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Is there any limit where you will say, "This is just wealth transfer from the harderst working taxpayers to PhDs and engineers?" Is there any sort of government largess to scientists and engineers that you don't approve of?

I object to anything that is likely to result in profitable spinoffs with a decade.

Progress depends on research and govt. is the only one who can supply the long term basic research. It is too expensive and the rewards too far off for private enterprise to do it.

Right now we have 3 private companies working on commercial orbital flight. There is no way private enterprise could have pioneered in space flight. If the govt. hadn't led the way in the 60s with Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and the Shuttle, there would be no nascent space industry.

This is an especially good time for it.
The 30s demonstrated that interest rates too low to recompense risk can vapor lock an economy just as effectively as too high interest rates.
We need more govt. spending right now, enough to drive the prime rate up to at least 4%.

I certainly don't want to see it spent on social programs.
I favor basic research and updating infrastructure like bridges, airports and highways.

So9

"The 30s demonstrated that interest rates too low to recompense risk can vapor lock an economy just as effectively as too high interest rates."

Actually, the 30s showed that rewriting the constitution and heavy government intervention can make a self-stabilizing economy become a crippled one beat into submission by seizure of gold for ultimate government power.

" I object to anything that is likely to result in profitable spinoffs with a decade"

That makes no sense whatsoever.

"Right now we have 3 private companies working on commercial orbital flight. There is no way private enterprise could have pioneered in space flight"

That is correct, but only because the government already did it.

I certainly don't want to see it spent on social programs.

Well let's chalk up one point of agreement then before I go on.

I object to anything that is likely to result in profitable spinoffs with a decade.

How about never useful? Lots of this stuff is only going to procreate PhDs in nuclear physics who will have no place to go except academia and publish papers with research paid for at the taxpayers expense, who will then train a whole new generation of larval graduate students and start the same cycle over again.

The 30s demonstrated that interest rates too low to recompense risk can vapor lock an economy just as effectively as too high interest rates.

A far greater danger is the government sapping too much of the economy for political ends which have no yield except for votes and perks to the political class.. Bush's budget would make a Democrat proud., but that's getting off topic

We need more govt. spending right now, enough to drive the prime rate up to at least 4%.

You really mean this? You remember Limbaugh's comment about taxing ourselves into prosperity? This is exactly what you're proposing, because government spending comes from government money. The ONLY source for government money is taxes both now and on future generations, since it appears that the government is unwilling to sell assets to even reduce a tiny part of its expenses. So what you're proposing is taxing ourselves into prosperity. It just doesn't work.