If you look at military spending as a percentage of GDP, the U.S. in 1952 spent 2.5x as much as Israel does today: http://i.cfr.org/content/publi...

And in 1952, the threat of the U.S. homeland being invaded was much less than the current threat of the Israeli homeland being invaded.

Oh, I didn't realize that Israel was systematically exterminating other ethnic groups, by the millions, in gas chambers. Thanks for enlightening me.

Yes, pork-barrel spending is a huge problem; see http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

But you can't say that money spent on SpaceX contracts won't go to SpaceX. By definition, it does.

they have so-far demonstrated no ability to either reliably launch on-schedule, or leaunch at any sustained rate

The amazing thing about SpaceX is that even while their costs are at least an order of magnitude lower than ULA's, their development cycle is far more rapid and the capabilities they are adding are far more advanced. Fixing the things you are complaining about, if indeed they are a genuine problem, seems trivial compared to what they've already accomplished.

The private contractor has a track record of delivering far more bang for the buck than the government agency. Yes, I do have an ideology -- because I have observed time and time again that private enterprises operate far more efficiently than the government -- but it is a true ideology with a foundation of factual, objective observations. What is the foundation of your ideology?

Sorry for using a round number. I don't know why you'd be happier if I had said "apply the other 78.57% toward deficit reduction." Nobody has done a rigorous analysis of what the optimal percentage should be, so why pretend they have?

I'm one of the biggest spaceflight enthusiasts you'll find, and I've been saying for years: kill SLS. We'll get more results by using 20% of the money to expand SpaceX contracts, and applying the other 80% toward deficit reduction.

Musk isn't in it for the money; he enjoys the engineering challenges, and bringing launch costs down by one or more orders of magnitude is one of those challenges. (Yes I realize the irony; despite not being in it for the money, he has become quite wealthy.)

Then I guess we've been extremely lucky, because SpaceX has actually made a lot of progress.

Sensitivity training teaches the insensitive exactly how to push the buttons of the sensitive. And that's about all it does.

There's an old prescription, that may still be the best available: "Do not feed the trolls."

Are you referring to VA workers who falsified patient wait-time records in order to earn bonuses?

"Trained crew" is a stretch. A well-trained crew would have made a positive identification before launching. Perhaps there was an IFF signal that would have saved MH17, if it had been paid attention to. The Russians are supplying this assistance to hotheads with little regard for human life (they shoot at anything flying over their self-proclaimed "republic").

If Noriega prevails, Trey Parker and Matt Stone wuld likely owe damanges to the estate of Kim Jong Il, for their unflattering depiction of him in Team America: World Police.

Do you want to increase tax revenue, or tax rates? The two are not necessarily the same, depending on which side of the Laffer Curve we currently occupy.

And don't write off other ways to reduce the deficit:

• a revenue reduction concurrent with an even larger spending reduction. (Even during Bill Clinton's second term, when there was a healthy federal surplus, opinion polls of that era showed most Americans thought the government was spending too much. If spending was scaled back to Clinton Administration levels, in partial deference to that sentiment, we would instantly be back in surplus.)
• the "Penny Plan," surprisingly endorsed by the liberal Lanny Davis (although one must wonder about the sincerity of that endorsement)

Everyone understands that this is a fundamental tenet of the founding documents of the United States, but that doesn't prevent it from being quietly ignored by those who, say, disparage the Constitution as "a charter of negative liberties."

That, too, should be made explicitly illegal, just as accepting bribes is illegal (and is occasionally prosecuted).

And we're never going to see all of them refuse, of their own accord. That's why legislation or a constitutional amendment is needed, making it illegal to advocate for money to be spent in their own district.