Sequestration Impact at NASA: $1.4 billion Cut for FY 2013
White House details automatic cuts, calls them ‘blunt, indiscriminate’, The Hill
“Cuts of approximately $110 billion are set to take effect in Jan. 3, according to an agreement reached by the administration and Congress, with half of the cuts falling on discretionary and non-discretionary defense budgets, and the other half affecting non-defense budgets.”
U.S. budget sequester cuts science over 8 percent, Nature
“NASA would lose $417 million from its science budget, $346 for space operations, $309 for exploration, $246 for cross agency support, among other cuts.”
Sequestration Would Cut U.S. Science Budgets By 8.2%, White House Estimates, Science
“NASA’s science programs would drop by $417 million to about $4.7 billion, and its Exploration account would fall by $309 million to about $3.5 billion.”
Sequestration report: Embassy security cut by $129 million, Human Events
“Other alarming cuts include $1.4 billion in funding for NASA …”
– OMB Sequestration Update Report to the President and Congress for Fiscal Year 2013, White House
– OMB Report Pursuant to the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012 (P. L. 112-155), White House
I find it truly baffling that people can be aware of situations like this and still support the Republicans. We are all familiar with the concept of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer (and the middle class just plain getting it where it hurts the most), yet people are apparently ready to vote for exactly that by supporting the Republicans. Personally, I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat (I’m a Canadian), so I don’t approach this from a biased position. As an outsider, it often appears to me that Republicans have made it their goal over the last decade to stop things from happening, rather than promoting any progressive actions (many of them are still living the Cold War), and their attitude towards social issues makes a mockery of the word republic. The democrats have become the weakling kid confronted by bullies — they’d love to pull the Republicans down a few notches, but they have absolutely no idea how to do so, and thereby have become quite ineffectual. Given that Congress has over the last few years also become obstructionist (towards the White House), I see it as just a matter of time before the US federal government pretty much ceases to function at all, becoming little more than a den of infighting. In medicine, it is often said that the first rule is “do no harm.” Americans, I think, need to take this same attitude towards their federal government, come November.
Steve
I find it truly baffling that people can be aware of the economic situation like this and still support the Democrats. We are all familiar with quantitative easing and Keynesian economics (and the debt US debt is just plain growing until China calls our debt), yet, people are apparently ready to vote for exactly that by supporting the Democrats.
Personally, I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat but one of those “independent” voters, so I do not approach this from a biased position. As an Independent, it often appears to me that the Democrats have made their goal over the last decade to blame Bush for everything and explode the national debt by $5 TRI TRI TRILLION DOLLARS!
Rather than promoting fiscally responsible and conservative monetary policy, and their attitudes on Muslim Outreach (how’s that working for us?) their attitudes for limited government makes a mockery out of the American Republic.
The Republicans have become the weakling kid in power but is too stupid to realize – they would love to pull the Democrats down a few notches, but John Boehner and the Republican leadership doesn’t know WTF to do, and hereby have become ineffective.
Given this, the United States Senate has not passed a budget in over 1,050 days and can blame the Republicans, even though the Republican House passed 35 different versions of budgets over the last few years. It is just a matter of time before the US Federal Government (and NASA) ceases to function at all, becoming little more than a den of infighting.
In economics, it is important to make sure you first “balance your budget.” Americans, I think, need to take this same attitude towards their federal, state, and local governments come November.
Fixed that for you… you had it all wrong.
Saw this chart a few days ago in a news article that shows the growth in federal spending by administration.
whatagy,
Excellent chart. This data has been around and growing for a long time now, but how many people have bothered to research it before expressing opinions? What the chart doesn’t show it HOW the money was/wasn’t spent, and that makes a big difference. Everybody quotes the bottom line, because it’s easy, but it’s the details in the spending (investments) that make the real difference. For example, Reagan spent a large portion on “defense” while Bush I and Clinton (different parties) both worked to reduce the portion that was defense spending. But even those numbers don’t tell a whole story. Spending in any particular area has to be weighed against the country’s needs in that area at the time of that spending (as opposed to spending on pet projects and currently irrelevant issues).
Anybody who has to run a business, of any size, knows that money in the bank means very little; it’s cash flow by which you live or die. Families, generally, know this, too — you don’t buy steak for today if it will leave your fridge empty before the end of the week. The money coming in has to cover all the expenses for the entire time period until the next chunk of money comes in. Running a country is no different. There are many categories of expense, and the available money has to spread across all of them. There are (approximately) 314 million people in America, and, again, the available money spending has to spread across all of them. The Republican party’s current platform (what little they’ve shown us) doesn’t seem to agree with this, with respect to either cash flow or wealth (investment spending) distribution. Anybody who decides to investigate this claim should quickly come to that conclusion by looking at things like import/export policies, tax rates by income, disappearing subsidies, and all the other obvious related topics. Managing a country is like raising children — you invest in them to the best of your ability and watch them grow up to make you proud, or you leave them to themselves and provide only the bare necessities that you’re forced to, and they grow up (unless they’re lucky) to be unmanageable adults with whom you can’t communicate and you really don’t understand them at all.
And, of course, things get really tough when somebody puts a major surprise (like war) on the credit card in your name, even when your name is America. Whether the war was right or wrong is not the current issue; paying off the cost is, because it simply can’t be avoided or legislated away. (Of course, if you’re a Republican, you can “save” money by reducing the money that the country is paying to support the brave men and women who risked, and too often lost, their lives in that war; no need to be humanitarian if it costs money, right?)
A lot of people on both sides have claimed that this upcoming election is all about fiscal issues. For what it’s worth, I say when everything is measured solely based on fiscal issues, you’ve started spinning down a social drain in a whirlpool from which it will be almost impossible to extract yourselves.
Steve
The value of the dollar has also dropped like a stone… the fed has been printing money like wall paper and so 5 trillion in debt has been so inflated to the point our european allies are saying the fed is doing it intentially so we can pay our debt with dollars of half the value of just a few years ago.
You may wish to check the facts. Inflation in 2008 (when George Bush was in office) averaged 3.8%; last month it was 1.7%.
If you devalue the dollar… it means .. instead of paying 1 dollar for something.. you now pay 2 dollars. We loaned money from europe and china. We are not paying them back by value. We borrowed $1 and are now paying them back with a dollar bill that is not worth a dollar but only 60 cents .. the buying power, of the money we are paying them back with, is devalued.
We would still be paying 30 cents for a gallon of gas, the cost during reagan’s term if the dollar wasn’t being devalued.
http://blogs.reuters.com/ja…
It is distorted facts like this that the ‘left’ use to prove their point without looking at all of the required information. This element shows ‘growth’ in spending but does not cover the other side relative to income for each year. You should only spend the money you have. When you go to the WhiteHouse.Gov OMB site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/o… you will see that during the entire 8 years of GWBs admin he spent $3.2T more than revenues. This was the amount added to the deficit. In Obamas 3 years he has already spent $4.6T more than revenues and if re-elected would be on target to spend $12T more than revenues. This is 4 times more than GWB. Take a look at the real data without political spin and then tell me that he is being more responsible. If you feel that he is, then I have some swamp land for sale.
Well, it doesn’t have to be all budget cuts, they could raise some taxes? But you know, the US leading political power Grover Norquist says no to his minions.
Well raising taxes now would be one way to slow the economy.
Isn’t it funny how the economy did so well with higher taxes under the Clinton administration?
Ralphy,
Clinton also did far more reduction of the debt than any other President. But to be fair, he also didn’t inherit from his predecessors any of the huge financial time bombs that his successors have.
Steve
You mean before the recession during his administration?
There is no repeat no evidence that raising the marginal tax ate on the wealthiest taxpayers has any negative effect on the economy. On the contrary, when WW II ended, the economy was booming, and the marginal tax rate on the wealthiest bracket was 90%.
The tax cut of 1964, which had been promoted by President Kennedy, did produce a stimulus to the economy, precisely because it cut taxes for poor and moderate income taxpayers, who spent all or most of their income on products and services — thus driving the economy. The same is simply not true of the wealthy,who invest considerable amounts of their disposable income. And the last four years have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that investments can prosper while the economy is a shambles.
Agree to a point. In economics there is something called marginal analysis. What happens when you change one variable and the rest is ceteris paribus.
On the MARIGIN any reduction in taxes creates SOME investment/consumption.
The question is, does that investment, spark enough economic activity that the tax revenues are higher than before the tax cut. If the tax cuts generate more deficit then revenue.. it is a bad tax cut… even though .. on the MARIGIN it does create a little more economic activity.
You have to have certain things going on in the economy, at the time a tax cut on the high end takes place, for a postive effect to take place.
The laffer curve is actually a good tool for determining that break point. Using that tool, it showed that a tax cut on the high end would not generate the economic activity promised. It is the reason the Bush Administration never brought up the Laffer. Because it showed the Bush tax cuts would not produce what they advertised.
Wealth among the top 1% and corporate profits are at record highs. The wealthy are not investing or creating jobs in the US because the middle class doesn’t have enough money to buy their services. Their money is sitting in a vault or heading overseas by the boatload. If it were creating American jobs we would have full employment and then some.
So giving more to the rich, as Romney plans to do, accomplishes nothing. The only way to get it back into circulation in the US is to tax it and use it to build infrastructure, education, and research and development. In space this means projects that create direct practical benefits, jobs and exports, like manufacturing, aircraft, communications, imaging, and commercial launch services.
I agree, you can weigh the multiplier effect and productivity gains on various infrastructure projects and just start funding the ones with the highest mutiplier effect and highest potential productivity gains…
Lets get one thing clear, neither party is for first “balance your budget”. But Democrats are closer to it. After the collapse of the economy in 2008, a balanced budget would had been disastrous. Not to mention the administration inherited two wars across the globe. Moving forward, however, Republicans refuse to let tax breaks expire and reduce military spending. Those two decisions themselves assure the debt would be worse under a Republican administration.
There are no facts to support your implied claim that letting the Bush tax cuts lapse and reducing military spending would make things worse under a Republican administration.
The 2010 deficit I think was about $1300 billion. The tax cuts are about $300 billion. With the criticized sequestration cut to the military of $100 billion, that would reduce the budget deficit from $1300 billion to $900 billion, still a big number.
And the CBO says doing those two things would likely put the US economy into a recession which would mean even higher deficits.
I never said letting the Bush tax cuts expired and reducing military spending would balance the budget … but it get us much closer. The Republicans have no plan. In fact, it would increase it. The Democrat’s plan for reduced military spending would reduce the deficit my 2 trillion dollars over ten years.
Only on the left is a balanced budget disastrous.
Would it have sucked if we balanced the budget then? Yes
However, in 2012 we would have been well into the recovery… something we do not have today.
Andrew,
You are, of course, free to make fun of this situation, but it is serious. The R’s are not interested in investing money in US industry; you therefore imply that you don’t support the buy American philosophy. The R’s are clearly inclined to reduce the debt by making the middle- and lower-class Americans try futilely to pay it off, while they continue to give more tax breaks to the rich; you therefore imply that you are OK with that. The R’s banner of reduce spending on everything across the board is going to kill the American dream and way of life; are you still laughing?
Over the course of the next decade or two, I offer my personal condolences to all those Americans who are suddenly (or slowly) going to acquire serious medical problems for which they simply can’t pay the out-of-pocket expenses necessary to save their lives, or that of a loved one. No one should have to face that in a rich country! But if there’s any sanity to it all, then this will only happen to those who, for one reason or another, foolishly voted for the current Republican platform and policies.
Steve
Steve,
With all due respect you have no idea what you are speaking of. The Rs are interested in the industry and they are interested in Science. I know, I spoke to one for 20 minutes about NASA just today… in person… no staffers…
Your complete lack of understanding of what is killing our economy at the moment (QE3) is what is making it worse. Failure is not allowed to incur.
Yes lower middle and lower class feels it, so does everyone else. What will kill the American Dream is if we refuse to realize that there are no unicorns and rainbows with pots of gold on the end and not everyone gets a pony either.
I’ll take that bet Steve.
Andrew wrote: “The Republicans have become the weakling kid in power but is too stupid to realize – they would love to pull the Democrats down a few notches, but John Boehner and the Republican leadership doesn’t know WTF to do, and hereby have become ineffective.”
They would love to pull the democrats down? Where have you been the last two years? Living in a cave? Mitch McConnel said THEE number one priority of the republican party was to pull the democrats down!
They have made making THIS President FAIL the number one priority. You can only keep a president from being reelected if you keep the unemployment rate above 7.8%. No president has been reelected with a rate higher than that.
SO.. 188 fillibusters later .. shattering the record by 300% and 205 fillibuster threats later .. the American jobs act sits gathering dust.
The republicans have NOT been working and doing their job in the house and senate for the last two years for EXACTLY the EXPRESSED PURPOSE of pulling the democrats down and retake the whitehouse.
That was REALLY weak analysis. You would have to be a political blind man not to see what the republicans have been doing.
sheesh!
“We are all familiar with quantitative easing and Keynesian economics”
And anyone that is not mearly “familiar” with Keynesian economics but has actually studied it would know, The United States has never once followed through with what the Keynesian model calls for. Not once.
amen to that. the us right has become a destructive force. they’re not like the conservatives in europe or canada. they’re more like a cross between ayn rand worshippers and crazy religious types, completely divorced from social and economic reallity and impervious to facts and reason.
>”becoming little more than a den of infighting.”
A recent article of a PBS show where archaeologists uncovered remnants of a large Chinese ocean-going ship, which supports that hundreds of years ago China had a global navy, or at least capabilities to do so. But this was dismantled around late 1300s (Ming Dynasty?) and some wonder what if China didn’t and used this navy like what European navies did, the world would have been very different than what it is today.
I asked a friend from Taiwan about this and why did the Chinese dismantled such a global capability. He said because there was no serious enemy to fight, those in high level positions became more corrupt with infighting and their fleet continued to decrease until it was no more.
The Fed will be printing $40 Billion a month, too bad they wont give some of that to NASA rather than buying MBS.
No – NASA won’t get a dime.
Not sure how many times I have to drive around 395 screaming this, but we will keep screaming until people realize we better change our act.
Andrew,
I fear there will be much worse consequences to the country than what NASA will lose. NASA makes America stronger, but it is not a survival necessity. Some of the necessities are also facing significant cuts, which will effect the common people in everyday ways. That, I think, is what you need to be screaming about; you and every other American.Steve
In all candor – we all better pray SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, and Boeing come through (along with ULA) because after sequestration NASA is screwed.
As said in today’s hearing, NASA will face a cut. What lives? What dies?
Will there be intellectual honesty on Capitol Hill?
Nope.
Unfortunately, those companies are depending on NASA money so how NASA goes, so go their crewed programs.
John,
Hopefully the individual contracts were written in such a way that NASA, as an agency of the US government, can’t simply unilaterally walk away from these contracts, except perhaps under national emergency conditions. A contract is a contract, no matter who you are, otherwise the law of the land breaks down. For the federal government to fail to honor a contract (unless they declare bankruptcy) would be a fatal blow to the nation’s credibility. I hope those contracts were written “properly.” If they weren’t, then I guess all our predictions for “commercial” space, pro and con, go out the window for good.
Steve
“Hopefully the individual contracts were written in such a way that NASA,
as an agency of the US government, can’t simply unilaterally walk away
from these contracts”
Ha-Ha-Ha!! You’ve obviously never had a contract with the US government in the last 30-40 years. Fact is, the US government can, and does, cancel contracts for good reasons and bad, because, well, they can. I say this from direct experience working on a NASA contract that was canceled not because there were any tech-budget-schedule problems (there weren’t) but because NASA decided they wanted to spend the money on something else.
The comment that led to this was aimed at the companies with SAA contracts. Is that what you’re referring to, or was yours an old-style cost-plus contract?
It was a fixed price contract.
Damn the Horse’s Mouth
I’ve never seen federal contracts of this scale, but for the “little” (<$1 million) ones NASA can unilaterally walk out of them. They contain a clause saying that, if NASA wishes to, they can cancel the contract. There are terms involving close out costs, how abruptly this happen, etc. But the end result is that NASA can cancel on relatively short notice. That’s more-or-less necessary for multi-year contracts: NASA has no idea what budget Congress will give them next year, or the year after, so a multi-year contract has to have some sort of clause like that.
Agreed, but add in that the costs bid by the contractors reflect that risk, so as to not be suddenly left out in the cold.
After CCiCap they better be ready. Follow Far will be the death.
It’s quite true that not all the current NASA programs can be supported without increasing taxes. But which ones will be of greatest immediate benefit to our economy relative to the investment in tax dollars? Look at the budget for CCiCAP vs SLS/Orion. Look at the potential for each launch vehicle to carry commercial payloads. Look at the potential to save federal budget and balance of payments money by reducing purchase of foreign launch services. I have great respect for all NASA programs, but it is time to be realistic.
The Democrats have only one agenda here and that’s to tax the rich and spend until their social programs drain all the funds from other programs, driving our economy well past 16 trillion into the 20 trillion range causing an economic collapse. The Republicans want to cut taxes and decrease spending which is the only way our economy can survive.Those that differ from this, miss the point.
And that is, we don’t have any choice but to completely overhaul the system that drives our country and economy. There has been way too much relentless spending and too many taxes added onto the Americans citizens.
In doing such a proposal, programs will either be cut or eliminated all together but we have no choice in the matter but to do this or face bankruptcy. All programs will need to be scrutinized to eliminate the “earmarks” that are unnecessary and cause escalated spending and increased taxes.
This is way overdue and should’ve been done earlier until now. No one program should be put “under the knife” as some believe NASA should be but all should be done to eliminate the wasteful spending being done by our government.
This will result in our country being better off in the long-run.
Sure, it’s all the democrats fault. Grin.
… yes, because the deficit didn’t double and quadrupled in the last two Republican administrations. Democrats cannot dream of enough social programs to account just for the military spending Republicans support.
” … yes, because the deficit didn’t double and quadrupled in the last two Republican administrations.”
That is a flat-out LIE. George W. Bush came into office with a nearly-balanced federal budget. He left with a $1.5 Trillion deficit. Yes, the $1.5 Trillion deficit Obama inherited from George W. Bush. It was that high before George W. Bush left office. Look it up.
… that was meant to be a sarcastic statement. How do you make sense of the following sentence if that wasn’t meant to be sarcasm.
That is a lie Neal
U.S. budget deficit hits record $438 billion for year
http://www.usatoday.com/new…
google
Does that deficit include the two wars? The perscription drug bill?
According to the US Treasury, the USGovt. Debt on;10/01/07 was: $9,063
billion and on;9/30/08 was: $10,025 billionThat means the real
US Govt. deficit for FY ‘08 was $962 billion.Treasury site:
http://www.treasurydirect.g… ation=np
You are once again .. being silly Andrew.
That is like saying social security causes deficits. Even though it has a 2.6 trillion surplus and almost 20% of the national debt is money taxpayers owe to the SS department because Reagan brought social security into the genearl budget so those surpluses would make his deficits look better and he could spend it.
Why is it that every criticism I see of Democrats is using the straw man from the 60s of increasing spending on social programs? Mr. Whitfield is right: GOP with the emphasis on OLD…they seem to still live in the 50s.
“Republicans want to cut taxes and decrease spending”
And yet they never do. Every single time. Instead they cut taxes while still increasing spending.
Indeed, this is also the Romney “plan”; massive tax cuts for top end, and claims of future savings but with no details. In practice, this has always meant they assume that their tax cuts will magically create such an increase in revenue (Laffer Curve and all that), that cuts won’t be necessary. In practice, they increase spending, and the tax cuts and spending increases are both just booked up on the national credit card. (See the graph of spending increases posted by “whatagy” in the thread above. And find any similar chart of increases in public debt, divided by Administration, and you’ll see the same pattern.)
It happened under every Republican administration. Why do you believe them again?
Actually, the Laffer curve is a good tool in determining if a tax cut is actually warrented and if it will generate economic activity that will generate more government tax revenues in the long run.
The Bush tax cuts.. both failed the laffer curve analysis. So even if you DID try and use the Laffer model… it would have showed that the tax cuts .. would not stimulate enough economic activity to justify them. That is why you NEVER heard the Bush administration bring up Laffer when they were proposed.
I know what you’re saying, but the Laffer Curve isn’t a tool for the people who advocate it, it’s a religion. Faith-based economics. How many people have you seen who talk about Laffer would ever conside that the US is on the low side of the curve? Or that the Laffer Curve only applied to actual rates paid, not margins?
I agree. It is funny when you think about the history. When kennedy proposed the tax cuts the Republicans led the charge against cutting taxes. When Reagan comes in, a dyed in the wool liberal democrat, he goes to the democratic well of tax cutting, something the republicans were historically against.
“The Republicans want to cut taxes and decrease spending”
Really? Since when have they cut spending? Can you give an example of a recent republican president who slashed spending?
Republican Economics 101 “Put your foot on the gas and never take it off”
Reagan: massive tax cuts instantly creating massive deficits, blame the deficits on big spending democrats. Make sure to MASSIVELY cut taxes so the democrats ask for tax increases so you can blame them as tax and spend democrats. Increase military spending, blame the increase in government spending on tax and spend democrats, Increase republican spending programs and blame the democrats as big spenders, cut or freeze democrat spending programs. Do not veto spending bills and blame the deficits on big spending democrats.
Bush: massive tax cuts instantly creating massive deficits, blame the deficits on big spending democrats. Make sure to MASSIVELY cut taxes so the democrats ask for tax increases so you can blame them as tax and spend democrats. Increase military spending, blame the increase in government spending on tax and spend democrats, Increase republican spending programs and blame the democrats as big spenders, cut or freeze democrat spending programs. Do not veto spending bills and blame the deficits on big spending democrats.
Romney’s Plan: massive tax cuts instantly creating massive deficits, blame the deficits on big spending democrats. Make sure to MASSIVELY cut taxes so the democrats ask for tax increases so you can blame them as tax and spend democrats. Increase military spending, blame the increase in government spending on tax and spend democrats, Increase republican spending programs and blame the democrats as big spenders, cut or freeze democrat spending programs. Do not veto spending bills and blame the deficits on big spending democrats.
Donald,
You are spot on here with the first party of this post in that we have never seen current Republicans (since 1998) CUT spending. The last time it happened when was Clinton was president and Mr. Newt was running the show in congress.
I am sick and tired of Republicans saying GWB had 9-11 and had to spend. Yes, he did. But its a lame excuse anymore. If you are sick and tired of Obama Blaming Bush you better be sick and tired and stop blaming 9-11.
We do not know Romney’s plan.
Romney stated his plan. Cut taxes, raise military spending by 2 trillion and add four aircraft carrier groups, and slash spending. How many republican favored spending areas has he said he will cut? None, how many democrat spending has he mentioned.. well.. just about all of them. Cut all spending democrats favor .. do not even hint at a cut to republican favored spending.
I honestly do not understand why you find it so freakin’ hard to admit this.. Romney has PUBLISHED what he wants to do.
Bob,
I sure wish that things were as simple as you paint them. Unfortunately, they’re not, by a very long way.
If you really look at the history of the last half dozen administrations, I believe you can see (if you’re honest with yourself) an unmistakable pattern in that:
1) The D’s may do things that are not overly popular (which is not the same as doing things that are wrong), but they were done in an attempt to stimulate the US economy, and more importantly, they were specifically devised for the then-current situation(s); whereas
2) Despite what they said they were going to do prior to each election, every time that the R’s got in, they did exactly the same things, employing exactly the same financial tactics that had only made things worse every time before.
In short, the GOP is a perfect name for the Republicans, emphasis on the “Old,” since they are apparently, as a party, old and stiff, and set in their ways, incapable of change or adapting. The current GOP would have been right at home in 1812.
For those who like to argue using statistics, try adding up the total amounts spent by the R’s and the D’s over the last century. If you adjust it to all current dollars, it gets worse. If you reweigh it for the portion of the century that each party spent in office, it doesn’t significantly change things. I think the important point is to concentrate on who ran up the debt at any point in history, instead of trying the blame the poor fools who inherited it and had to try to reduce it. Don’t be surprised if a century from now economists refer to the current situation as The Republican Debt.
Steve
Here’s some statistics I’d love to hear from the GOP: The justification for the term “job creators”, since there was clearly a memo sent around to every Congressman who ever gets near a microphone to use only the term “job creators” when referring to the “rich” tax bracket, even though the discussion is about personal income tax rates, not corporate tax rates.
So what I’d like to see to back up that association is something like: 1. How many individuals in this tax bracket actually own businesses? 2. How many people are employed by these businesses? 3. What percentage of the US workforce is that?
The census bureau has all sorts of potentially interesting data for this stuff. http://www.census.gov/econ/…
But another question I’d love some data on: What percentage of businesses were started by people in the “rich” tax bracket as opposed to middle-class entrepreneurs? This seems pretty important to have an idea about since the “job creator” argument implies that if we lower the tax rate on the rich, they will jump out of their chairs and go start a lot of new businesses.
The key here is NEW businesses, because I don’t imagine owners of established businesses, whether they’re in the “rich” bracket or not, suddenly investing a significant amount of whatever personal tax break they get into businesses that are already operating.
When dealing with the “rich” tax bracket other questions are:
4. How many individuals are lawyers?
5. How many individuals are Wall St brokers and bankers?
6. How many Members of Congress are members?
I wonder what programs the world’s largest space program, the US military, will make? This will be interesting.
Ralphy,
I’m really interested in seeing what happens. Historically, DOD has almost always made out like bandits, and come out of lean times better off than anyone else. This time, it looks like it’ll be harder for them to work out anything behind closed doors. I’ll bet, though, that there’ll be a lot argument over the definition of discretionary.
Steve
I really hate it when people are factually inaccurate (which describes most of the Republican party). You might not have agreed with what they passed, but the 112th Congress (when both the Senate and House were controlled by Democrats) was anything but dysfunctional:
http://www.bloomberg.com/ne…
Now, we have a Republican-led Congress (even though the Senate is technically controlled by Democrats, the fact that the Republicans filibuster everything means they more or less control it as well) that thrives on dysfunction. Then they blame Obama. Amazing. Well, if the Republicans continue on their dysfunctional path, the country will fall over the “fiscal cliff” and NASA’s budget will be cut by $1.4 billion. But, then again, I wouldn’t expect anything less from the party that shows nothing but contempt for science.
I have never heard such a load of it. It isn’t the house that has not passed a budget, but the senate. Moreover, Obama’s budgets have been voted down without a single YES vote.
http://www.senatebudgetwatch.com
This is just insane
the level of ignorance coming from the republicans in this thread is astounding. the debt problem was created by republican administrations over the past 30 years, starting with reagan. clinton succeeded at reversing the trend only to have his progress undone by the reckless fiscal policies of george w. bush. bush’s unfunded tax cuts for the rich, two wars and a devastating economic downturn brought on by his policies are responsible that the us still has an annual deficit. obama, like clinton before him, has done his best to repair some of the damage, yet the right wants to get romney in the white house who would double down on bush’s failed policies.
again, the republicans in this thread are completely clueless. i’m german btw.
The level of ignorance coming from the democrats in this thread is astounding, we now know why we have scientific scandals when they fail to follow the scientific method.
Clinton succeeded only after Republicans took over Congress in 1994. Clinton had to move right to get re-elected. He even admitted as much.
The continuous drum head of attacks on the rich and corporations on fuel the fire of class warfare which has been perfected by Obama and the Democrats. There has been nothing to repair any of the damage because the senate still cannot pass a budget.
Psst – if Harry did allow a budget deal to come to the floor of the senate you would have moderate democrats and republicans joining forces to pass it. Granted, Obama would veto it, but then it would be on Obama.
So when the Democrats lose the senate… you know why.
And again, the democrats in this thread are completely clueless on the economic situation we face today. I’m American btw.
More urban myths from Andrew. The 500 billion dollar peace dividend that fell into clinton’s lap had a lot to do with it. Not clinton or gingrich. Clinton raised taxes and when the economy expanded and combined with the peace dividend government revenues skyrocketed.
The republicans can be credited with not allowing that many social programs to expand and keep new regulations down.
Reagan spent like a drunken sailor and quadrupling the national debt was what allowed the soviets from competing with us. They just could not borrow as much as the U.S. and their economy collapsed when they tried.
if there is a class war going on it’s the rich waging it against the rest of the country.
as to the budget: the republicans are completely unable to compromise (“moderate republicans” – good one!) and are beholden to one lobbyist, grover norquist, on the issue of taxes. *that’s* why no budget is getting passed.
the fact is that republican administrations accumulated this mountain of debt and republican policies enacted under bush are to blame for the continuing deficit. deal with it.
People,
Read all the comments below…interesting stuff, particuarly for an Aussie observer who is pretty much not a supporter of either Republican or Democrat positions and is despairing of how US politics are going. But remember – its ‘Space’ that we should be focusing on here. What are the impacts of Sequestration on NASA, and on America’s ability to maintain (or regain) leadership in Space, be it in terms of government-led NASA civilian space exploration with robots and humans, or military space programs (which will suffer under sequestation too)? How might other states respond if NASA’s ability to sustain the US Space Programme declines further? What happens to specific capabilities being developed – SLS, Orion, and other systems for BEO? How will the ISS fare if funding is cut? Does Sequestration truly mark the beginning of the end of US Space leadership – or has that already gone (not according to Lori Garver, but she would say that wouldn’t she!). How does NASA recover, or does it simply pass the torch to commercial actors, and perhaps play a greater role in supporting them? So keep on subject…
Having said that, an enjoyable debate over Republicans vs Democrats particuarly with relevance to Space would be a great thing to do over a ‘NASA Watch’ BBQ and get together at some point for all this site’s followers. How about Hawaii? I’d come! (Just an idea)
Malcolm
Gold Coast, Australia
I’m fiscally conservative and socially liberal independent voter so one can read my thoughts on the sequestration in any manner in that one chooses. So here goes:
The $1.4(?) billion cut won’t kill NASA. It will survive. Some programs will have to be slowed down. Others won’t since they will be cost effective and give more bang for the buck such as space commercialization. They can slow down the rehab and construction going on at Kennedy and other things like that. in other words, they can make it work. It doesn’t have to be a national tragedy. What the heck, they’ve already canned thousands upon thousands of people at Kennnedy and Johnson space centers. I didn’t see any of the posters here crying about it.
And really, who’s to say in the future we won’t get more technological leverage of commercialization and easing of the budget in the event the economy improves?
It’s the same for the other federal programs. None of them will be wiped out. Hurt, yes, but not destroyed. I feel the same way about the end of the Bush tax cuts coming up at the end of the year. It will hurt me? Sure but it won’t be end of the world.
What I would like to see are a mixture of selected cuts *and* tax increases. Get rid of the billions spent on the ethynol program for the farmers and don’t cut head start school programs. Stop the outrageous oil company tax exemptions. In other words be selective and bipartisan. *Try* to be fair. Won’t happen though. I guarantee that.
“Shuttles in museums, our astronauts riding Soyuz for gawd sake.”
As had often been pointed out, that was over and done before Obama ever set foot int he White House.
People,
instead of focusing on blaming a political party, maybe this is the time too look at way of getting rid of albatross, i.e. the SLS. Which we know is going to die eventually, then, why not make now. So the question is: how can we turn this lemon of a situation into lemonade?
Any suggestions?
a2c2
Instead of ending our sole beyond LEO program, how about ending the unnecessary $3 billion a year ISS (LEO on steroids) program.
Marcel F. Williams
That is an option of course. But as people say, better a bird in your hand than 10 flying.
In other words, we have something flying (ISS) with a nascent COTS program for cargo delivery and the opportunity to develop new launch services for crew. Kill ISS and we may be left with nothing.
On the other hand SLS will not fly until 2017 and may not at all, as it may become victim to two administration changes (does not matter if it is Democrat or Republican), as there is going to be a high chance of a switch in any of the two cases.
The case in point is that Shuttle was terminated so funds were released to develop constellation (I think the idea of killing ISS is to release funds for SLS. Am I reading that correctly?) but in the interim, constellation gets killed by bad performance and probably by the fact that we switched parties in the administrations. Now we have a wait of 3 to 4 more year before we get that capability back and we stop depending on the Russians.
Now we kill ISS, and release the money so we can develop SLS faster, but there is the risk that a new administration comes by and considers that this free money can be used to pay the debt or get their own pet project. In the mean time SLS does not get more money, just the same one is allocated right now, and we have to wait until 2017, or even later, with the added risk that it can be cancelled in the interim.
My take is: it is harder to kill something already flying that something that has not made its first flight and it is due for one in 5 years, at least.
IMHO.
a2c2
We wont be able to get our debt to GDP ratio down without growth in the economy. Cutting spending and/or raising taxes will have an adverse effect on growth. If the Obama administration had increased government spending in the first term like the W Bush administration did the economy would be doing better. Apart from the 2009 fiscal stimulus package, the Fed has had to do the heavy lifting to get the economy going with monetary stimulus. Europe has demonstrated that austerity measures can kill growth and make matters worse. As this article from the St. Lousi Fed points out, the US can never become insolvent, so we should be investing in growth, infrastructure, research, education, NASA, etc..
http://www.stlouisfed.org/p…
As I said, I hate it when people simply don’t understand (or refuse to understand) facts.
Fact 1: Nothing happens in the Senate because the Republicans filibuster (or threaten to filibuster) anything and everything that comes up in the Senate. The amount of abuse of this tactic is appalling; see the chart here showing the extreme rise in its use:
http://www.motherjones.com/…
Fact 2: The Republicans in the House have decided that they would rather bring this government to a halt rather than work with Obama.
Fact 3: Because of 2 and 3, this Congress has been one of the most unproductive ever. They couldn’t come up with a coherent plan for anything, let alone NASA.
Fact 4: The decision to end the shuttle was made on Bush’s watch.
Fact 5: The gap in being able to send astronauts into space happened due to the decisions made during Bush’s watch (let us also not forget that the economy tanked during Bush’s watch).
Fact 6: With Romney/Ryan, you could look forward to even more woes, including a 6% decrease in spending for science.
Facts are stubborn things. They don’t go away simply because you want them to.
Absolute crap – the Republicans have not filibustered one spending bill. Moreover, 42 different bills and amendments have been put forward by Senate Republicans only to die on the floor because Leader Reid won’t bring them to the floor.
NASA is dying and we see why.
http://washingtonindependen…
Senate Republicans Filibuster Defense Spending Bill — Then Deny They Did It
http://www.washingtonpost.c…
Senate Democrats end GOP filibuster of spending bill
What is so hilarious Andrew is a 30 second search will show you the republicans HAVE fillibustered spending bills…. Now try and redefine it ..
is the word is a word? maybe you can get the wordsmith Luntz to come up with words that will actually say the opposite of reality.
SNC,Boeing and SpaceX have agreements not contracts.I have read that NASA can cancel anytime.Also I have noticed that NASA writes: may buy crew services from these companies.These SAAs sound like a bad deal for these companies.Just leave it to the companies,they will come up with something good.That is faith.The next step is to put out a request for bids to go to Mars.It will say:We want to take a crew to Mars.How much and when do we launch?Some have actually written in and said that is the way to go.