Originally posted by sigma:

"100s of billions" my ass. Maybe over the last 20 years.
The Mars Rover projects only cost a few hundred million.



Yes, this rover project cost $400 million, the whole project is budgeted at $600 billion.
Article

Originally posted by sigma:

The Endowment for the Arts is just tens of millions a year. A teeny tiny pittance in government terms. And yeah, it sometimes goes to bad use, but more often than not is goes towards the creation of beautiful art that will hopefully be more remembered by future generations than some of the other blights we've put upon the world.



Nope, sorry, their budget is getting ready to go up to $140 million.
Article 2
Maybe you think that its is money well spent, I don't like the idea of funding artists livings so they can make art for a living. If you can't make a living off of it, its a hobby and you need a real job, and make your art on the side.


Originally posted by sigma:
Yes, all that stuff adds up to a bit of money, but it's not nearly as much money as you think it is. Evidenced by my previous post regarding decreasing gasoline taxes in which you thought removing social programs would somehow help. You couldn't save 5 cents a gallon on gas by removing every social program in the country.



Again, we need to do something right now as gas prices climb to $4/gal in some places!!! You are quite good at bringing up counterpoints to anything and everyting I say, so what do you propose we do about gas prices RIGHT NOW? We are not in a situation in this country to lower our demmand substantially, so what should we do???

Originally posted by sigma:
Like most hardcore conservatives you think that ending social programs or various other programs (like NASA apparently) will be a huge boon to our budget -- when they make up a TINY portion of the overall federal budget (I don't count Social Security or Medicare budgets, as they are most definitely not going away by choice). No different than the Liberals calling for less military spending who don't think about the implications therein or just how much money that it actually would make.



No, I am not calling for the removal of NASA. I think ending social programs will not only lower our budget, but will help to bring our society back from this mentality of relying, and blaming others for our problems. And since you brought it up, I am all for getting rid of social security in the next 10 or so years. Again, goes back to whose responsible for your own life (government, your neighbor, you??)

Originally posted by sigma:
You want to call for something -- call for less government spending period. I don't hear you, or most hardcore conservatives, complaining about government over-spending, yet we spend more just on Interest on our National Debt than we do on all the social programs in the country combined and then some. And that has absolutely no benefit at all, it's just flushed down the drain.



Your damn right I am calling for less spending all around!! Okay, since you love your proof to smack you in the face aparantly...
Originally posted by 99blacksesport:

THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO SPEND LESS MONEY AND LOWER ITS YEARLY BUDGET



Originally posted by sigma:
We overspent more this year than the budget for social programs. Meaning that if you took every last one of them away we'd still not have broke even for the year.



Im not sure exactly what you are saying here, but I think you are saying that we should raise taxes so we can get back to that holy grail of a surplus that we supposedly had under Clinton? Well, if you are, then you need to understand that the government has no way of making money, therefore any 'surplus' they have is because they took too much money in! Clinton did not lower our spending by any means, he just took more money in than he needed to.

Originally posted by sigma:
Or go after the huge "Discretionary Spending" black hole of money -- as much as 20% of the federal budget that isn't even 'budgeted' at all.


Not sure where you get that from, so I can't say anything about that could you show me (and no links to X-file fan's homepages! ) -Nick

"Moore has also accused the American people of being the stupidest, most naive people on the face of the Earth. And after last weekend, he's got the box office numbers to prove it!"