AFTER NOVEMBER:

Congress Warms To New Space Plan (UPI, Apr 06, 2004)

The plan is undeniably bold, but many of the politicians who will have to write the checks have been cool, indifferent, even hostile to it. Opponents have included Democratic supporters of presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., but also many conservative, pro-Bush Republicans. [...]

The breakthrough emerged during negotiations over the new Senate budget resolution, which sets a ceiling on federal spending. A bipartisan effort managed to amend the original NASA amount adopted -- only a 1.4 percent boost for the space program -- to restore nearly all of the $866 million the administration was seeking.

In the negotiations, Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and and Don Nickles, R-Okla., crafted the amendment that restored the full NASA amount. Though the actual appropriation could vary from the resolution's recommendations, it is considered a marker and indicative of the likely final outcome of the Senate's budget deliberations.

The action was matched last week with a breakthrough of sorts in the House. It gained the support of both conservative Democrats and a group of Republican budget hawks, sources told UPI.

Sean O'Keefe, NASA's administrator, and several senior aides met with the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, a group of conservative House members that included Charles Stenholm of Texas, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, Robert "Bud" Cramer of Alabama and Gene Taylor of Mississippi, as well as other Democratic budget hawks.

The group vented their concerns about NASA's budget and got in return what one attendee called a detailed review of how the space agency plans to pay for the new space effort. The result was the Blue Dogs agreed to support an amendment to the House version of the budget resolution granting the full NASA request.

According to congressional sources, several House members complained Bush has failed to say anything more about the moon-Mars plan since his Jan. 14 speech, and his silence has been interpreted as a cooling of support. The group was told the White House was silent, not because Bush was rethinking his grand space plan, but was instead trying to avoid further politicization.

One source told UPI that Bush would "keep his powder dry until the myths, legends, and political barbs on this strategy subside," and the president probably would speak again about his space plan sometime late in his re-election campaign.

Sadly, the Democrats have become so psychotically partisan that if the President proposed giving every family a goose that lays golden eggs they'd denounce him for not giving them two.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 7, 2004 12:25 PM