Donald Trump tells 10-year-old that ‘space is terrific’ but potholes are more important, Washington Post
“You know, in the old days, it was great,” Trump told the boy, along with an audience of more than 600. “Right now, we have bigger problems — you understand that? We’ve got to fix our potholes. You know, we don’t exactly have a lot of money.” But it’s not that Trump doesn’t love space. After all, he once tweeted in August 2012: “It is very sad to see what @BarackObama has done with NASA. He has gutted the program and made us dependent on the Russians.”

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

36 replies on “Bigelow Hearts Trump”

  2. Huh, Doug Messier used the *exact* same headline for the tweet on Parabolic Arc. I guess great mind think alike.

    1. If you say so – I don’t make a habit of reading his site, so I guess you are right. I originally tried <3 instead of “heart” but decided that was too cryptic for my readers.

      1. All the engineers that read nasawatch would have been thinking Bigelow is less than 3 Trump????

  3. I’d say “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore” except that there’s no way to get off of it and no place to go if there were.

  5. Mr. Trump is wrong on the facts when he asserts that “we don’t exactly have a lot of money”. In fact our great country is stunningly rich. It’s not the money. It’s the priorities.

    Sure, the ‘defense’ budget is an easy target- but it is still a worthy target, one that is incredibly bloated. Our country has the funds to take care of its citizens’ health care needs as well.

    The comment is more insidious, though. The ‘old days’ he describes so glowingly? Maybe he means the post-war era when a single wage earner could support a family, a mortgage, a car, send kids to college and could count on his retirement fund.

    By ‘bigger problems’ perhaps he’s alluding to the struggle of families with two wage earners who can’t buy a house. The kids acquire hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to get an education, forcing many to turn away from higher education and depleting our country innumerably.

    Gag me indeed.

    1. “In fact our great country is stunningly rich.”

      We aren’t rich, we’re just willing to borrow money to buy what we can’t afford, with no plan to pay it off just to obligate future taxpayers to pay interest to our creditors.

      Under 8 years of the GW Bush administration we accumulated as much debt as under every president from Washington to Clinton combined. We are on track to have again doubled our debt by the time Obama leaves office.

      Our annual obligation to pay interest on that debt is several times greater than what we spend on space exploration. It’s more than what is needed to provide basic food and medicine for every critically impoverished person in the world.

        1. As opposed to the Scrooge-like fiscal abstemiousness that characterized the Clinton and Obama administrations, eh?

          2. Perhaps you would care to define your terms a bit. Thus far, all I can infer from your comments is that “proper management” seems to mean whatever a Democratic administration does, no matter how much it may otherwise resemble the profligacy of proverbial drunken sailors, and “improper management” seems to mean whatever a Republican administration does, period.

          3. Naw. I’m actually a conservative socialist libertarian pragmatic idealist with moderate hawkish peacenik treehugging capitalistic with progressive regressive tendencies. But whatever my current mood, I use numbers and primary sources to inform my views.

          4. republicans always scream about the federal government being too big and spending too much money, yet every time they get the power, they grow the government and spend money they don’t have

      2. The figure that counts is not the absolute quantity of debt, it is the proportion of the GDP that the debt represents. That is pushed down in simple way – expand the economy. If you look at a chart of National Debt/GDP over time, you’ll see that it’s gone up at some very notable points – major wars, during recessions, and during massive tax cuts. When taxes were at their highest for the upper brackets (1940s & 50s, up to 90% tax), our country grew the fastest and the importance of the debt faded.

        To attack debt, engage in job and wage growth stimulation, avoid risky economic adventures that result in financial collapses, and resolve international conflicts with words, not bombs.

        1. That’s the way people running up debt like to dismiss it.

          The real measure of the debt’s impact is what percentage of the operating budget is needed to service it, and that number keeps growing. Owing to the fact that it is revolving debt (new bonds are issued as old ones are paid off) an economic boom will result in increase in the interest rates making it more expensive to service – hopefully not outpacing increased tax revenues from the boom.

        2. When taxes were at their highest for the upper brackets (1940s & 50s, up to 90% tax), our country grew the fastest and the importance of the debt faded.

          Not true. First, nobody actually paid taxes at a 90% rate because the tax code, then as now, was liberally larded with useful loopholes. As to growth, the 40’s were an atypical decade because of WW2, during which the federal government took as much as 50% of GDP for the war effort. During the 50’s U.S. GDP grew 80%. But in the 60’s, after Jack Kennedy’s supply-side tax cuts, GDP grew 100%. The U.S. fought a war during the first few years of the 50’s, but it fought an even more expensive war during the entirety of the 60’s and, even with this decided economic drag, the low-tax 60’s were a better growth decade than the high-tax 50’s.

          To attack debt, engage in job and wage growth stimulation

          Great idea. Put another Republican in the White House and we’ll have at least an outside chance of being able to do so. The last seven years would seem conclusive proof that the modern Democratic party has no more idea how to do this than did the Democratic Party of the 1930’s.

          avoid risky economic adventures that result in financial collapses

          Again, good idea. Again, Democrats would have to abandon most of their party’s platform in order to accomplish this.

          and resolve international conflicts with words, not bombs

          Yeah, that’s worked out so well the last seven years. As someone once said, “You get so much better results with a kind word and a gun than you do with just a kind word alone.”

          2. Your numbers are off.
            Between Jan 1, 1950 and Dec 31, 1959, the economy grew (in real 2009 dollars) from $2.00 trillion to $3.06 t. This was a rise of 53%
            Between Jan 1, 1960 to Dec 31, 1963 (pre-Kennedy tax cut era) the economy grew from $3.06 t to $3.60t or 17%.
            From 1964 thru 69 $3.60t to 4.72t or 31%.

            So, the high tax 1950s GDP grew 53%.
            The tax-cut 1960’s grew 48%.
            The Johnson/Nixon portion of the ’60s did have a slight boost over the ’50s, but much of that was the effects of the beneficial Great Society socialist expansion and the unfortunate Viet Nam War (war is a major GDP enhancer).

          5. Click to enlarge image.

            http://cdn.theatlantic.com/…

            And don’t forget, the vast majority of Obama’s share was the direct result of the Bush economic crash. As the economy healed and tax revenues increased and government service needs decreased, so has the deficit sank over his term.

            Obama’s budget deficits (with last 2 years of Bush deficits) (click to enlarge image):

            http://www.bobcesca.com/wp-…

          6. It’s worth pointing out that Reagan had a Democratically controlled House for his entire term in office. Spending bills originate in the House. Also, the two budget items that grew fastest during Reagan’s administrations were the same two as for every president since – entitlements and interest on the growing national debt. Reagan and both Bushes pushed for legislation aimed at curbing both, but none were successful. The Clinton presidency was sort of a mirror image of this. Clinton had no interest in fiscal responsibility, of course, but the Republican Congress he had to deal with the last six years of his term imposed Gramm-Rudman and other budget limits that somewhat limited the growing damage, but the Democrats, predictably, removed all the limits when they retook the Congress during W’s term.

          8. For the sake of argument, I’ll assume all your 2009-equivalent dollar figures for GDP are correct. That being so, you can’t simply add the 17% you got for the early 60’s to the 31% jump you got for the late 60’s to get an overall figure of 48% for the entire decade. Working with the beginning and ending figures you supply, $3.06T and $4.72T, I get a full decade GDP growth of 54%, which is more than the 53% you get for the 50’s. This is a smaller margin than the one I got using non-inflation-normed numbers, but it still represents considerably better economic performance in the 60’s than in the 50’s because the U.S. standard of living continued to rise in the 60’s even though the government expenditure component of GDP included not only the expensive Vietnam War but also the growing expenses of LBJ’s Great Society programs, especially Medicare, none of which existed in the 50’s.

          9. Your arguments don’t hang together. The 2 decades had essentially the SAME growth in GDP ~53%, within one percent differential. This is TWENTY TIMES smaller than your original differential claim. Within rounding errors the high-tax 50’s and tax-cut 60’s were the SAME.
            Your argument about the higher standard of living makes no sense. With the same growth rates in the ’50s and ’60s then logically (and with no evidence to demonstrate otherwise) the high-tax ’50s would generate the same standard of living growth in the ’60s!
            As to the wars, the Korean War peak year cost was 4.2% of GDP and Viet Nam was only 2.3% peak year.
            Total Defense costs were 13.2% of total GDP during the Korean War and only 9.5% during the peak of Viet Nam War.
            You state that wars and government programs are drags on standard of living. Exactly the opposite, both enhance standards of living (unless you are on the losing side).

      3. We are rich. We have just allowed the wealthy and the big corporations to use political influence to weasel out of their tax obligations. Many people know about carried interest, low capital gains taxes, the Social Security tax cap, and other ways the wealthy free load off the rest of us. Fewer know that the corporations once paid 6-8% of GDP in taxes and now pay about 2% despite earning record profits. If we reversed that massive tax rip off, we would have enough to start paying off the debt and stimulate a proper recovery. Also, pay for many more investments in our future.

      4. Similar heavy breathing before Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gingrich (hope I have that right) came up with a reasonable plan of modest tax increases and slower growth in spending, resulting in a balanced budget. Same thing could happen now were the Congress actually able to-you know- govern.

        Which Mr. Bush regarded much like, well, a kid in a candy store, seeing it as an excuse to cut taxes. Sigh.

    2. Sure, the ‘defense’ budget is an easy target- but it is still a worthy target, one that is incredibly bloated.

      Sure. But the pay, benefits and pensions of servicepeople are a bigger piece of that budget than is weapon procurement. That’s been true ever since the draft ended 45 years ago. You want volunteers? Be prepared to pay them. You don’t get the high-quality military we have these days by paying slave wages to conscripts. And the hardware has to work at some level too. More than can be said for the outputs of most other government programs.

      Our country has the funds to take care of its citizens’ health care needs as well.

      Well, it would if “the best and brightest” didn’t keep screwing things up with lamebrained schemes like Obamacare. The government can always be reliably counted upon to spend more and get less.

      Maybe he means the post-war era when a single wage earner could support a family, a mortgage, a car, send kids to college and could count on his retirement fund.

      That was also the era before female employment became normative. Jumps in the size of the workforce tend to slow or eliminate wage growth. Female workplace equality was a worthy undertaking, but it was hardly without macroeconomic consequences for middle class wage earners, some of which still linger. The huge influx of illegal immigrants over the past four decades has had similar effects on the wages of those in the bottom quintile.

      The kids acquire hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to get an education

      High tuition is a result of so-called cost-push inflation. It is almost entirely an artifact of three things: (1) subsidized student loans, (2) the demented notion that “everyone should go to college” and (3) the complete lack of any accountability on the part of degree granting institutions to insure graduates are employable so as to be able to repay said loans. Make colleges and universities liable for student loan defaults, even in part, and you would quickly see simultaneous ends to endless cost-push tuition hikes and the proliferation of useless degree fields.

      forcing many to turn away from higher education and depleting our country innumerably

      Even in today’s decadent education market, the really bright students make out okay. The not-so-bright – and they are legion – should be doing something that isn’t going to saddle them with huge quantities of non-dischargable debt for tuition that largely goes to pay the salaries of otherwise unemployable left-wing activists who have secured academic positions teaching worthless curricula and administering political correctness regimes.

      1. I’ve had a day to think about your comments.

        It’s certainly the case that a volunteer armed force is costly (and it is true that they are abused, sent to ill-conceived wars, and abandoned when injured).

        But is it necessary to maintain the two-front ability? Would less foreign intervention result in few overseas problems? Would a sensible energy policy reduce the need for oil and hence interest in the middle east? All inter-related issues.

        More specific to the military is the upgrading of the nuclear arsenal currently underway; the need to plan for another JSF; the necessity of maintaining bases in Europe, and other costly expenditures. There are valid arguments on both sides, certainly.

        On health care- it’s lame, for sure, when the excellent and efficient Medicare could have simply been expended, but ‘private enterprise’ wanted a piece of the action. On the other hand, the number of uninsured has dropped dramatically.

        I hear lots of people lambasting the Affordable Care Act but I sure don’t hear alternatives.

        On education- I concede the point to this extent- that we don’t train sufficient numbers of people to perform productive tasks that don’t require a college degree. Tim Cook asserted that iPhones aren’t made in America because he can’t get enough workers- not because Apple can’t afford it. They’d rather.

        Still, the cost burden to students is unconscionable.

  6. Given that Mr. Bigelow made his fortune in the low-cost hospitality business – an economic sector notorious for employing legions of immigrant workers, many, perhaps most, of them illegal, it seems superficially odd that he should be such an obvious Trump fan. But perhaps I am wrong and Mr. Bigelow is not, in fact, a member of the Bi-Partisan Cheap Labor Caucus. Perhaps he actually eschews employing illegals and thinks Mr. Trump’s accession to the Presidency would garner him some relief from competition by those not so scrupulous. Someone should look into this.

    Of course Trump is, at least in part, in the hospitality business himself, though in an admittedly more upscale end of it than Mr. Bigelow. Still, I am amazed that none of his current Republican opposition – never mind any Democrat – seems yet to have done the obvious thing and look assiduously for illegal immigrants on Mr. Trump’s considerable payroll. The headlines practically write themselves should such a search strike paydirt. Could it possibly be the case that there are, in fact, no illegals employed in Mr. Trump’s far-flung empire? Wouldn’t that be interesting!

    Amateur sleuths of all political persuasions, your ticket to fame and fortune awaits!

    1. Trump has said that undoc workers are likely on his payroll (he is actually being sued by some).
      Inconsistency is a non-issue for Trump. He is appealing to people (1/3 of 1/3 of the population) who don’t care.

      A hostile take on his supporters:
      http://www.marketwatch.com/…

      A more sympathetic view – that they are misinformed and like to stay thatway [Fox News watchers personality type of people]:
      http://fivethirtyeight.com/…

        1. When the only response you have is to yell “Racism!” all problems will appear to be bigotry. The “browning of America” isn’t really the issue. That’s been going on for a long time. Personally, I like brown; especially if it’s female. The issue is control of American borders.

          The percentage of illegal immigrants who are criminally inclined seems to be on the rise.
          This is especially true if you include Muslim immigrants with a taste for jihad. So long as the border remains, in many places, simply a line on a map, this is going to be a problem. It will only be solved by insuring that all wishing to enter the U.S. can be vetted in some way to cull the sociopaths from the crowd.

          This is both reasonable and historically unremarkable in America. Even during the Emma Lazarus era of mass immigration in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, 10% or more of those arriving on these shores were subsequently sent back to their countries of origin.

          It’s not politically correct to say so, but not all immigrant populations are equal with respect to the percentage of bad apples they contain. Immigrants from the Maghreb, Middle East, Balkans, Pakistan, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean are problematical in this respect. Immigrants, legal or otherwise, from China, Korea, India and most other places much less so. Neither criminality nor law-abidingness is a function of how brown someone is.

      2. I watch a bit of Fox News. If you imagine Fox News to be an amen corner for Donald Trump, you are evidently not a watcher. Pretty much the entirety of the Fox commentariat – George Will, Charles Krauthammer, etc. – are openly hostile to him.

        As for the swipe about being “ill-informed,” I also watch MSNBC and CNN a bit – mostly for comic relief. It is fascinating how often the following pattern is in evidence:

        1) Something happens that reflects badly on leftists/progressives/Democrats/Islamists/racial minorities.

        2) No coverage of said story appears on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, etc.

        3) The original story continues to unfold. Additional details emerge. People of all political persuasions weigh in. Investigations, legal proceedings, etc. begin.

        4) Still little or no coverage on the “usual suspect” mainstream media outlets.

        5) Someone on the Left says or does something in response to the original situation, whatever it was, and the MSM pretty much have to report it. President Obama is the unignorable one a fairly high percentage of the time.

        6) In response to queries from befuddled viewers/readers, the self-appointed “gatekeeper” media outlets are forced to backtrack and actually explain at least a little bit about what the original story was. They do so reluctantly and with bad grace. They still try to spin the story to preserve whatever leftish “narrative” has been gutted by reality.

        7) Lather, rinse, repeat.

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