Newt Gingrich wants Moon to be 51st US state Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is telling the people of Florida about his plans for a permanent base on the Moon, and suggesting it may be possible for the satellite to become the 51st US state. "By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the Moon, and it will be American," he told supporters at …
Newt GinGRINCH makes Ron Paul look totally sane... My question is... how does Newtie propose to pay for this 51st state idea and the rockets to Mars? I suppose he'll propose additional tax breaks to the 1%, and eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance... in other words destroy any remaining vestiges of the safety net for the weakest of the weak, and the poorest of the poor.
/political rant
Nukyular explosion... The RepubliCANT plan for the 99%...
If you'd read the article, you'd have seen that he plans to offer prizes. The neat thing about a prize is that it doesn't cost the government one red cent unless somebody wins it. And, if you'll look at history, you'll see that offering prizes has a long, successful history. Charles II offered a prize of ten pounds of gold to the first person to work out a practical way to deturmine the longitude of a ship at set, and paid it to the inventor of the first chronometer. Charles Lindburg made his flight to win a prize, and there have been many other examples.
"I suppose he'll propose additional tax breaks to the 1%, and eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance... in other words destroy any remaining vestiges of the safety net for the weakest of the weak, and the poorest of the poor."
Social Security doesn't need to be eliminated, it needs to be phased out. Most people (especially younger ones) would be better off investing that 13.4% of their paycheck instead of hoping the government will be able to honor that debt when the time comes. Social security is one of the biggest farces ever pawned off on us as a "good idea". That said, people that built their retirement around it should not be cut off, the debt must be honored for all.
Most people don't mind reasonable medicare and unemployment insurance too, but you'll have to excuse me for thinking that TWO YEARS is a little long for unemployment. I was on it, I know people on it, and right now it is thought of as a paid vacation more than anything else. It's purpose is to keep the ship from sinking while you find a new job, and it is failing MISERABLY at that right now.
As far as the weakest of the weak, the poorest of the poor... Excuse me for not really caring. I work, I bust my hump to put food on the table and a roof over my family, and I don't need a bunch of bleeding heart twats making me feel bad for expecting everyone else to do the same. People are where they are due to decisions they make, and those decisions were nobody's but their own.
When I lost my job, we had just had a kid and had no money... BUT because I had been working up to that point, we didn't qualify for ANY help. Those social programs you tout don't help people who are "down on their luck", they help people who have never done the right thing in life EVER. People like that don't deserve my pity, help, or tax dollars.
As far as I knew the 51st State was a rave drug. "POS 51, a synthetic drug that can be produced with minimal facilities, is 51 times as potent as ecstacy, opiates, amphetamines, and cocaine". Samuel L. Jackson made it and helped Robert Carlyle get tot he Liverpool v Mancs game (Liverpool won).
If Newt's riding the rocket, I've got $20 to kick in toward the fuel.
Americans in middle age or older may remember the one-term senator Harrison Schmitt, who had been to the moon with Apollo 17. He was not an engaging speaker, as I recall, but as a geologist he had realistic notions of the economic prospects of moon colonization--one needs to distinguish "mineral" from "ore", he said. But maybe he was too tied to 50-year-old technologies.
Maybe we could get enough people to kick in for fuel so that we can get Newt's ride to the point where it breaks free of the Earth's gravity well, and not quite to the point where the Moon's gravity well takes hold, and in that brief moment, the rocket will turn and fall into the Sun... If we can do that, put all the other RepubliCANTs in there for a ride too... and all the Tea Party Troglodytes...
Wine o'clock somewhere, and I need a Magnum or two to celebrate that thought...
Newt really shouldn't be a Tea Party darling. I have no idea if he is or not, but his political history SHOULD make him about the last canidate in the world for a Tea Party endorsement. That man's had his hand on more pork barrel bills than any two other people who are or were in the race.
I for one was extremely upset by the retirement of the U.S. Space Shuttle without a viable replacement reusable orbiter already developed, tested, and sitting on a Cape Canaveral launch pad ready to go, but there is a big difference between rallying for the restarting of the U.S. manned space program and *this.* I am all for being optimistic, but how can Newt possibly think that the U.S. could ever be able to even get to the moon in 8-years let alone have a permanent base located there after NASA has already been slashed, burned, and gutted so badly and our national budget deficit is so high that we have no money left to fund such an endeavor? Private enterprises aren't going to fund such a venture unless there is some serious money to be made to make up for all of the risk involved, and I seriously doubt that the materials that the moon happens to be made of is worth that kind of investment and uncertainty from a business standpoint. Either Newt is completely out of his mind, or he is really trying to blow some serious smoke up the asses of out-of-work Florida voters.
As an American, I am pretty embarrassed by both Newt and the impression that he is giving to the rest of the world right now with these kind of statements.
Of course Newtie doesn't have a viable way to pay for it... He plans to pay for the New NASA Program the same way Dubya paid for two wars... tax breaks for the rich to stimulate the economy... Never mind that the one percent have all their money stashed in Swiss bank accounts or otherwise off-shored...
Paris can stimulate me anytime...
Maybe that's why Newton Leroy wants to go to the moon... the off-shore opportunities.... send an investigator to the moon to investigate dodgy banking, sorry that too expensive.
And of course the RePubeLickians would love the moon, they'd be able to tax the air you breathe to give tax breaks to the 1%
"I for one was extremely upset by the retirement of the U.S. Space Shuttle without a viable replacement reusable orbiter already developed, tested, and sitting on a Cape Canaveral launch pad ready to go"
I wasn't. Simply because, while space exploration so far has been impressive it is being hit by the law of dimishing returns harder than a very hard thing indeed. Basically while what we have done so far may be impressive to go to the next step would take way more resources than we actually have. The steps we are making are getting smaller but the effort end expenditure for each step is getting bigger and bigger.
What we have done so far only goes to demonstrate how little we can achieve in future.
"Of course Newtie doesn't have a viable way to pay for it..."
Of course not. He has no intention of doing any such thing. This was just some lies he told a group of desperate, out of work people so he can get what he wants. It's been pretty clear every time he opens his mouth that he doesn't care about anything or anybody but himself. Not that that sets him apart from his competition much.
Get to the moon in 8 years? Yeah, that's doable. Tough, but doable. Establish a colony there in 8 years? Not a chance, even with a NASA funded the way it was in the 60s, and any out-of-work space workers know it. What's more, Newt knows it. He's just engaging in the traditional Presidential candidate smoke blowing. I'd be embarrassed as an American if enough people believed him to get him into office.
"I am all for being optimistic, but how can Newt possibly think that the U.S. could ever be able to even get to the moon in 8-years..."
Manned moon landings was an election promise in 1960 only 2 years after the creation of NASA itself, and 9 years later it happened. Given the advances in technology and the amount of economic growth in the half century since, it could be accomplished in much less time and be significantly cheaper in terms of % of national GDP were they to seriously try again. The only thing really missing is the political will to do so.
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