Posted on 02/04/2003 7:00:05 AM PST by LandOfTheFreeHomeOfTheBrave
On This Week with George Stephanopoulos, the erstwhile Clinton spin doctor asked former astronaut Sally Ride where NASA would be focusing its investigation of the Columbia disaster. Ride said that during liftoff it appeared on video as though some of the heat shielding from the shuttle had fallen off, striking the shuttle in the area of the wing on the port side. Naturally, she said, "we'll be looking pretty closely at that left wing."
Unfortunately, it seems that Stephanopoulos and most of the other Sunday-morning talk hosts focused their attention on the implied blame of the "right wing." Not the right wing of the shuttle -- the right wing of the American political system.
Sunday TV hosts were following the lead of the Washington Post, which that morning had published a news piece that pointed readers to warnings about safety problems arising from budget cuts. The Post also ran an opinion piece by Bill Nelson, a Florida senator and former astronaut who spent most of Sunday morning telling talk-show hosts how he had been fighting with "the administration" about budget cutting at NASA. Not the "administrations," but the singular "administration." There's no doubt which administration the Democratic senator meant.
It's valid to ask whether budget cuts have had a negative impact on the shuttle program and other aspects of the space program. But on Sunday morning, I found myself wondering whether NASA's budget had been cut at all, and by whom. I have since found out that, yes, it has been cut -- and by Bill Clinton. Here are the facts:
NASA's funding was cut by $99 million in 1997, $204 million in 1998, and $100 million in 2000. These cuts, including a small increase in 1999, resulted in a total of $303 million in lost funding during the last four years of the Clinton administration. Notice that the data above show an immediate increase of $700 million in NASA's funding under the Bush administration's first year and a total increase of $900 million for Bush's first two years.
The data show a clear downward trend under Clinton and an upward trend under Bush. They also shed light on today's spin cycle, and allegations that President Bush's announced $470 million increase for NASA in next year's budget is somehow unprecedented and therefore "political." As shown above, George W. Bush increased funding for NASA by roughly $900 million over a two-year period. By this standard a $470 million boost is right on target, and actually smaller than the increase of 2001 into 2002.
Will Rogers once said, "Every American has a right to his own opinions, but no one has a right to his own facts." Americans will hotly debate the impact of any possible budget cuts on NASA and particularly shuttle safety over the next several months. My own view is that safety has always been priority-one at NASA and that disasters such as Challenger or Columbia are an unavoidable cost of exploration that cannot be blamed on budgeting. Your view may differ, but whatever it is, the debate should start with the facts: NASA spending was decreasing under Bill Clinton and has been increasing under George W. Bush.
No Republican of good will would dream of blaming the horrible disaster of last Saturday morning on Clinton-era cutbacks. I pray that, likewise, that no Democrat would dream of using the tragedy to smear George W. Bush.
Good luck on that one!
I consider myself a Republican of (at least relatively) good will. If this disaster was indeed caused by budget cutbacks, I have no problem placing the blame where it belongs. There is an awful lot more information that will be coming out over the course the investigations.
Now why must you dangle MurryMom bait?
Some prayers will go unanswered. DU has been beating that drum since 9:00 last Saturday morning... There are a few voices of dissent, but they get screeched down.
He was a congressional tourist who hitched a ride on the taxpayers dime. He's with Jake Garn, not John Glenn.
YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR MIND!! That is what dems do!!! Dashole and Pelosi will use the word "troubled" or "concerned" over ANYTHING Bush says or does. They are America-hating, traitorous weasels. They obstruct, delay, naysay, and in general, pee in the pool. They would use anything to smear Bush they thought would work!
Watching the Clinton White House sewer dwellers on this one is like turning on the lights in a dark room and watching the cockroaches scatter. The ultra-left wing media will continue to hire these vermin and the vermin, in turn, will, first, try to rehabilitate Willie and try to mitigate that filth and corruption that is involved in everything he touched and, two, try to smear Bush or any Republican on every issue all the time. That is what scum sucking dems do!!!
Only if the money had been spent in just the right way to save them.
He did not solve the NK crisis, he did not get Osama Bin Laden, he did not follow the leads from the WTC bombing, and he did not fund priorities like defense and NASA in order to free money to be doled out to his various constituencies, like the Trial Lawyers and other assorted beneficiaries of government largesse.
You're right. I don't mean to sound like a fatalist, but things do go wrong.
Managers need to do the best they can to foresee problems (and save lives), but, historically speaking, we humans often learn our biggest lessons when something unexpected happens.
Maybe we will find out that inadequate funding was a factor in this disaster, but until we do, people shouldn't even begin pointing fingers.
The facts aren't in yet.
However, my goal is, for those who want to blame the Columbia disaster on Bush-era funding, that people are made aware that it was clintons watch under which NASA's budget was cut or ignored.
It is to silence the partisans...
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