Political Quotes

“When the President announced his new vision for the Nation's space exploration program on January 14, 2004, he proposed a new human exploration vehicle to return to the Moon by 2020 and to leverage these lunar efforts to send a human mission to Mars. After Mr. Bush unveiled his plan in 2004, a congressional subcommittee requested that the Congressional Budget Office perform a budgetary analysis of NASA's New Vision For Space Exploration, as this program was titled. The report was released in September of 2004 and concluded that NASA's long-term projections only included a 2 percent increase for inflation. NASA's budget has undergone radical changes since the President's vision was announced in 2004. NASA's budget requests for aeronautics has been reduced by over $200 million. NASA's budget requests for science programs, including climate research, have been reduced by over $300 million. In stark contrast during the same period, overall funding requests for NASA have increased by over $2 billion. Since the President first proposed his new 'vision for space exploration,' we have spent more than $600 billion in Iraq, over $120 billion on Hurricane Katrina, and the Federal deficit has grown by over $2.4 trillion. Mr. DeFazio's amendment will direct the Congressional Budget Office to update its 2004 budgetary analysis of the President's plan. This makes fiscal sense.”