Clinton Says NASA's Budget Should Be Increased

Terov writes "This story at CNN.com says President Clinton has announced that the time has come to increase NASA's budget. All I can say is, "It's about time!""

Comments

As if

[Ars-Fartsica]

Let's start off with the assumption that Monica Lewinsky never happened, just to give you the benefit of the doubt.

• Clinton's may have presided over the most succesful economic expansion in history, but he did not cause it. Closer to the truth is that policies set up in the eighties lead to both the recession of the early nineties and the resulting boom. If you disagree, name one action by Clinton that you think directly contributed to a strong economy.
• Clinton had no foreign policy whatsoever, and it showed. Somalia?? Haiti?? The Gulf?? North Korea?? Has Clinton been able to deal with these situations at all? NO. Lets not even talk about Kosovo - a complete fiasco that Clinton dragged the entire US and EU into, following his botched agenda for creating peace.
• Health care? Gays in the military? How many campaign promises did Clinton wuss out on? I'm amazed that gay support groups still support the Democrats after being sold down the river by the Clintons.
• Waco. Elian. Filegate. Three great examples of a government ruled by a husband and wife who dine on power.

I await your replies.

Why it shouldn't happen...

[autocracy]

Clinton, knowing he no longer has any real power as President during his last Christmas in the White House, decided to leave Bush a nice piece of holiday coal in the stocking. By saying the budget should be increased (most Americans would agree), he's putting Bush in a tight spot. Now Bush has to either fork it over to Nasa and dissapoint some other group of people, or keep his current plan and get hit upside the head by everyone who owns a telescope. I doubt Clinton cares about space exploration all that much.

Another point to make is that space is becoming privatized, with or without NASA. I'd say in the near future, space exploration will be a lot like computing - it will advance just fine on its own (until the NSA finds some way to control it). So kick back, relax, and let NASA enjoy its already massive budget.

Keep in mind that in order to pay for this increase, the money will have to come from somewhere; most likely some other federal program, or more taxes.

It's all about the Karma Points...
Moderators: Read from the bottom up!

Thank you Bill! Now what does this mean?

[Ethidium]

NASA has been starving for funds since the collapse of the USSR, and it's high time they got some. Maybe they'll be able to throw this "faster-better-cheaper" crap out the window and onto the scrap heap where it belongs.

Now, what does this mean for us?

-Higher taxes? I'm all for it. If it means NASA gets more money, I for one wil gladly pay higher taxes.

-Cuts in other programs? I'm all for it. Stop buying the air force bombers they don't want, stop buying the marines VTOL planes that crash more often than they fly, stop letting the FBI read my email. And we all know that's not the end of the list.

Original Science Magazine Interview

[�nubis]

Here's the original interview Science Magazine did with Clinton:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/290/ 5500/2236

The CNN article was basically on a subset of this interview. Also please remember that this doesn't mean that NASA will get more money, just that a president who is about to leave office thinks that they should get more money.

Clinton's relevance

[SubtleNuance]

In related news Bill Clinton also promised to do something about curing cancer, giving gifts of gold and murr to orphans, promote real American Democracy, end private campaign funding, recount Florida ballots and rescued a kitten from a Tree.

Way to go Bill - promise stuff now that you are irrelevant. Where the hell was the increase in NASA budgets when people cared what the hell you thought?

You've got to be kidding

[asa]

"So kick back, relax, and let NASA enjoy its already massive budget."

Are you a total asshole. NASA's budget has been cut every year since the Republicans took over in the Congress. They forced NASA to scrap some of it's most exciting missions that had been in planning for years. "already massive budget"?!?! What the hell are you smoking. NASA gets less than 5% of what the US Military gets! They get less than 1% of the total US Federal spending!

• 2000 DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE-MILITARY
  Total Department of Defense-Military
  279,924,000,000
• 2000 NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
  Total National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  13,602,000,000
• 2000 Federal Government totals
  1,801,079,000,000

...And it's worse for 2001. We're losing missions to Mars that cost less than a single US Military vehicle and you're saying relax! Sorry, not gonna happen. You might do yourself some good actually looking at some US Fed Budget figures.

--Asa

Oh Sure...

[Greyfox]

Now that you're leaving office and your competition has announced that he wants this humungus tax cut, you can advocate spending money like it's going out of style. If he cared so much, why didn't he do anything about it when he was in office?

Don't get me wrong, I believe NASA should get lots more funding than it does, but I really don't trust Clinton's motives for saying so now.