Barney Frank: “The gentleman may not consume pork, but he sure produces it. The fact is that we are about to take up a continuing…”

“The gentleman may not consume pork, but he sure produces it. The fact is that we are about to take up a continuing resolution that will make severe cuts in many, many important programs here on earth, and we will be told that the problem is the fiscal constraints. Members will lament the fact that we cannot adequately fund health care and environment and transportation and other things, and then we vote for a bill that says, as a binding policy, we are going to send a man to Mars. My friend from Missouri asks me, well, what happens when he gets there? Well, he comes back. That is why it is so expensive. I agree about what was said about aeronautics; it is so important. I agree with space experimentation, primarily unmanned. But sending human beings to Mars, which this bill unfortunately endorses, is an extravagance; it is a psychological stunt. The amount of scientific gain you get comes from the aeronautics, from the unmanned space, even from some of the manned space in a more limited way. But when I first got here, we were told we had to do the space shuttle because we had to compete with the Soviet Union, and I did not think it was a good idea, the space station, not the space shuttle. Then the Cold War ended, and now we are told we have to keep doing the space station to cooperate with the Soviet Union. If we go a few more years, we will have to do it in memory of the Soviet Union. There is a determination to spend far beyond any rational principle.…”