Why NASA's Budget "Victory" Is Anything But

StartsWithABang (3485481) writes 'Earlier this week, attempts to cut NASA's budget were defeated, and it looks like the largest space agency in the world will actually be getting nearly a 2% budget increase overall. While common news outlets are touting this as a great budget victory, the reality is that this is shaping up to be just another year of pathetic funding levels, putting our greatest dreams of exploring and understanding the Universe on hold. A sobering read for anyone who hasn't realized what we could be doing.'

Comments

Re:Government fails again

[s.petry]

Have you never been taught that alternatives exist in society to the Government? Almost all of the same exact safeguards, and usually much more economical ones, can be found in a "Free Market" society. If you are truly ignorant to other methods a good source of information, and very interesting Philosophical insight, can be found by listening to or reading Stefan Molynoux. Namely his theories regarding anarchism, which may sound like something you think you know but is actually not the same.

For example: 6:38 you pour some water into your coffeemaker. You were able to get a great price for the water because the market has ensured that there are several companies competing for both price and quality in water. In fact additional companies may spring up from time to time to enhance competition. If Company B ever had a problem with water quality or quantity, people would switch over to Company A or Company C, and since there is competition, the companies evaluate each others water because they need to prove that they are better, worse, or the same.

As demonstrated recently in West Virgina, those people were up shit's creek (actually drinking and showing in it) because the Government has a monopoly on water treatment and distribution. There is no competition, and when their water was contaminated they had to wait for bottled water in addition to waiting for a court case to get reimbursed for damages (which I can not state has been resolved yet, or fairly, largely due to corruption in the courts by.. you guessed it.. corrupt Government personal.)

At 6:39 you flip the switch and your house does not catch on fire. There was a fire due to shoddy work about a decade ago, but the company that did that work went out of business because people stopped purchasing their homes. Competition and Free Market strikes AGAIN! No need for Government supervision of house building is needed. In fact the companies doing electrical and plumbing work ensure that their people are certified without Government intervention. They do this because society expects this and Free Market demands it.

And before you say "but they hired a handy man who did a hack job" that happens today WITH all kinds of regulations. In fact it's very common in buildings and trades to hire unskilled labor to perform many tasks that _should_ be done by skilled labor. Most cities have illegal immigrant pools waiting around somewhere for the pick up every morning. And why are those illegal immigrant pools there? Once again Government Agencies are failing to perform _their_ jobs. And when citizens tried to step in and help on their own, they were declared a threat to the US Government and many were arrested. (If you don't see the trend you are not looking very hard)

We have gone so far with Government craziness that we have the GAO "Government Accountability Office". And what does this agency do? Well, it throws a lavish party costing a million dollars of tax payer money for 33 people. The executive that planned the party flew on tax payer money 6 times ahead of the party to plan it and have "dry runs" (I believe dry humps would be closer to the truth myself, but still not correct). So the agency supposedly accountable for government spending, is wasting your tax money and not doing their jobs either. Do you think that is the only time they peed away your money, or is it more likely that they have just been careful not to get caught?

Personally I'm not an anarchist like Mr. Molynoux. I have studied hist work and think he brings up very similar issues as Ron Paul did regarding why US policy has become absolutely horrendous. Unlike Mr. Molynoux, I believe that Government is needed for some things, such as providing a military to defend the citizens of the country and defending our borders.