NASA Town Hall On Tuesday
Town Hall with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine
“Headquarters is hosting an agencywide town hall with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Tuesday, Jan. 29, at 1 – 2 p.m. EST. Please join this important discussion as we return to work and begin the process of an orderly restart that ensures employee safety and security. All employees, contractors and civil servants, are encouraged to participate in person at Headquarters in the Webb auditorium and remotely at the designated viewing location at their center. The event will air live on NASA Television (public channel), through your center cable or streaming distribution, and on the agency’s website at https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive. You may submit questions securely from any computer or mobile device starting now and throughout the presentation.”
Looking through the town hall questions online some folks think Jim should have resigned as part of the furlough not sure why. Was the furlough NASA administrator fault? Why would folks think he should have resigned or should if another furlough happens Feb 15?
I don’t agree with the idea, but some people may feel the NASA Administrator should resign in protest. That is, saying that it is impossible to do his job when NASA is faced with shutdowns of this sort and that he isn’t interested in being responsible for doing the impossible. Or, in other words, using his resignation to a big red flag and say, “stop it.” I don’t think that would accomplish much, but others might disagree with me.
The amount of people who work in or with the federal government, yet lack an understanding of how the federal government or politics works, in my experience is astounding. I don’t know how many times I have had to explain how the budget process works, the politics of a particular situation as it relates to work at their agency, etc. Listening to the Town Hall yesterday, this was even more apparent.
We never had kids, so my interest in schools and school curriculum has always been limited. But my observation has been like yours: that general understanding of our government, of how/why it is so special is poorly understood.
It’s not clear why, though. A little bit of poking about reveals that our local schools do have a required course in ‘Government’. Perhaps it is promptly forgotten.
A recent conversationwith a twentysomething – presumably not far from her own high school course – revealed the appalling fact that this person had no clue that Nancy Pelosi is 3rd in presidential succession (a gleeful fact amongst my friends, but which scares the hell out of many others!)
Slightly off topic: More important, to me, at least, is the failure to understand how political parties work in America. Many folks think they are taking the high road by ‘voting for the best wo/man’.
I am depressing myself.
In addition to being almost immediately forgotten, high school civics or government classes have more than a few factual errors. I don’t mean debatable things. When something is complicated and difficult to explain, the textbooks and teachers have a disturbing tendency to simply insert something simple, easy to understand even if it’s wrong. (One which particularly annoys me is the electoral collage being all about travel times in the 18th century.)
But since we’re talking about federal government funding for NASA, I’m not at all surprised most people, even people within NASA, don’t understand it. Compared to appropriations bills and federal regulations, the basic structure of the government is very straight forward. I’m almost surprised that anyone knows how NASA appropriations and funding works.
P.S.: Rep. Pelosi being third in line of succession is one thing, but I’ve seen several respectable news sources refer to her as the third “most powerful” person in the government. That probably overrated the powers of the Vice President.
For a high school government or civics class, I’m not sure it’s within scope to get into the weeds on how the budget process works. It’s higher level than that. However if your salary depends on the federal government passing a budget it seems as though you’d pay attention to how that process works and the nuances of each specific situation. But maybe that’s just me.
“lack an understanding of how the federal government or politics works”
I sometimes wonder if it is by design. How a physical wall on southern border affects NASA is very mysterious just like many don’t understand budgets (look how many people and businesses get into financial trouble with no clue prior). There is a lot of backroom discussion going on we never see, we may get a glimpse on places like NASAWatch but can be difficult as many post opinions and speculation. Do be aware these are budgets, not what has or will actually be spent.
I thought it was interesting Bridenstine pointed out the shutdown occurred because the process was broken. He gave a description of the process, and yes rest of us should understand that but then how often is it taught? Or does one need to devote months and months of study when need still to do a day job?