# Who needs a break from the NASA budget? (I do, I do!) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 5, 2003, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788 "2003-06-05T08:29:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/21 "2003-06-06T07:44:55Z")
Sam: You broke the rules. You can only touch the stuff in the second list. I’ll take you on any day in terms of slashing stuff from the first list.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/22 "2003-06-06T08:06:47Z")
I don’t see that rule. And besides, I WANT to cut the department of Education. It’d be fun. I’d like to kill the whole damned agency, and then watch them squirm as test scores remain unchanged or improve. In the meantime, we can take the 60 billion dollars and fund manned missions to Mars, a permanent moon base, and start development of a tether from the Earth to Geostationary orbit. A robust space program would probably do more to inspire kids to stay in school and thus get better educations than all the money the DOE spends anyway. So it’s a two-fer. ---
**Author:** ![desdinova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@desdinova](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/desdinova)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/23 "2003-06-06T13:25:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > \*\*“what does Regional Economic Development Agencies $56,000,000.00 do?” > > Holy Jesus! How could we **live** without that?? My region definitely needs more planning and coordination, especially from Washington, DC. Those guys have all the answers! > > No slight meant to you, Grey. Just using your post as a bouncing off point.🙂 \*\* I figure they’re probably referring to the various sub-state planning districts, which are funded with various federal, state, and local dollars. The planning does not come “from Washington”, these are local agencies typically operated by city and county government officials. They’re also sometimes referred to as “Councils of Governments” or “Economic Development Districts.” These guys chiefly coordinate comprehensive plans between neighboring communities (read, zoning) as well as assist with community development block grants and rural economic action plan grants (CDBG and REAP, respectively). I can’t stand to see hatin’ on your friendly neighborhood urban planner 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/24 "2003-06-06T13:41:15Z")
Of course the friendly neighborhood should then be expected to foot the bill for the friendly neighborhood urban planner right? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/25 "2003-06-06T13:49:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > \*\*I don’t see that rule. And besides, I WANT to cut the department of Education. It’d be fun. I’d like to kill the whole damned agency, and then watch them squirm as test scores remain unchanged or improve. > > In the meantime, we can take the 60 billion dollars and fund manned missions to Mars, a permanent moon base, and start development of a tether from the Earth to Geostationary orbit. > > A robust space program would probably do more to inspire kids to stay in school and thus get better educations than all the money the DOE spends anyway. So it’s a two-fer. \*\* Believe me, if I had my say the DOE would be history in 15 seconds or less. And that would be just the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/26 "2003-06-06T13:50:27Z")
\>I’d like to kill the whole damned agency, and then watch them squirm as test scores remain unchanged or improve. not to mention your opponents who will reflexively call you “anti-education” and run some treacly ads featuring kids running off a school bus…and then…bwahahahaha ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/27 "2003-06-06T13:56:49Z")
News flash: The Education Department pulled its summer reading list from its Web site after learning **the list misspelled and misidentified book titles and authors.** LOL! [http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/06/05/reading.list.ap/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/06/05/reading.list.ap/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/28 "2003-06-06T14:02:19Z")
FYI: From the link in the OP: > [@](#): > > The President’s 2004 Budget proposes $56 million for three regional economic development agencies: the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Denali Commission, and the Delta Regional Authority. The President’s proposal refocuses these agencies from grant-makers to regional planners and investment coordinators. The goal is to decrease duplicative grant-making and increase efficient investment of federal, state, and local resources. The Administration also proposes to more tightly focus funding of the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration on distressed communities. I have no familiarty with them beyond that. **Dob** , obviously 15 billion is a vast amount to you and me. That’s why congressmen like to publicly call it into question. The NASA budget is among an elite few programs and line items whose specific numbers get bandied about on a regualr basis. Part of the point of the OP is to call attention to that. We’re not talking about your paycheck or mine, we’re talking about the federal government, which gets money from tens of millions of individuals, households and businesses. The numbers are always going to be huge, but my feeling was that we tend to like to stick with the more manageable numbers. That’s our downfall, because the politicians know some of those small items are things people feel passionately about, like the space program, arts funding, etc. But all of those programs put together hardly amount to anything in terms of the whole budget. **John Mace** , you needn’t only stick to the second list, but you must stay below the NASA budget of 2/3s of a percent of either my total at the top of the OP or Bush’s total of 2.229 trillion (there’s loans and grants and such that I’m not economically minded enough to include that I HOPE accounts for the discrepancy in the totals) You are certainly entitled to you opinion that the governent should not be funding art, and the rest of the things you would like to cut entirely, but, given that I think the government SHOULD fund the arts, and the total NEA budget is just over 5 thousandths of a percent of what Bush wants to spend in total, I’m asking if you’re willing to let it stay in the name of bipartisanship? It’s less than a buck per citizen. **Sam Stone** , while you needn’t stick to the second list, you must remain below the level I mentioned, everything below NASA. I should toss in that the Office of Personnel Management total is mostly pension payouts, which I forgot in the middle of the night would probably be funded by returns on investments, so the rest of OPM is up for grabs as well. I personally think the Executive Office of the President needs much less money. Their expenditures on kneepads must surely have fallen to more manageable levels in recent years. ---
**Author:** ![desdinova](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@desdinova](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/desdinova)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/29 "2003-06-06T14:13:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Grey \* > \*\*Of course the friendly neighborhood should then be expected to foot the bill for the friendly neighborhood urban planner right? 🙂 \*\* Maybe, I dunno. Larger communities can certainly afford it (and do, for the most part, most of the money for operating the larger substate planning districts comes from the member governments), but smaller rural areas depend greatly on federal money to pay for such luxuries. In many parts of rural Oklahoma, for instance, local communities don’t really have their own planners, but depend all but entirely on the sub-state planning districts. For these guys, planning districts are a very important resource. I guess the question is two fold: 1.) Are these communities getting $56 million worth of value from just the federal dollars? 2.) Is it, I suppose, “morally” right to subsidize rural planning agencies? IMHO, the answers are “probably” and “no.” My original point, though, is that you guys are talking about axing programs you don’t seem to know anything about. Any claim that planning and coordination “comes from Washington D.C.” just screams not having a clue about the role and function of regional economic development agencies. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/30 "2003-06-06T14:54:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by desdinova \* > \*\*My original point, though, is that you guys are talking about axing programs you don’t seem to know anything about. Any claim that planning and coordination “comes from Washington D.C.” just screams not having a clue about the role and function of regional economic development agencies. \*\* Well that’s the point of the OP. Invariably someone comes along and looks at the NASA budget and freaks out that “DAMN IT! People are starving and we have disease and stuff. Let’s shut it down and fix problems on earth”. Some of us point out that really given the potential of space and space exploitation ~1% of the US federal budget is a pittance. That garners glares and huffy declarations of “it should still be used to fix problem down here” Well **John Mace** just freed up $9 Billion on programs that even fewer people understand or see. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/31 "2003-06-06T15:46:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by scotandrsn \* > **John Mace** , you needn’t only stick to the second list, but you must stay below the NASA budget of 2/3s of a percent of either my total at the top of the OP or Bush’s total of 2.229 trillion (there’s loans and grants and such that I’m not economically minded enough to include that I HOPE accounts for the discrepancy in the totals) > > You are certainly entitled to you opinion that the governent should not be funding art, and the rest of the things you would like to cut entirely, but, given that I think the government SHOULD fund the arts, and the total NEA budget is just over 5 thousandths of a percent of what Bush wants to spend in total, I’m asking if you’re willing to let it stay in the name of bipartisanship? It’s less than a buck per citizen. I’ve been yelled at many times for straying off the OP, so I’m well aware that one need not play byt he rules, including your arbitrary NASA limit. If I want to really go at it. I’ll just start my own thread. The NEA spending, to me, is more symbolic that anything else. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. You also have to understand that for many people it’s not so much the money as the fact that it often goes to funding “offensive” art. I could care less what kind of art it goes to, but for many of the NEA opponents, that is the major hurdle, not the $$ amount. Lest I get labeled a rgiht wing reactionary for the above cuts, I’d pare back the DOD budget big time, too. While I am very supportive of our military guys and gals and have the utmost respect for them, we’ve got out collective noses in too many other people’s business. A smaller, more focused military can protect our country just fine. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/32 "2003-06-06T16:20:31Z")
Here are the websites for the three entities mentioned in the Regional Economic Development Agencies line item: [Appalachian Regional Commission](http://www.arc.gov/) [Denali Commission](http://www.denali.gov/) [Delta Regional Authority](http://www.dra.gov/) Vital to national interests, or pork barrel? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/33 "2003-06-06T16:29:23Z")
> [@](#): > > About ARC > Programs and Initiatives > > Each year ARC provides funding for several hundred projects throughout the 13 Appalachian states in support of economic and human development. These efforts seek to augment ARC’s highway development program and bring more of Appalachia’s people into America’s economic mainstream. > The projects directly address ARC’s five goal areas: **education and workforce training, physical infrastructure, civic capacity and leadership, business development, and health care** Scot: That’s from your first cite. I don’t even need to know anything more specific than this to know that **if any of these things need to be done** there is no reason the states can’t do them w/o the feds. My favorite is “civic capacity and leadership”. And I already talked about my thoughts on the feds being involved in “education”. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/34 "2003-06-06T16:46:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > \*\*Scot: That’s from your first cite. I don’t even need to know anything more specific than this to know that **if any of these things need to be done** there is no reason the states can’t do them w/o the feds. My favorite is “civic capacity and leadership”. > And I already talked about my thoughts on the feds being involved in “education”. \*\* But can those states pay for these programs themselves? If they can, shouldn’t the government act in its unquestionable role of overseeing the union by offering assistance on the interstate issues, such as highway development? If they can’t, should the feds just sit back and watch the region become a burden to the nation? ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/35 "2003-06-06T16:53:13Z")
Although, as I look further through the ARC link, it does seem that they receive funding from several other places in the government (e.g., I got the link from HUD in the first place), so do they really need their share of the extra $56 million specified in the Bush budget? Hmmmm… ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/36 "2003-06-06T17:11:22Z")
Well, I’ll be. As it happens, I know the Denali Commission fairly well as a result of some work I’ve done with them. Which means I have to shut up, except to say this: if it’s pork-barrel (and I definitely think otherwise), it’s elephant-flavored pork. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/37 "2003-06-06T17:28:12Z")
Also, a note on multiple-source funding. Sometimes, projects will receive funding from several different department sources. There are varied reasons for this, some less excusable than others, but usually it is dependent upon the Congressional committees which oversee the spending on those functions. For example, the Bureau of Reclamation is tasked with, among other things, overseeing interstate water projects. As a result the projects it oversees are supervised on the Senate side by the Energy and Water Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, and the funding is included in the Energy Appropriations bill. But Reclamation is part of the Department of the Interior, so some operational costs of the bureau itself may be covered in the Interior and Related Agencies bill. Why don’t states just compact with one another to complete these projects themselves? Because the Articles of Confederation didn’t work, man. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/38 "2003-06-06T17:32:09Z")
Oops, I wasn’t too clear there. Sometimes it may _appear_ as if an agency is double-dipping, like the Army Corps of Engineers, which also falls under the Energy section of the budget, but often it’s just a bureaucratic division whereby one Committee oversees and funds individual projects, while another funds the operation of the agency itself. Was that better? Okay, I’m done with this. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2003, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788/39 "2003-06-07T07:11:35Z")
Sofa King, I’d like to hear you get more specific on the Denali commission, and why you think it’s a good program. I never heard of it before today. I actually agree with Bush (you have NO idea how long it took me to bring myself to write that) on the fact that these agencies, if they do anything, should coordinate monies spent on their respective regions. If other agencies are in the habit of giving certain amounts to these commissions, I say give it to them directly in the first place, and cut out a link in the chain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-needs-a-break-from-the-nasa-budget-i-do-i-do/179788.md?page=1)