Posted on 02/01/2007 9:45:45 AM PST by Fitzcarraldo
PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Wednesday, January 31, 2007
< Source: Rep. Dave Weldon
If Enacted, Would Be Worst Cuts to Space Exploration Since 1993
Urges Senate to Reverse Irresponsible Choice by House Dems
In a fiscal year 2007 budget released today, the new Democrat majority proposed sweeping cuts to NASA's budget that could jeopardized the future of space exploration. U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon, M.D. (R-FL), who represents many workers from NASA and Kennedy Space Center, called the cuts draconian, saying the Democrat leadership is using NASA and our nation's space program as a piggy bank for other liberal spending priorities.
"The raid on NASA's budget has begun in earnest. The cuts announced today by House Democrat leaders, if approved by Congress, would be nearly $400 million less than NASA's current budget," said Weldon.
"Clearly, the new Democrat leadership in the House isn't interested in space exploration. Their omnibus proposal lists hundreds of new increases, including a $1.3 billion increase‹over 40% for a Global AIDS fund, all at the expense of NASA."
Much of the proposed cuts would come from NASA's Exploration budget, which includes funding for the new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the future replacement for the current shuttle fleet. According to Weldon, these particular cuts would jeopardize thousands of jobs in Florida, Alabama, and Texas.
Weldon today led a bi-partisan group of colleagues, including Reps. Ralph Hall (D-TX), and Tom Feeney (R-FL), in offering two amendments to the bill that would restore NASA's funding.
"Rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans alike are aghast at the treatment the Democrat Leadership has shown to NASA. To gut the exploration account in particular is clearly meant to be a stick in the eye to the President and the initiative he announced three years ago."
Speaker Pelosi is not expected to allow any amendments to today's omnibus bill, continuing the closed legislative process that has plagued the current Congress since its opening day. Consequently, Weldon said the future of NASA funding will likely hinge on the Senate.
"The Senate leadership, including Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), has yet to speak to the draconian cuts being proposed. I hope they're alerted to the message the House sent today and will propose funding in line with NASA's overall mission and the President's original request to ensure a smooth transition to the new launch vehicle."
And you have just proven that you know nothing about space warfare, and what owning that high ground can do.
Ever seen what happens when you drop tungsten rods, big rocks or mountains from orbit?
The Treaty is mentioned in the President's Report on Moon, Mars and Beyond in Section Three, where it is characterized as strangling the nascent space industry in the cradle. It's an old metaphor. The US Senate is also aware of the problem of the Treaty. The Pres could invoke the withdrawal cclause at any time--he is pre-authorized. Don't know why he doesn't just do it and they wouldn't have to worrry about NASA anymore.
Does the moon have any tungsten?
Your profile says your a supporter of the troops and I have no reason to doubt you there. So I will just go against your warning and try to tell you that the space industry, like nuclear energy industry, is dual use. As such, the research and products that come from it, whether you are aware or not, contribute greatly to our national defense. NASA funding provides a huge chunk of this.
You might want to focus your spending complaints on the more obvious waste of welfare and wealth redistribution.
So where the heck are the Orion drives and the Sea Dragon rockets? Which management idiot cancelled those ideas?
All planetary sized bodies of rock are going to have metals. It's there.
Please be careful playing fast and loose, posting opinions and speculation rather than facts. A good resource on FR is people who have actually done this kind of work. We know the process and how it is done.
You are playing fast and lose with the facts.
Last year in 2006 congress passes a bugdet which included 16.5 BILLION dollars earmarked directly to NASA. Please state the other companies/entities who were allowed to bid on getting this 16.5 billion dollars? NO ONE WAS ALLOWED TO BID AGAINST NASA. Got it? Now, are you going to continue to suggest that I do not know the facts?
You state that you won a contact that was competitively bid. State it. Did you bid against NASA? You did not. More likely you were the downstream benificiary of Nasa bidding out some of it's work. In other words you got a piece of theiraction, i.e. part of this high paying government jobs program.
You state Apollo was competively bid. Apollo started over 50 years ago, before NASA came into being. Nasa was the entity formed to oversee Apollo after it got started. It still took 20 years for Nasa to stop spending money on the Apollo progam after the last Apollo was launched!
Nasa does NOT have to bid against anyone to get their stipend. If you know otherwise, provide it, otherwise, get your facts straight before spreading your propaganda.
Just for the record, they're bastards individually as well. Just for the record.
I would be very surprised to learn that NASA is exempted from the procurement rules that exist for the rest of the government. Not saying it isn't true now, but I know it didn't used to be. Maybe someone who works for NASA will speak on this subject.
"you can't get much more wasteful of public funds than paying people who don't work (welfare)"
So true!
"Elections have consequences..."
They sure do. The sulking stay-at-home or third-party-voters "to show the Republicans" have to take responsibility for their actions, but they act as if they had nothing to do with electing a Dem majority.
What's worse is that they don't learn from their errors and keep repeating the same miatakes over and over again. It wasn't enough that they elected Bill Clinton and launched Hillary's career, now they gave us a Dem Congress and WILL end up electing Hillary as president.
And when anyone points out the obvious to them, they get terribly offended.
Agreed... Also they have to realize the time to get rid of Rinos is in the primaries. Not in the general election...
US trailing China in military space race
OneNewsNow | 2-1-07 | Chad Groening
Posted on 02/01/2007 9:34:23 PM EST by DeweyCA
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1777725/posts
There are NASA facilities in many states, including Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, California, etc.
You know absolutely nothing about how government-funded programs are organized, operated, and implemented. There is no "contract" or "bid" for the NASA budget. This is an appropriation made by Congress to a Federal agency to conduct it's operations. Your asking that an agency "bid" for it's own budget? Are you crazy? It's like your asking the US Military to bid for it's own budget. It does not. A request is made to Congress by the Executive branch to appropriate funds to allow it's various agencies to operate. There is no "bidding",. It would make no sense to the US Dept. of Agriculture to "bid" for the funds earmarked for the US military.
You state that you won a contact that was competitively bid. State it. Did you bid against NASA?
NOBODY bids against NASA because they are the agency that conducts the work. If I need repairs made on my own car, repair companies don't bid against me for the work. As the owner I hire others to do the work for me. You clearly have no concept of the roles the various entities play. NASA isn't a competitor. They are the boss. Get it? They are charged by the government to carry out certain work. They hire others to help them do that.
You did not. More likely you were the downstream benificiary of Nasa bidding out some of it's work. In other words you got a piece of theiraction, i.e. part of this high paying government jobs program.
Exactly what privately-owned companies who do work for the government do. Private firms perform much of the work. It is private enterprise, not government workers. The bids made by private companies are selected as a result of competition. And no, for the last time, NO ONE BIDS AGAINST NASA BECAUSE YOU DON'T BID AGAINST THE AGENCY FUNDING THE WORK. That is not the relationship. It cannot bid against itself for work it funds.
You state Apollo was competively bid. Apollo started over 50 years ago, before NASA came into being.
Over fifty years ago would be prior to 1957. The genesis of Project Apollo (not called that at the time) was late in the Eisenhower Administration, circa 1959. Real planning for Apollo began in 1960-1961. NASA was formed on October 1, 1958, which predates even the conception of Apollo. Wrong again. Bad guess.
Nasa was the entity formed to oversee Apollo after it got started.
Wrong. The creation of NASA predates even the conception of Project Apollo. You're wrong, wrong, wrong.
It still took 20 years for Nasa to stop spending money on the Apollo progam after the last Apollo was launched!
Wrong! The last Apollo lunar mission was in December of 1972. You really can't count the A-S Test Project or Skylab as part of the original Apollo. The A-S Test Project was a political add-on, and Skylab was originally called Apollo Applications, different than the original Apollo. No Apollo spacecraft flew after 1972. The last real expenditure of funds was in the late 1970s when some of the final programs associated with lunar material analysis were closed out. You may have had a few thousand spent here and there in the early 1980s for equipment disposition and scrapping of unused items, but by then almost all agency funds were being directed towards Shuttle programs and a few unmanned programs.
Nasa does NOT have to bid against anyone to get their stipend. If you know otherwise, provide it, otherwise, get your facts straight before spreading your propaganda.
Again with the "bidding crap. Of course they don't, they are the government, the agency charged with the responsibility of doing the job. You might as well be complaining about the military not being bid against by some mercenary army for the defense of the country. Congress passed the laws that established the process. It makes no sense for the government to bid against itself. It makes perfect sense that if the government decides it has a job to do, they could be empowered to select contractors to help them do the job, and, in the case of NASA, the bidding process for contractors is totally competitive. That is how the competition should be. The agency disbursing the funds doesn't participate in the bidding process because it makes no sense to do that.
Man, I have seldom seen someone so unfamiliar with how doing business with the government works. NASA gets an appropriation from Congress to perform the work they are charged with doing. There is no "bid" because bidding isn't in the nature of the process. They have a job to do and they get money to do it. It makes no sense to whine about NASA not bidding because it isn't supposed to bid for jobs. It is assigned jobs by the Congress and the Administration, same as if you were told by your boss to do something. There is no "bidding" involved in being told to do your job.
The government gets things done by forming groups and agencies that have a specific charge and established purview. Those agencies then accomplish the things they are responsible for by either hiring their own personnel or by hiring contractors. The agencies are funded by government appropriations, not "bids". It is stupid to complain that it is unfair because it is not "bid". It would make absolutely no sense for other government agencies, whose charge is not that given to NASA, to "bid" on the work that NASA is charged with doing. Private companies were given every opportunity bid for funds. They got a lot of it. They don't "bid against NASA", because NASA is the funding agency, the government, and that is who the companies work for.
Of course! Why would the Democrats fund something elitist like space exploration when they could fund something really important like new TVs for welfare bums or needles for drug addicts?
I guess I was thinking about a different treaty that the UN(?) passed and tried to stomp on our claims to the moon. I forgotten the specifics anymore, it's been a long time, but that's what I was thinking about. Anyway, I hope my naive reply gave you a laugh - it gave me one. Thank you for your diplomatic reply.
Re:NASA; I grew up with NASA and a fascination with space, so I have a lot of love for what NASA does. By the same token, the Space Shuttle, the Challenger and Columbia mishaps all serve to convince me that, perhaps NASA is past its prime. I think that the private developers and commercial space endeavors are tending to relegate NASA to the back of the pack, naturally. If Congress pulls NASA's budget, it will, essentially, give the green light to the private developers to proceed full speed ahead. While I'm sentimental about NASA, I'm not necessarily certain that its demise would be a bad thing. They have lost their edge and they are becoming as dangerous as some of the vehicles they shoot into space.
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