Musings on America's Budgetary Challen...

Facing Up Budget Blog Carnival: David D. Kent:

Would you like modernized national parks, new technology, high-tech jobs for Americans created all over the country, a giant shot in the arm for our nation’s economy, and the majority of your student loans paid off? How about instead of the loans, a flat-panel LCD tv?? We could do it, all with no new spending. Plus, we would get to go to Mars.

I'm completely serious.

This year in politics began with a new presidential administration, which immediately called for an economic stimulus of $787 billion, in addition to the billions more spent on bailing out banks last year. Then, there was a bailout/takeover of auto companies. During the summer, we’ve heard about a miracle division of economics that says the more we spend to give people massive health care services, the more money we’ll save.

Now at the end of the year, the president is set to sign a $1 trillion-plus “jobs bill,” which is just a euphemism for a SECOND stimulus. Stuck in the middle was the anniversary of the single greatest non-WW2-related government project of the last century: the Apollo space program’s Moon landing (which for this discussion also includes the entire Apollo program plus the Mercury and Gemini pre-Moon flights).

Yet forty years later, everyone seems to be saying that we should be done with NASA, the shuttles, and exploration. They claim it costs too much to send a few guys into space because of what amounted to an international bar bet with the Russians. But we're also in a recession and we want jobs and government action. Luckily, the next step in manned space flight is to establish a permanent base on the Moon, then fly to Mars.

It's easy to see why a major space program meets all of the criteria for good stimulus:

** It creates jobs: 500,000 people worked on Apollo. The most well known were astronauts, but the overwhelming majority were people on the ground--engineers, computer techs, PR folks, and dozens of other categories that you'd probably never think of.

** It creates GOOD jobs: I'm talking high-paying, highly-skilled jobs for highly-educated people, or put another way, exactly the type of jobs we keep trying to make and keep. We get a better workforce that can keep us ahead of other nations.

** Those good jobs are in many, many fields in many, many states: it's not just Florida and Texas. Parts are made and shipped from all over the country, as are spaceships. The Lunar Module (as in "The Eagle has landed" lunar module), for example, was designed and built on Long Island. Lots of states can share the wealth and job growth, creating high-skilled manufacturing jobs in many states. I’m sure Ohio and Michigan would love to build a couple dozen spaceships. (That’s plural because we’ll need more than one rocket, of course.)

** It builds on what we know: this would be even better than Apollo, since this time we already know how to fly people through space. We wouldn't be blindly throwing money away. Of course, people who see those silly sci-fi movies like Armageddon will probably be shocked to learn that it will take years and there won't be any Klingons to battle in the heroic climax 90 minutes from now, but surely we can avoid pandering to the lowest common denominator this time.

** National Pride: yes, this is the "America rules" part of the pitch, but you have to admit that it’s pretty awesome that not only was our country was the first on the Moon, we're also the ONLY country on the Moon. Second, think about all the kids inspired to get into science and math just so they can work on the space program when they get older; we’ve been trying to churn out more of those kinds of students for years, but why go through all the work if there’s nothing to aspire to? Need something a little less "aggressive??” Fine--think about 1968, when there were assassinations, riots, Tet (that's when there was a huge Vietnam escalation), and dozens of other things that made it a terrible year, probably the worst in the century. What happened that Christmas? Three guys talked to us FROM THE MOON and the world was amazed! Three guys and a spaceship saved 1968.

** Free stuff: I'm going to make a list of stuff that you probably don't want to live without. Ready?

• MRI/CAT scans for cancer • ear thermometers

• smoke detectors

• fire-fighting coats/overalls

• polarized sunglasses

• cordless drills and vacuums

• thermal gloves

• every helmet worn today in the NFL

• computers smaller than your living room

• ski boots

• edible toothpaste

• invisible braces

• rechargeable/cranking flashlights

• your Nintendo joystick (or computer model if you prefer)

• enriched baby formulas (ie. 99% of formula milk sold today)

• modern pacemakers

• solar panels

• scratch-resistant glasses

• sneaker insoles

• kidney dialysis

• water purification systems, and

• Bluetooth headsets.

All of this stuff came from the space program, directly or indirectly. Care to think about what we'll invent in another 10 years with another national program of scientific research and practical testing in place?

Let’s talk cost. It would be hundreds of billions of dollars which could be better spent on Earth, critics say. First, check out that "free stuff" category once again for tangible benefits. Second, take just that first $787 billion bill which was used on apparently useless projects. I can call them useless since despite being called “critical” back in February, most of the money STILL hasn’t been spent, and the economy hasn’t completely collapsed. Know how much the entire Apollo program cost, according to NASA itself? About $145 billion in today's dollars, spread over 10 years!! That's less than 20% of this year’s stimulus money that hasn't stimulated much, and that doesn't even include any of that "rescue" cash given out last year to the banks, Wall Street firms, and auto companies.

Speaking of that “rescue cash,” you know what else? We could fund another Apollo program--which as I said, includes Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, for LESS THAN WHAT WE GAVE AIG!!! We gave them $125 billion more last year alone than we gave NASA over 10 years to go to the freakin' MOON! How’s that for some perspective?

But let's go back to the $787 billion figure for a second. According to the front page of Recovery.gov, only about $159 billion has been awarded (with $37 billion-ish actually spent), meaning that they still have just under $628 billion left unspent.

Let's give NASA its $145 billion as the Apollo figure, bringing our total available down to $483 billion. Throw in some extra cash since they're going further and this may take a little longer. Wait, let's be really crazy and double the Apollo figure for a total Mars budget of $290 billion. That leaves about $338 billion of THIS BILL’S SPENDING available, and we've funded the Mars program for at least 10 years (you could also stick the lump sum in a bank account and let it accrue some interest, while you're at it).

Incidentally, when George Bush announced a Mars plan in 2004, he said it would cost about $80 billion as a high estimate, so I'm giving loads of money away.....just like Congress taught me to.

Back to the $338 billion. The National Park Service, an organization that provides low-cost education and recreation to Americans while at the same time preserving our natural resources and our nation's history, has an $8 billion backlog of routine maintenance projects that it's been begging for. Congress and the President decided to ignore them and spend approximately zero billion dollars in that bill ($.05 billion, at the most), so I'm going to invest in some "green jobs" here by giving them the money they need.

Oh, and $3 billion for that clunker of a cash-for-clunkers program brings us down to $327 billion.

Now there are some choices, but let’s focus on just two: student loan forgiveness or goodies. Choice #1 is for the federal government to pay off as much student loan debt as possible. This would put real money in the hands of young people, the group most apt to spend it immediately, driving further economic stimulus. It would also be an apology as such for screwing up the job market so badly that many recent graduates can’t get jobs (the under-30 unemployment rate is much worse than the national average). Given estimates of $550 billion total debt (public + private), we could knock off about 60% of that. For example, on a $30,000 loan balance, you'd get almost $18,000 "paid off" by the government, meaning you'd only owe $12,000. And yes, your payments would thus go down. The Democratic party, which did very well with the “Youth Vote” in 2009, would have a whole generation of grateful voters, by the way. (Full disclaimer: I owe student loans, but so do a couple million other people all over the country.)

Choice #2: We could just write checks to people and they could use that money to buy anything they want, which is closer to what we could have done in the first place. This would give a short-term infusion of cash into the economy to compliment the long-term spending a space program requires. Assuming that we give an equal amount to all 250 million US citizens 18 and over and not giving money to those in prison serving felony sentences (though also limiting it at least to those making under $250k/couples under $500k would probably be a good idea) means that about 243 million people each get a check for just over $1,340. That's more than enough for everyone to buy a big-screen LCD tv. (Also: two administrations have now spent about $6 trillion total in bailouts, buyouts, takeovers, stimulus, and stabilizers. Six trillion dollars spread out over 243 million people comes out to just under $24,700 per person, which as a lump sum grant to each person would have gone even longer towards paying down personal debt, paying down subprime loans, and shoring up banks’ assets.)

And finally, did I mention that WE GO TO MARS?!?!