House Representatives Working On NASA Reform Bill 188
MarkWhittington writes with good and bad news about NASA's future budgets. From the article: "Rep. John Culberson, along with Rep. Frank Wolf, are developing a bill that will attempt to rationalize NASA's budget process and provide some long term continuity in its administration. First, a NASA administrator would be named to a ten year term. The intent is to provide some continuity in the way the space agency is run and to remove it, as much as possible, from the vagaries of politics. Second, NASA funding would be placed on a multi-year rather than annual cycle. This is of particular importance to the space agency because the majority of its high level projects take several years to run their course. If funding were fixed for a number of years, the theory goes, money could be spent more efficiently. NASA planners would know how much they have to spend four or so years going forward and would not have to worry about being cut off at the knees by Congressional appropriators year after year."
But is it more than political grandstanding in an election year? There might be a few problems: NASA could get stuck with a bad administrator, multi-year budgets might be a bit unconstitutional, etc.
Unconstitutional? (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA's so called Budget (Score:5, Insightful)
Is a drop in the bucket.
The top 5 defense contractors all have larger revenues than NASA's entire budget. The US Army spent more on air conditioning tents and trailers in Iraq than NASA's entire annual budget.
Want to fix NASA's budget? Actually give them one.
Radical Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop the wars and spend 1% of what is spent on wars on NASA instead.
Re:It also means... (Score:5, Insightful)
No kidding. How many space platforms have been researched, started, and then killed (NERVA, Apollo Applications, Space Station Freedom, Constellation, Prometheus, etc.)? NASA could probably do more with less if they were allowed to plan things to a reasonable extent. And if all of that wasted money was used productively, we would have had an astronaut on Mars by now.
The abuse of NASA by Congress and the President is disgraceful. Every President wants to look like Kennedy and every successive Administration or Congress wants to shit of his legacy. NASA simply gets caught in the crossfire.
Either good or bad, depending (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Make NASA run like a business... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Run X like a business" is simplistic bullshit unless the goal is to make money supplying something someone needs.
Re:Make NASA run like a business... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh great.
Sorry... when you think there is ONE system that works in all cases, you're the member of a cult.
Government agencies are not businesses. I have no problem with them getting other streams of income, but "the market" is not God. Not everything worth doing is going to make a profit, and when you start letting "the market" determine what is good for space exploration, you are at best going to have areas not explored and at worst dead astronauts.
Re:NASA's so called Budget (Score:5, Insightful)
Somehow the cost of the war(s) are not considered part of the military budget.
Interesting dodge, that.
Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
-First, a NASA administrator would be named to a ten year term. The intent is to provide some continuity in the way the space agency is run and to remove it, as
much as possible, from the vagaries of politics.
GOOD.
-Second, NASA funding would be placed on a multi-year rather than annual cycle. This is of particular importance to the space agency because the majority of its high level projects take several years to run their course. If funding were fixed for a number of years, the theory goes, money could be spent more efficiently. NASA planners would know how much they have to spend four or so years going forward and would not have to worry about being cut off at the knees by Congressional appropriators year after year."
EXTREMELY GOOD.
-But is it more than political grandstanding in an election year?
POSSIBLE. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen
-NASA could get stuck with a bad administrator
As a part of the executive branch, the president himself has oversight. Also, very unlikely; you dont get picked to run nasa if you're a bad manager
-multi-year budgets might be a bit unconstitutional
On what grounds?
Re:NASA's so called Budget (Score:4, Insightful)
See my above comment. Why bring a bill to the floor that has zero chance of passing? The GOP does that all the time.
He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. If he brings the budget to the floor, and it fails, the GOP will get to scream about how their budget would cure cancer, fix global warming, and create a job for every unemployed person in America, but the mean nasty lbrls won't give it a chance. Come to think of it, they can do that if he doesn't bring that to the floor, too.
So all things being equal, maybe he doesn't want to waste the Senate's limited time in session. Or, maybe, the GOP could give them a bill that could be debated meaningfully on the Senate floor. That's how it is supposed to work. One house proposes and passes a bill, and if the other house won't pass it, then negotiations can start on the issues addressed in the plan. But, the current House's ability to compromise or negotiate can't be seen with the naked eye, so we have the situation we have.
Re:Unconstitutional? (Score:2, Insightful)
The government is not a business, and attempts to run it as if it were a business are misguided.
Re:Radical Idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, but if US gov't didn't run the wars, spending on NASA could be increased by that 1% of the cost of war and at the same time the gov't spending would decrease overall. If the SS and Medicare were reformed (AFAIC they should be abolished, but let's say reformed), so that there is means testing - you don't get it if you don't need it (even those who are getting it today), then US economy could actually deleverage, stop the deficit spending, start paying back some of the debt. If the gov't size shrunk, the way it was done in 1921 and 1947, then US economy would actually start growing again within a couple of years from deleveraging. How much easier is it to find some money to fund NASA in a growing economy that is not wasting money and is not running wars than in a war type economy, with many times the war size government?
You're pi radians off (Score:2, Insightful)
You have it completely backwards.
The budget has always been a searingly-hot political issue. It has been one of the country's major political problems for half a century, and especially since the early/mid 1980s. It's just happens to be a hot political issue where the Republicans and Democrats aren't distinguished from one another. (Just because something is bipartison, doesn't mean it's not political.)
And that is still the case; the Rs and Ds basically agree that the government should use its powers to funnel the country's resources away from the citizenry to the corporations who fund the campaigns. Budget deficits will usually be a part of that overall program.
The reason for the "hoo-haw" of the last couple years, is that Republicans are desperate for a personality "wedge issue" because people have little political reason to vote one way or another between those two parties. Without political distinction, voters tend to vote for the better personality, and Obama totally creams any Republican when it comes to that. Obama is probably the coolest president since Teddy Roosevelt.
So the Rs wear the small-budget costume (as long as it never comes to actual politics). It's non- political; it's marketing. People just like to call marketing "politics" because acknowledging the triteness would hurt their pride too much. "My party is for a responsible budget!"