Political Quotes

“we passed the NASA authorization bill out of the Commerce Committee yesterday. Sadly, I must report that it is the first time the NASA bill has been a partisan vote that I can ever remember. NASA--this little program that is such a can-do agency--has always been not only bipartisan, but it has been nonpartisan. There was actually no real disagreement with the content, the policies set in the NASA authorization bill. It is very similar to what the Appropriations Committee indeed has already passed out of the full Appropriations Committee. But, sadly, there is an insistence that this artificial budget limitation, which is like a meat cleaver cutting across the board--some would describe it as a guillotine coming down across programs willy-nilly--cutting programs such as the National Institutes of Health and all of the medical research that is going on and, indeed, a broadly embraced bipartisan program such as our space program. So the vote was 13 to 12--specifically along partisan lines--not because of the content, not because of the policy, but because of the funding level. In the bill that passed, we had the NASA authorization for appropriations at the level provided in the budget resolution that passed the Senate--$18.1 billion. That is about level funding for NASA, this little agency that is trying to do so much.…”