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.
My idiotic congressman: Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) today called the $100 billion in cuts to the $3.7 trillion federal budget “A meat-axe approach.”
Way to go, Steny! Show us all how you can’t add or subtract. Somehow, to your childish brain, cutting less than three percent of a budget that was doubled (increased by 100 percent) in the years you and your party were in charge in Congress is “reckless.”
What a fool.
The program-formerly-called-Constellation moves forward: Lockheed Martin yesterday unveiled the Orion spacecraft and the test center to be used to prepare it for space.
Though this press announcement was actually intended to encourage Congress to continue funding, it also illustrated how this portion at least of Constellation had made significant progress before it was undercut by both Obama and Congress.
This is a good sign: The Senate vote on restricting the power of the EPA has been postponed by Harry Reid as he struggles to get Democrat votes.
The budget wars: Winning the future three weeks at a time. To me, this says it all:
The Obama White House on Tuesday endorsed the Republican House-passed federal spending extension bill and urged the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass it and avoid a federal government shutdown Friday.
The newest budget continuing resolution and the continuing funding of Obamacare. Key quote:
But Speaker John Boehner, interviewed by The Washington Times, couldn’t even coherently explain why House leaders didn’t remove Obamacare spending just as they did with the 123 other programs.
Continue budget problems at NASA: Two climate missions each face a one year schedule slip.
The squealing continues: Senators defend NPR funding. I like this quote in the comments:
What part of being broke do they not understand?
The squeals keep coming: Tiny cuts, big complaints.
A tea party victory: Republican Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) has reversed course and now supports the House Republican spending cuts.
There was a hearing in Congress today on climate science, though it apparently changed nothing: the Republican leadership in the committee is going to proceed with legislation to try to roll back the EPA regulations relating to carbon dioxide imposed by the Obama administration.
The most interesting detail I gleaned from the above article however was this quote, written by the Science journalist himself, Eli Kintisch:
The hearing barely touched on the underlying issue, namely, is it appropriate for Congress to involve itself so deeply into the working of a regulatory agency? Are there precedents? And what are the legal and governance implications of curtailing an agency’s authority in this way?
What a strange thing to write. If I remember correctly, we are a democracy, and the people we elect to Congress are given the ultimate responsibility and authority to legislate. There are no “legal or governance implications.” If they want to rein in a regulatory agency, that is their absolute Constitutional right. That Kintisch and his editors at Science don’t seem to understand this basic fact about American governance is most astonishing.
