National Debt

[barfle]

Shap, my original gripe about the Apollo project included criticisms of JFK's vision, LBJ's implementation, and RMN's cancellation. I found it surprising that you challenged my remarks the RMN cancellation, and still do, since the remaining flights were cancelled during his administration (and the reasons depend on who's report you're reading).

Kennedy's goal was to get there and get back in a remarkably short time frame. In other words, a stunt. A lot of the romance of space travel was lost once the goal was achieved, although exploration of the moon was a secondary goal (whaddya gonna do now that yer there? Look around, I guess). That exploration, and the science to be done from it, were curtailed by Nixon's cancellation of the last three flights.

And we did more than gather rocks while we were there. We set up lots of science experiments, some of which are still being used today (passive laser reflectors, mostly) to tell us about the behavior of nearby celestial bodies.

Whether cancellation of the last three missions was proper or not, one thing I believe it did was diminish our sense of adventure, which I still feel is a darn shame.

[Shapley]

Barfle,

I didn't see "JFK's vision, LBJ's implementation" as criticism of either of them, unless you consider the program to be ill conceived and poorly implemented, which I did not gather from the tone of your message. 'RMN's cancellation", however, sounded rather negative. I merely pointed out that the program flourished under RMN, during the Moon landings, before finally dying.

V/R
Shapley

[barfle]

Originally posted by Shapley:
I didn't see "JFK's vision, LBJ's implementation" as criticism of either of them, unless you consider the program to be ill conceived and poorly implemented, which I did not gather from the tone of your message.

I guess you missed the part in the same sentence about "simply showed we could do something romantic with no practical applications."

And how many times have I used the word "stunt" to describe the whole program?

[Shapley]

Barfle,

Sorry. Keep in mind that 'tone' I read into a post isn't always the 'tone' it was written in. I suppose that is why the 'emoticons' were invented.

My bad, as they say nowadays.

V/R
Shapley

[barfle]

It's OK. Lent's over.

[dai bread]

When the first man landed on the moon, work stopped and we all gathered around any radio we could find. (It was early afternoon here).

When the second man landed on the moon, no-one gave a toss.

I think the problem with the U.S. space program is its lack of direction, as mentioned above, coupled with what seems at this distance to be an enormous bureaucracy. Are all those people watching computers at every launch really necessary?

BTW, our major contribution to the American space program retired a few years ago & came home. I don't think we're making a major contribution at the moment, though I wouldn't be surprised to find we're making several minor ones.

[Shapley]

Deficit on track to be lower than last years

[shostakovich]

Bush's poll numbers are going up because they have been terrible.
Deficit numbers going down because they have been terrible.

Did I hear that there is another request for funding the war, in addition to the request earlier this year, none of which is included in the budget?

If I'm mistaken, and I'm sure somebody will let me know, I'm apologizing in advance.
Shos

[Shapley]

Shos,

You have my utmost admiration. You are able to find the dark cloud in the the shiniest of silver linings.

All spending appears in the budget, in the form of 'discretionary outlays' or some such jargon. In essence, it is money set aside in the budget but not specifically assigned.

The Iraq spending does not appear in many of the budget projections for future fiscal years, thus projected defecits beyond the currently budgeted year do not reflect, or at least did not as recently as 2004, increases in spending on Iraq. The reason for this is in the mechanism used for estimating discretionary spending increases, which is beyond my meager ability to comprehend the complexities of Washingtonian financial workings.

V/R
Shapley

[piqaboo]

Its to hide the financial cost of the war. Stupid, because clearly wars cost money and everytime money is requested its reported on, but by not budgeting any in advance, there is the pretense the war will stop before the next budget comes into play.
Its like a kid 'hiding' by holding her hands over her eyes and thinking no one can see her because she cant see anyone.

[Giant Communist Robot]

Its to hide the financial cost of the war

And don't think that money is being wasted! An incomprehensibly large transfer of wealth from the general population, by way of taxes, into the pockets of a few, by way of spending.

Does anyone still think we went to Iraq over WMD's and to bring democracy to the wretched brown people of the middle east? And it certainly wasn't about oil---why bother? You have to transport, refine, then sell it. Larger amounts of money can be taken much faster through the Bush Plan.

[Serenity]

Can't we just bomb the brown people or enslave them and take the oil for ourselves?

[Giant Communist Robot]

That oil has always been ours, and if I had time I'd give you a concise interpretation of some vague Biblical quote to proove it. But we need to stop thinking rationally here, facts often just confuse matters. Remember the brown people love us and admire our western institutions. Look how gleefully they've latched onto freedom of speech--usually expressed as a car bomb--and freedom of religion--usually expressed as another car bomb.

[Shapley]

Budget Deficit Falls To $250 Billion, Says CBO

[Haggis@wk]

GCR,

"That oil has always been ours, and if I had time I'd give you a concise interpretation of some vague Biblical quote to proove it. But we need to stop thinking rationally here, facts often just confuse matters. Remember the brown people love us and admire our western institutions. Look how gleefully they've latched onto freedom of speech--usually expressed as a car bomb--and freedom of religion--usually expressed as another car bomb. "

Actually, that's very clever and certainly hits a 7 on the droll meter, well done!

[BigJon]

What were Clinton and Gore doing in those years?

[Shapley]

BigJon,

The link you posted shows only the dreaded red 'x'.

[Shapley]

For those of you interested in reducing the public debt, here is how you can help do it. You don't have to wait for April 15th, send your check or money order today. Cash in that jar of pennies sitting in the basement, have a yard sale, a bake sale, or block party to raise money. Pay down the debt, if it bothers you so. The address is at the bottom of the link.

4.2) How do you make a contribution to reduce the debt?

Please follow these important steps to make a contribution to reduce the debt.
Make check payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt.
In the memo section of the check, notate Gift to reduce Debt Held by the Public.
Mail check to -
ATTN DEPT G
BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT
P O BOX 2188
PARKERSBURG, WV 26106-2188

[Shapley]

BigJon,

I was able to click on 'properties' on the link graph you posted and find the link. It shows what we have discussed before, which is that debt as a percent of GDP has been falling despite the growth in actual dollar amounts of debt.

I've also posted this before, which shows that the national debt continued to increase during the entire Clinton Presidency, despite the fact that we had a budget surplus. The reason, of course, is that the government 'borrowed from itself', raiding social security and other encumbered funds to pay for discretionary spending. It is true that debt held by the public decreased during this time, but total debt continued to rise due to increased demands on the intergovernmental holdings.

I only post this because it points out that, if one is to accept the claim that we reduced debt during the Clinton Presidency, then they have to now be willing to admit that the real debt is 4.8 trillion dollars, not 8.5 trillion dollars. You can't have it both ways, either the intergovernmental borrowing counts or it doesn't.

I will accept that, during fiscal year 2000, Clinton reduced the deficit to only 18 billion dollars, but that is as low as it got, the following year, still under Clinton's budget, the deficit was back up to 133 billion dollars.

V/R
Shapley

V/R
Shapley

[Nicole Marie]

For those of you interested in reducing the public debt, here is how you can help do it. You don't have to wait for April 15th, send your check or money order today. Cash in that jar of pennies sitting in the basement, have a yard sale, a bake sale, or block party to raise money. Pay down the debt, if it bothers you so. The address is at the bottom of the link.

4.2) How do you make a contribution to reduce the debt?

Please follow these important steps to make a contribution to reduce the debt.
Make check payable to the Bureau of the Public Debt.
In the memo section of the check, notate Gift to reduce Debt Held by the Public.
Mail check to -
ATTN DEPT G
BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT
P O BOX 2188
PARKERSBURG, WV 26106-2188

I hope you are kidding Shap.... Are you?

We already do pay down the debt by paying taxes. If those in Washington abuse the funds and get us into trouble then you vote them out! That's the best way to pay off the debt, get rid of those that caused it. No one mails me a check if I pile up debt. I'm not mailing the dopes in Washington one either.