Author Topic: Mollohan (D-WV) in Line For Appropriations Spot  (Read 1177 times)

Offline kool-aid

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Mollohan (D-WV) in Line For Appropriations Spot
« on: 11/17/2006 05:26 am »
Mollohan in Line For Appropriations Spot

This guy's one of the biggest porkers in Congress...every year he carves millions of dollars out of the NASA budget to give to a company in West Virginia called ISR.

Offline Jeff Bingham

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Re: Mollohan (D-WV) in Line For Appropriations Spot
« Reply #1 on: 11/17/2006 10:57 am »
While I'm not a big fan of earmarks, which are generically described as "congressionally-directed spending," they are also not necessarily intrinsically "evil." On the surface, they look very self-serving and "provincial," and appear designed solely to curry favor with the folks back home and buy votes. And there has undoubtedly been abuse of the process, as seen in the disclosures in recent years of money being funneled to individuals and corporations that in turn provided inappropriate--and in some cases illegal--benefits to members. Those kinds of activities are reprehensible and the Congress needs to root them out and eliminate them.

On the other hand, there is the argument that the US Constitution delegates to the Congress the authority to determine how the US tax dollars are spent, and Members of Congress are elected to "Represent" (i.e., advocate the interests of) their constituents, who are also the final judge of their performance. That's a debate that is, I believe, beyond the scope of this Forum and web-site, so I'll just leave that there.

NASA's annual appropriations have included anywhere from $300 to almost $600 million in earmarks/directed spending requirements in recent years. That means they are required to allocate certain amounts of money to activities that they may not otherwise choose to do in the process of awarding grants and project money through their normal processes. NASA believes--probably correctly-- that undermines their ability to effectively evaluate and review the worthiness of the activities being funded, so they consistently oppose earmarks. I've long believed that earmarks are a simple reality that they'll have to live with for the forseeable future, so they should instead sit down and "negotiate" the size and shape of those earmarks INTO their spending plans and that way they can have some chance of ensuring that the directed spending is consistent with their Agency goals.  

The ISR, Inc., mentioned above, for example, is the Institute for Scientific Research, a non-profit educational organization that does research in a wide range of areas for a large number of government and academic institutions, such as the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, etc., in addition to NASA. It is on a path to becoming self-sustaining by the end of this year, and has done some really interesting and ground-breaking research in aeronautics flight dynamics and neuron-transmitter computing, for example. So a lot of what it does has direct application to other NASA goals and programs.  

The point is, like so many things, a blanket condemnation without looking into details, gets in the way of fully understanding the situation.

The other thing I'd say is that Mollohan has also always been broadly supportive of NASA programs, and that goes well beyond just the interests of West Virginia or his Congressional District. For me, at least, that's an important "big picture" consideration in the assessment of how NASA's overall interests are sustained in the Congress.
Offering only my own views and experience as a long-time "Space Cadet."

Offline kool-aid

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Re: Mollohan (D-WV) in Line For Appropriations Spot
« Reply #2 on: 11/17/2006 03:00 pm »
Someone should check and see if ISR is kickin back money to Mollohan for all the earmarks he sends them.

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Re: Mollohan (D-WV) in Line For Appropriations Spot
« Reply #3 on: 11/17/2006 03:09 pm »
I'm sure they are - in campaign contributions.  Just as Lockheed, et.al., contributes money to Sen. Hutchison, et al., here in Texas, for the $billions they help to throw at JSC.   You support the candidates that support you.  That's how politics works.

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