The President recently announced his budget for 2011. The details are staggering:
- $3.8 trillion in federal spending in 2011
- $1.6 trillion deficit
- $2 trillion in tax hikes over the next ten years
- $14 trillion added to the debt
This budget will more than double the national debt and while the President has called for a spending freeze, it needs to be a real freeze and it needs to start now. It is clear that we cannot borrow, spend and tax our way back to a growing economy and this budget is a far cry from true fiscal reform.
This budget not only lacks the fiscal discipline we need to create jobs, it lacks something equally as important; a vision, a goal and true inspiration.
I remember sitting in my family room as a nine year old glued to the black and white screen of my Mom’s 13-inch Admiral television on the night of July 20, 1969. I remember watching that fateful moment as Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the surface of the moon capping a decade long national effort to achieve the challenge John F. Kennedy had issued to the nation. I remember feeling a sense of pride and accomplishment. Most importantly I remember being inspired.
And that inspiration for a nation paid dividends through the following decades with innovations in technology and derivative discoveries that stimulated our overall economy. There was a clear vision with a specific mission and an understanding that space exploration was not only noble but also economically sound.
The President’s new budget, in effect, has begun to neuter that clear mission and as a result our inspiration. Some will argue that the cancellation of the Constellation program, which was President Bush’s plan to go back to the moon, is warranted due to budget overruns and old technologies and that a shift to engines, fuel technology, commercial applications and robotics is the right way to go. That may be correct. But the cancellation also puts into jeopardy our overall commitment to space exploration.
Without a clear directive that our mission is to explore space, to go to the moon, to go to Mars and beyond, we are left without inspiration and, as a result, without an economic engine that can be useful in driving our economy forward.
