 billion per day, and the total amount of money spent on these two science programs equals about $2.4 billion per year, it seems senseless at first to focus on these kinds of cuts. Quite clearly, even eliminating them entirely will not put the federal budget into the black.

Now I am not one to say, “Cut the budget, but please leave my favorite programs alone!” I recognize the serious financial state of the nation, and realize that any budget suggestions I make must include significant total cuts to NASA’s budget.

As a space historian and science journalist who knows a great deal about NASA, however, I also know that there is plenty of room for cuts in NASA’s budget. By picking our priorities carefully at a time when our options are limited, NASA might even be able to accomplish more, not less, with a smaller budget.

Moreover, if I, as a space junky, think it is possible to continue NASA’s most important programs and still trim its budget by 15% to 20%, in real dollars, doesn’t that suggest that the same could be done across the entire federal government?

All it takes is a little knowledge, some common sense, and the courage to say no.
» Read more

1 comment

Supercommittee to the rescue

12:08 pm

The Supercommittee to the rescue!

They’re the new superhero group of Superfriends from the Supercongress who are going to save America from plummeting over the cliff and into the multitrillion-dollar abyss. There’s Spender Woman (Patty Murray), Incumbent Boy (Max Baucus), Kept Man (John Kerry) and many other warriors for truth, justice and the American way of debt. The Supercommittee is supposed to report back by the day before Thanksgiving on how to carve out $1.2 trillion dollars of deficit reduction and thereby save the republic.

0 comments

We’re still not cutting

8:49 am

The day of reckoning looms: We’re still not cutting.

In the spring fight to avert a government shutdown, Republicans promised $100 billion in real cuts but then compromised for $38.5 billion in future savings. In reality, the Congressional Budget Office found the deal still resulted in an increase of more than $170 billion in federal spending from 2010 to 2011. The “largest spending cut in history” ended up being a spending increase.

And this:

But the [super]committee isn’t really trying to cut spending. It seeks only to spend the country into bankruptcy a little slower. Rather than letting the country rack up $23.4 trillion of debt by 2021, the supercommittee hopes to keep it to $21.3 trillion. It’s the difference between speeding off a cliff at 91 miles per hour versus 100 miles per hour.

1 comment

Finally some substance in the Presidential campaign

11:20 pm

Up until tonight I had not watched any of the Republican Presidential debates. To me, the game show formats of each debate were such that I had no expectation of seeing any substance. Quick one-liners and gotcha attacks — the only thing that generally comes from these formats — can’t tell me anything about the deeper philosophical underpinnings of each candidate. And without that knowledge I can have no idea whether or not the candidates will follow through with what they say they’ll do.

Tonight however I did watch the Herman Cain-Newt Gingrich debate, which CSPAN has made available to watch in its entirety. The format was basically Cain and Gingrich for an hour and a half, answering a variety of questions about the three big entitlement programs, Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. Each man could essentially take as much time as he desired to say what he wanted.
» Read more

3 comments

White House officials held talks with China over technology, despite a law banning such talks

8:39 am

The law is such an inconvenient thing: White House officials held technology talks with China, despite a law banning such talks.

In [a General Accountability Office (GAO)] letter, Gibson said OSTP officials violated U.S. law by participating in May in bilateral discussions with Chinese officials in spite of a language included in a 2011 spending bill enacted in April that specifically prohibited such talks. GAO concluded that OSTP officials violated the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prohibits U.S. government employees from spending money that Congress has not appropriated. “If Congress specifically prohibits a particular use of appropriated funds, any obligation for that purpose is in excess of the amount available,” Gibson wrote in the Oct. 11 letter. In May, OSTP officials spent approximately $3,500 to participate in discussions and a dinner with Chinese government officials, according to the GAO letter.

[Congressman Frank] Wolf (R-Virginia), a vocal critic of China’s human rights policies who also testified at the hearing, inserted the language in the 2011 spending bill barring OSTP and NASA from participating in any bilateral activities with China. “Following the law is not voluntary for administration officials,” Wolf said. [emphasis mine]

Sadly, it appears that this administration does not agree with Wolf, and instead considers the law to be nothing more than vague advice they can ignore at will.

0 comments

Senate approves NASA budget

6:35 pm

The Senate today approved a NASA budget of $17.9 billion, 2.8 percent less than last year and about equivalent to NASA’s 2009 budget.

The Senate bill included $500 million for commercial space, $3 billion for NASA’s heavy-lift rocket, and $500 for the James Webb Space Telescope. This must now be reconciled with the House budget, which called for a $16.8 billion total budget, with $300 million for commercial space and no money at all for Webb.

0 comments
1 … 74 75 76 77 78 … 105