Space Force

[Jolly_Penguin]

I'm all for this. It could drive funding for NASA and space exploration in general. I don't care that it comes from a Donald Trump brain fart. Any science funding is a glimmer of hope.

Except this really isn't invigorating NASA. It's probably more like carving part of the Air Force off, like the Army Air Corps was carved off of the Army.

That's even better. Good place to take the funding from, it will get passed the Republicans, etc. Your military is already ridiculously overly big. If this funding comes out of that, that's good. If it encourages space science, that's even better. As Neil Degrasse Tyson says so often, it was the military fear of Russia that pushed the race to the moon.

 

[Keith&Co.]

That's even better. Good place to take the funding from, it will get passed the Republicans, etc.

But it won't come out of the existing military budget. The Space Force will be presented as a new branch, with new responsibilities, and need new desks, new buildings, new uniforms, new heraldry, parking spaces, theme music...

It will be an excuse to defund various programs the GOP finds objectionable, to pay for the sexy new military units.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

That's even better. Good place to take the funding from, it will get passed the Republicans, etc.

But it won't come out of the existing military budget. The Space Force will be presented as a new branch, with new responsibilities, and need new desks, new buildings, new uniforms, new heraldry, parking spaces, theme music...

It will be an excuse to defund various programs the GOP finds objectionable, to pay for the sexy new military units.

That'll be a bit hard. The GOP can't even get together and pass a "fuck the illegal immigrants" bill, forget pass legislation to knife Medicare and Medicaid in order to fund Trump's new Spaced Force.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

That's even better. Good place to take the funding from, it will get passed the Republicans, etc.

But it won't come out of the existing military budget. The Space Force will be presented as a new branch, with new responsibilities, and need new desks, new buildings, new uniforms, new heraldry, parking spaces, theme music...

It will be an excuse to defund various programs the GOP finds objectionable, to pay for the sexy new military units.

Can't you put a rider on it that it must come from the existing Air Force funding? Or something? I'm not privy to how your military funding and apparatus works.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Can't you put a rider on it that it must come from the existing Air Force funding? Or something? I'm not privy to how your military funding and apparatus works.

It's out of the budget that Congress writes and the President approves.
The president that wants a wall and a space force but no entitlement programs.
Any 'rider' about funding is just going to get vetoed. Assuming anyone can attach it in the first place.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

That's even better. Good place to take the funding from, it will get passed the Republicans, etc.

But it won't come out of the existing military budget. The Space Force will be presented as a new branch, with new responsibilities, and need new desks, new buildings, new uniforms, new heraldry, parking spaces, theme music...

It will be an excuse to defund various programs the GOP finds objectionable, to pay for the sexy new military units.

Can't you put a rider on it that it must come from the existing Air Force funding? Or something? I'm not privy to how your military funding and apparatus works.

He can try in 2019. Typically, once a budget is passed, it is passed, though the Republicans actually tried the CTRL+Z on $15 billion in the budget, but that failed... barely. The alt-right also thought there was a maneuver available to switch Pentagon funds from the Pentagon to a border wall. I think the Pentagon had a laugh at that attempt.

 

[ElectEngr]

A Space Force reminds me of the old Soviet "Strategic Rocket Force", that was in charge of the Soviet land based ICBM's.

Later,
ElectEngr

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The Trumpanzees have passed huge tax cuts that will double our yearly deficits. And now the Trumpanzees tell us to balance the budget we have to slash spending on Social Security and Medicare. It is going to be hard then to demand a lot of money for Space Cadet Corps.

I predict ignominious failure for Trump's Space Corps wing nuttery. Google, Ren and Stimpy, Space Madness.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Trumpanzees have passed huge tax cuts that will double our yearly deficits. And now the Trumpanzees tell us to balance the budget we have to slash spending on Social Security and Medicare. It is going to be hard then to demand a lot of money for Space Cadet Corps.

I predict ignominious failure for Trump's Space Corps wing nuttery. Google, Ren and Stimpy, Space Madness.

Yeah, on pace for over $800 billion in deficit spending 2018. Budgeted at $984 billion the next fiscal year. I'm certain at some point those tax cuts will help.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

That's even better. Good place to take the funding from, it will get passed the Republicans, etc.

But it won't come out of the existing military budget. The Space Force will be presented as a new branch, with new responsibilities, and need new desks, new buildings, new uniforms, new heraldry, parking spaces, theme music...

It will be an excuse to defund various programs the GOP finds objectionable, to pay for the sexy new military units.

Can't you put a rider on it that it must come from the existing Air Force funding? Or something? I'm not privy to how your military funding and apparatus works.

The US could easily afford a Space Force on current military budget funding. The US spends more on the military than the next dozen countries combined. Even if the US military budget were cut in half the US would still be the world's top spender.

 

[Underseer]

The Trumpanzees have passed huge tax cuts that will double our yearly deficits. And now the Trumpanzees tell us to balance the budget we have to slash spending on Social Security and Medicare. It is going to be hard then to demand a lot of money for Space Cadet Corps.

I predict ignominious failure for Trump's Space Corps wing nuttery. Google, Ren and Stimpy, Space Madness.

The federal deficit and Social Security are completely separate budgets.

That's like buying cheaper toilet paper at Burger King to increase the profits at Home Depot.

 

[marc]

The federal deficit and Social Security are completely separate budgets.

That's like buying cheaper toilet paper at Burger King to increase the profits at Home Depot.

True, but that has never prevented republicans from using the one as a reason to cut the other. Kind of like how they can argue that getting rid of minimum wage will somehow result in prosperity for all

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

The Trumpanzees have passed huge tax cuts that will double our yearly deficits. And now the Trumpanzees tell us to balance the budget we have to slash spending on Social Security and Medicare. It is going to be hard then to demand a lot of money for Space Cadet Corps.

I predict ignominious failure for Trump's Space Corps wing nuttery. Google, Ren and Stimpy, Space Madness.

The federal deficit and Social Security are completely separate budgets.

My checking account and my savings account are completely separate accounts. Yet if I transfer money from savings to checking and then write myself an IOU, only a fool would call that IOU an asset. Somehow it works when the government does it.

 

[bilby]

The Trumpanzees have passed huge tax cuts that will double our yearly deficits. And now the Trumpanzees tell us to balance the budget we have to slash spending on Social Security and Medicare. It is going to be hard then to demand a lot of money for Space Cadet Corps.

I predict ignominious failure for Trump's Space Corps wing nuttery. Google, Ren and Stimpy, Space Madness.

The federal deficit and Social Security are completely separate budgets.

My checking account and my savings account are completely separate accounts. Yet if I transfer money from savings to checking and then write myself an IOU, only a fool would call that IOU an asset. Somehow it works when the government does it.

We already went through this interminable nonsense the last time Social Security was discussed on this board.

That IOU is an asset to your savings account, and a liability to your checking account. There is nothing remotely 'foolish' about accounting in this way; At the consolidated 'all of your bank accounts' level, the asset and the liability eliminate each other and neither forms a part of the consolidated account. That fact doesn't render either asset or liability non-existent or foolish. This pair of entities is a completely normal part of accounting.

The foolishness here is your assumption that you understand something that is more complicated than you imagine - and your ignorant insistence that, as you do not understand it, if must be somehow 'wrong'.

Social Security funds borrowed by the general account are an asset to SS and a liability to the general account. At the whole government level, neither asset nor liability exists.

If you are discussing a liability and pretending that the corresponding asset is non-existent then either you are dishonest or an idiot. In any context where it is reasonable to discuss a liability, it is equally reasonable (and indeed, necessary) to also recognise the corresponding asset.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

The Trumpanzees have passed huge tax cuts that will double our yearly deficits. And now the Trumpanzees tell us to balance the budget we have to slash spending on Social Security and Medicare. It is going to be hard then to demand a lot of money for Space Cadet Corps.

I predict ignominious failure for Trump's Space Corps wing nuttery. Google, Ren and Stimpy, Space Madness.

The federal deficit and Social Security are completely separate budgets.

My checking account and my savings account are completely separate accounts. Yet if I transfer money from savings to checking and then write myself an IOU, only a fool would call that IOU an asset. Somehow it works when the government does it.

If instead you wrote that Post-it note IOU to me, I also wouldn't consider it an asset because it's informal, unaccountable gobbledeguck. If you could get me some kind of formalized IOU, like the kind of thing a government might have, then the IOU document would have realistic value.

 

[ZiprHead]

Oh, brother. This shit again...

 

[James Brown]

Trump Supporters Explain What a 'Space Force' Actually Is

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/LYQX-BPUqN4[/YOUTUBE]