When do you think SpaceX will be rated to carry humans? How much taxpayer money will be needed and spent to reinvent that wheel?
Do you actually believe Obama wanted to shrink a government agency in order to spur private enterprise and American space power?
No, I actually think he cut it because there is a historical animosity between civil rights activists and NASA. When NASA, at the time a bunch of white men, were going to the moon, the civil rights crowd started using the phrase, "If we can put a man on the moon..." to redirect the attention NASA was getting on to their goals. The fact that the first black president, from that crowd, would cut NASA, and that's pretty much the only cuts he has made, is not surprising in a historical context.
I think they will be rated in a couple of years. As for taxpayer money, SpaceX is getting contracts just like any other contractors, Northrop Grumman, Lockeed Martin, etc. The decision to retire the shuttles was made, and it wasn't made by SpaceX. SpaceX seems to have the best plan to get us back into space, and unlike Lockeed or others, they seem to be more ambitious.