http://www.SaveSpace.US is a movement started by people on the Space Coast to raise the awareness of the nation, the President, and other elected officials: Space needs to be a priority for America!

Our country's space program faces a very real and very urgent threat. With all the talk about stimulus, both in job creation/retention and in research & development, it's worth pointing out that NASA positively contributes to both. NASA is responsibile for much of what we take for granted on a daily basis. GPS, quartz watches, wifi, reflective insulation, solar water heaters, coolers, cordless power tools, flat screen tv's, freeze dried foods, early warning weather systems -- the list goes on and on. It's not just a government agency, it's an agency that helps fuel research and development that leds to new industries and businesses in the private sector.

There are two very important Call-to-Action's on this, do both before October 31st, 2009

1) Send a letter. If you're absolute against physical letters, send an e-mail. Whatever you do, speak up.
2) Tell people. Send an email to friends with the web url (http://www.savespace.us) and let them know the urgency & importance of getting involved. Join the facebook group and suggest to your facebook friends that they do the same. Follow the effort on Twitter. Retweet things. Spread the word.

One way the stimulus bill could defy critics would be if it leads to scientific breakthroughs that can give our country a competitive edge. The bill appropriates a small percentage to research and development of new technologies.

Here's a list of where exactly that money is heading and how much:

$220,000,000 - National Institute of Standards and Technology research, including research into technology with high-growth potential and program giving technology to small and mid-size manufacturers
$230,000,000 - Extra money for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration facilities and research
$400,000,000 - NASA climate research
$150,000,000 - NASA aeronautics research
$2,500,000,000 - National Science Foundation research
$300,000,000 - Research and development of renewable energy generation for military
$2,500,000,000 - Research and development of renewable and efficient energy technology
$1,000,000,000 - Fossil energy research and development
$800,000,000 - Research into low-emission coal plants
$20,000,000 - Grants for training and research on safe storage of carbon emission
$1,600,000,000 - Physics research including high-energy physics, nuclear physics and fusion energy sciences
$400,000,000 - High-risk research into energy sources and energy efficiency
$9,500,000,000 - National Institutes of Health biomedical research
$1,100,000,000 Funding for research comparing effectiveness of treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP

Total: $20,720,000,000 (Approximately 2.6% of the total spending)
(bolded things that interest me, source Wall Street Journal)

Alan Greenspan summed it up best. It's not whether or not the Stimulus effects short term GPD, it's whether it "primes the pump" for private demand.

Pretty sure you could take a trillion dollars and invest it in bubblegum factories and it'd have some sort of impact. But will the stimulus produce long standing results?

I'm doubtful.

I've mentioned it before, but I'm of the humble opinion that the wealth that was "lost" never really existed in the first place. The debt we're now faced with has to be met in one of three likely ways. 1) Inflation, 2) High taxes (at the expense of growth) or 3) defaulting (god forbid). If we want to achieve long term success, we have to get out of this consumer driven economy and get back to producing things. Unless we can come up with something to sell to folks outside our borders and not just to ourselves, we'll be faced with the same pyramid scheme economy. Subsidizing this system by way of the federal government just pushes off whatever needs to get done.

My biggest beef with the stimulus package (and I have many) is that it became a political dumping ground for party agenda. It's not completely without it's merits. We're putting money into R&D on energy, which is good, and we are spending money on improving infrastructure, which is also good (help increase efficiency via better transportation/communication/shipping/whatever). We have a decent amount of tax cuts to help give people immediate relief. Unfortunately, with all the other nonsense, the important things end up getting less than they probably should.

An example. I'm a big fan of infrastructure spending. Specifically right now in our country, I see the opportunity for a serious investment into mass transit. We had a chance to do something big and bold, perhaps a national light rail system, but instead we constructed legislation that will lend itself not just to fraud and misuse, but piecemeal initiatives state by state that run the risk of having no rhyme or reason at all. The chances of a nation wide light rail now seem even smaller. And even if we can standardize on an approach within state legislatures or an approach is dictated by the Feds, the stimulus bill appropriates only a tiny fraction of funds to transportation itself.

The other debatable aspects to this bill are largely matters of principal. President Obama's on record in 1998 as disagreeing with Clinton's 1996 welfare reform, something Clinton himself touts as a big success of his presidency. This legislation rolled it back. States will now be rewarded for adding people to its welfare payroll, not the other way around. The stimulus bill went on to stick its hands into health care and gun control as well. What on earth these things have to do with "priming the pumps of private demand," as Greenspan articulated, is anyone's guess.

That is, anyone's guess just as soon as they finish reading the dang thing. (Oooohhhh. AmIright?!)

The other, more gloomy, concern is whether or not we'll have enough credit left in the treasury to handle whatever geopolitical fallout comes from the "financial crisis". Iceland's government already fell, there are rumors of Mexico's being unstable and there are protests and uprisings taken place on the other side of the Atlantic. If this truly is a comparable event to the Great Depression, as our leaders love to suggest, we may want to think a couple steps ahead on this one.. Just.. you know.. saying.

I do have to say that I've enjoyed it all. It's history in the making. I'm also happy to see the GOP find it's conservative roots again. Whether or not they mean it this time, we'll have to wait and see. So far Michael Steele seems like a breath of fresh air.

I'm also humored by the amount of folks on the opposite side of the aisle tossing terms like "obstructionists" around. I saw one liberal professor on TV attacking a conservative talking head, asking where this outrage was while the patriot act was being debated. A fair point, but the real question is where was the Democrats outrage? For all the talk they do about the war and the patriot act, you'd assume that they voted against them. The job of the minority party is to balance out the majority. To slow down waves of emotion. To provide a counter argument. To, quite frankly, obstruct. There's a time and a place for bipartisanship but this, as well as the patriot act and the war votes, was simply not one of them. There's simply too much on the line. If the majority wants to pass sweeping legislation, it doesn't do much harm to make them earn it. If nothing else, we likely ended up with a 'better' bill because of it.

If you could move into a brand new mansion right this second for 0% down and no monthly payments forever, would you?

Most folks would undoubtedly say yes.

Here's the rub. Your kids inherit the mortgage that you won't be paying on their eighteenth birthday. They'll miss out on their American Dream and have to lower their expectations quite a bit just to get by.

Still want to move into that house?

As our Congress gets ready to pass what is likely the largest spending legislation in the history of our country -- more total debt in one bill than the entire inflation adjusted body of work known as the New Deal -- just remember one thing: The government doesn't give us anything. The government is simply a middle man to ourselves. We'll only see a tiny fraction of every dollar the next generation pays for this legislation.

Score one for the blue team. They own this one.

Bondage to Spiritual Faith
Spiritual Faith to Courage
Courage to Freedom
Freedom to Abundance
Abundance to Selfishness
Selfishness to Complacency
Complacency to Apathy
Apathy to Fear
Fear to Dependency
Dependency to Bondage

This cycle is often attributed to Alexander Tytler, but most likely belongs to an Industrialist named Henning Webb Prentis, Jr from a speech called "Industrial Management in a Republic." Regardless of the source, it really does seem to fit into history.

What Alexander Tytler probably did write though, is a bit similar in nature:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Which of course sounds an awful lot like a quote attributed to Ben Franklin,

When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.

Lots of great advice all pointing towards fiscal responsibility and the need for limited federal government. Two concepts which cower in the face of both S-1and HR-1. But let's set aside the fear of dependency our earlier generations and conservatives all seem to share. Let's just talk about the voting-money-to-ourselves part.

Take a look at the stimulus bill. A real look, not a partisan look and not just what the majority party is willing to show you. 600 million for a nature trail that will only contribute 60 new, yet temporary, jobs? And this isn't "Pork?" The ROI on that project isn't worth the interest. And that's just one of many, many examples. (How about a brand new indoor soccer facility in NY? Sure, why not.) [edit: it was pointed out that these are proposals, which I understand. I guess my greater point is that this shows the problem with handing out blank checks, which you'd think we would have learned our lesson on. Without definition of how to spend the money, this is the de facto reality. Worse yet, check out the Chicago Mayor's approach. ]

Then again, President Obama claims it's not a big deal because all the pork adds up to only 1% of the total. Right. 1% of a trillion dollars that belongs to my future grand kids, before interest. What kind of business are we running here?

Don't get me wrong. Hardly anyone will make an argument for no stimulus of any kind. That's not the discussion. There's even a Libertarian plan floating around. And putting on my bi-partisan cap for second, spending programs, when implemented properly, can garner wide spread support. It's hard to argue against the highway system for instance, an ambitious federal program pushed for by a Republican president. In the same vein, it's worth pointing out that tax cuts were a critical component of JFK's platform. There is plenty of room for compromise to create an effective bill.

What won't work is strong arming conservatives in the name of faux compromise with legislation filled with broken window spending, pork barrel projects and political grand standing. If it's such an urgency, we should be cutting every debatable program to get something out the door. If the majority party were really interested in bi-partisanship instead of earning a political win, this would have been done already.

Call or e-mail your Representative and Senators. Let them know this thing needs a fresh start. A new bill that's actually legitimate is what this country deserves.

If you live in Florida, here's the link to Sen Bill Nelson's contact form and Sen. Mel Martinez's.

Note: There's only ~300m Americans. But 500m, that sounds way way scarier.

"You, your children and their children all will lose their jobs if you don't agree to this giant pork filled legislation immediately. It must pass now or we're doomed. There is no time to read it or question us!"

"[...] That's what the stimulus bill was about-not knowing what time it is, not knowing the old pork-barrel, group-greasing ways are over, done, embarrassing. When you create a bill like that, it doesn't mean you're a pro, it doesn't mean you're a tough, no-nonsense pol. It means you're a slob.

That's how the Democratic establishment in the House looks, not like people who are responding to a crisis, or even like people who are ignoring a crisis, but people who are using a crisis. Our hopeful, compelling new president shouldn't have gone with this bill. He made news this week by going to the House to meet with Republicans. He could have made history by listening to them."

Peggy Noonan has a great piece in the WSJ. Read it.

Good grief.

Robert Reich (Good thing he's not a III), Obama's economic advisor and a former member of Pres. Clinton's team, makes it clear to congress that the administration wants the stimulus money go to minorities instead of to the general public (regardless of skin color).

Rangel then goes on to suggest coming up with formula's to dictate how/who/where the money gets spent so those pesky local and state governments can't direct funds to where they're actually needed instead. Heaven forbid they fix roads in a poor white section of town. Oh, and he says don't worry about the middle class - -they're too busy dealing with the recession to show much opposition.

Kid you not.

If you still believe all that talk during the campaign was simply Republicans playing "politics as usual" as Obama called it, start paying attention to this stimulus debate. Absolute insanity.

More thoughtful/skillful post over on Michelle Malkin's blog.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANUS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

On the surface, maybe, just maybe, you're able to nod your head in agreement. It makes sense right? More unwanted babies, more state burden. But let's follow the logic on this...

The money goes to family "planning" organizations. So this is assuming that people are going to places like Planned Parenthood and finding themselves without luck -- no more condoms to go around.

Now, we have to assume that the person who was concerned enough to go to Planned Parenthood to get free condoms says.. You know what, screw it. I'm having unprotected sex, and I'm not gonna pull out! (yehaw!)

Then we have to assume that a baby is conceived. Then we have to assume that the new family is in a poor enough fiscal condition where the state would have to pay the medical costs.

And then we have to make another assumption in that this scenario happens on a scale that would greatly affect the states budget in the immediate term (which is what the stimulus is designed to attack).

So let's recap our assumptions. We're assuming that Planned Parenthood is routinely out of condoms and people decide since they couldn't get a free one they'll just have unprotected sex and not pull out, and then their super sperm causes them to just bang out kids at 100% success rates and then that they're dirt poor and can't afford the added medical bills and then that this happens hundreds of times a week.

The question, then, is whether or not dumping all this money into this unlikely fiasco has a noticeable impact within a short to immediate time frame, and if it's impact will be larger than other initiatives or the reduction of debt (higher ROI than other opportunities)?

This is partisan politics at its best. This initiative wouldn't stand a chance on it's own in today's economic climate, but someone somewhere made a promise to these groups and the Democrats intend to keep it. Absolute fiscal insanity.

UPDATE: President Obama asks for removal. ++