Thursday, November 8, 2012
This could be one of the most important policies of the Obama administration
Allegedly, Obama is soon going to announce plans for a manned mission to the Moon. Obviously I'd prefer Mars but I'm not an aerospace engineer - there may be really benefits to moon trips to figure a few things out first. What's nice is that it's not just a manne mission to the moon - it's also a manned outpost, perhaps at a Lagrange point. If this ends up being the start of a new push that culminates in the human settlement of space, the effort could go down in history right next to "first black president" and "health reform" in the textbooks.
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It will go nowhere because it will get no funding. Spending - despite what Obama has tried to claim with his various unauthorized Czar appointments - is the prerogative of the Congress not the Presidency, and the Congress knows that there is no appetite in the American public broadly for such a boondoggle.
ReplyDeleteThe czar point is dumb. "Czar" is a name that other politicians apply to normal appointees they don't like. You're proving yourself to be a political tool by even raising that.
DeleteThe funding is an issue. This is relatively small relative to other agency budgets, and its not the source of long-term budget problems. Plus it could potentially be very popular with voters. I don't know why you call it a "boondoggle". There's no guarantee, but I could see this going either way - I could see bipartisan support for this. It's hard to tell. It's been a long time since there was major space enthusiasm in this country. Who knows where the electorate is at on it.
Newt Gingrich and Marco Rubio are both positively disposed to this sort of thing. Funding isn't guaranteed, but I don't think we can write it off yet either.
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DeleteActually Daniel, unappointed Czars are an ever increasing tool Presidents use as a means to circumvent Presidential control of the appointments process. This is part of the larger issue of transparency and the executive branch generally; even its working structure is opaque (that is the executive branch); indeed, we have nothing like the sort of access to those involved in meetings, briefings, etc. that is the case with Congress and that is especially troubling given just how much Presidents these days buy into the "unitary executive theory" of that branch. If you don't realize this you are a major league toolbag; then again, you are a Keynesianroid (who are only slightly less obnoxious than Randroids).
ReplyDeleteThere is no support in the House (particularly amongst Republicans) for new funding for NASA.
Yes, thinking you are wrong makes me a toolbag? There's no circumvention of the appointment process (at least no serial circumvention - certainly individual cases might end up being contestable). This was a good discussion of it from a little while back: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2009/10/do-white-house-czars-violate-the-appointments-clause.html
DeleteLook, your line had nothing to do with funding of NASA (what, do you think the President is just going to appropriate money on his own???), and it was a line you usually hear from partisan rants from politicians and from pundits like Beck, who had spoken on it at length.
Exactly how am I supposed to take it?
Daniel:
DeleteIt was meant as a darkly worded joke at the "most transparent" President ever. The President continues to create czars which have no oversight other than that found in the executive branch. The theory is that if they really screw up the President will be held accountable, but frankly that is not how the system works (partly because the advisors of leaders have traditionally been easy enough to scapegoat for screw ups if the leader doesn't take them to their breast).
You want to call me a tool and I call you a toolbag. Seems a fair tit for tat for me.
As for the issue of the appointments clause and the President's use of czars, while I have never watched Glenn Beck, I can point to a different source that questions your source - though not directly (and I am sure we could do that all day). Note that the source mentions a letter to Senator Feingold and his questioning of the appointment of czars - are you also claiming that Senators Feingold and Collins are also Glenn Beck fans? Frankly, I find the effort to paint anyone who disagrees with you on this point with the brush of Glenn Beckerism (sorry, couldn't think of anything else) as childish.
http://www.pointoforder.com/2009/10/12/obamas-czars-and-the-appointments-clause/
FYI: I am more than happy to continue the back and forth name calling and insults if that is how you roll. The irony of the whole czars thing is that Biden prolly coined the term in the 1980s. Yes, that jackass has been screwing with our lives for that long.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that this will advance space exploration much. We are just too technologically limited right now: it is possible to travel even to the Mars with existing chemical engines, but it is so expensive and dangerous that I doubt it is worth the effort.
ReplyDeleteThere are 3 classes of technologies that might make space exploration more viable but are a long way from being ready: scramjets (only prototypes exist), atomic rockets (all experiments discontinued, sadly) and molecular assembly (for making monomolecular carbon nanotube tether for a space elevator).
My concern is that LOE type stuff doesn't move us forward. If we have an output we will continue to learn things and if we have a push like this it will capture the imagination and put money into further efforts...
Delete...maybe. And maybe not. But yes, there will need to be other advances for real progress. I am hoping you are wrong about Mars. "Dangerous" and "worth the effort" are subjective terms that can change over time. There have been discussions of one-way trips, after all. The calculus of "too dangerous" is not a static thing. The age of exploration several hundred years ago was considerably less safety-conscious than we are today about space. You can't push that too far, obviously. Otherwise you get a chilling effect.
Holy Eff, the one thing Obama takes from the Republican debates was Newt's crazy scheme...
ReplyDeleteWhat else was there to get out of those debates?
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