Whenever money is taken from the economy by the government, a good percentage is wasted by the economic friction of the government itself. Even if they then spend it exclusively on the parts of the economy that it was taken from, there will still be a significant net economic loss from the action.
I don't oppose other types of space projects, but the ISS is a political project, not a science project.
NOW THAT'S more like it. Is ISS a political creature? You bet your clymer it is, and you can blame that squarely on Billy Jeff Clinton. It was never meant to be an international space station, and realigning the design to suck up Russian hardware and personnel was a giant money waster. And now the Russians hold the program hostage about every 18 months over something, futher increasing the costs.
However, it is still a very good machine, and it is beating the maintenance projections very well, so its amortized costs will be MUCH lower than originally predicted. And the new program established by the prez does bring ISS back into alignment with Reagan's original vision of the station as a technological testing ground, a life sciences testbed, and a docksite for outbound missions.
Is it all roses? Nope. But it is getting better.
Shuttle has a real limited system life now, but the new NASA admin is pushing to close the time gap between the old and new spacecraft, with a good chance of having no gap at all. In the meantime, Shuttle begins service in about a month, with a good chunk of the old PC paralysis wiped away, and replaced with some NEW PC (sigh) and some pragmatism (yay!).