XEP:You are quoting out of context as usual today. Get the whole entire thought not just a portion of it. Conservatives like you just want to butcher the public sector because you hate it. Well guess what most of us on this blog despise conservatives because you are stupid, ignorant, and will work to tear America down. Why do conservatives want tax cuts when taxes in America already are lower than they have been since the 1950's? We can not have a first rate country that leads the world with second rate public sector investments like infrastructure, education, higher education, and scientific research and development.

The only way this space program could have ever happened were because of public sector investments made by the government. The corporations in the aerospace industry live almost solely on government contracts making them part of the larger military-industrial complex themselves. Free enterprise has not a damn thing to do with sending this spacecraft to Mars. The government making investments in public education, higher education, science, infrastructure, and engineering through the military, cabinet level, and federal government contracts with large corporations are the only way these long term investments, like a space program, get accomplished. Go to the library you before making false statements on a public blog.

The private sector is only interested in the status quo of making money in the short term for the next quarterly profit statement or annual dividend statement. Private managers are hired or fired solely on their ability to increase short term profits for the corporation period. This creates a culture of mindless conformity and risk aversion in for-profit corporations. This corporate culture of conformity are why American coal companies want to keep digging coal and oil companies want to keep drilling. They have a profit making model and will not vary from it regardless of what happens. These corporations only change their business model when their are obvious readily available improvements for technologies that they can invest in to increase production or profits in the short term.

The larger point here is simple. Corporations do not invest money in infrastructure, higher education, the military, and long term research and development. Progress in technology takes place solely because of government investments, research and development of new military weapons and technology, and new investments in government programs like the aerospace industry and NASA. Corporations get government contracts to perform a share of this research but the corporations still receive government money. We need to make basic choices in America. If we want to see things like this space program landing on Mars we need to keep up adequate investments in the public sector. If we do not do this China and other countries will get to Mars first and America will miss out of the new technology created by such a technical achievement.

Very well said Rex...

Rex, what you have explained clearly HERE is precisely what the conservatives war against on purpose. You see, the argument from the "Far Right" is that all things can be done through the private sector. (This is not true, but that is their argument.)

For every success story in the corporate sector; there is one (or more) success story(s) in the government sector. Which is the point that President Obama has been making all along. However, conservatives have stressed out the "high-water" mark by claiming ownership of our patriotic icons (flags, hymns, revolutionary era attire, stars-and-stripes, prayer, bald eagle, pledge of allegiance, et ceteras).

However, NASA is uniquely the domain of our Government as a picture symbol. NASA shows up the conservatives' claim of corporate "authority" over government authority every time, because it accurately puts on display what this nation can do when we act collectively.

Rex in Minnesota, I am educated and can dispute every claim you have made. To start with the biggest problem in ever placing a man on Mars, President Obama has defunded NASA to the point that it is bare bones. I live in a community that has been hugely impacted by the cuts he has made to NASA. My next door neighbor and very good Friend is a rocket scientist, he is one of the engineers that helped design the space shuttle. He is one of the less than 30% of people still employed in this area with the space program.

The one branch of government that actually did make innovations in technology, NASA, and sells it for profit has basically been shut down by our current president. Communities around the Kennedy launch area are just now returning to under 10% unemployment. Our current President doesn't care anything about NASA or innovations. We have now outsourced billions of dollars to the Russians just to get Americans to the space station.

As for your status quo nonsense, you must be clueless. Just the example of Pharmaceuticals, these are companies that are investing billions with the hopes of developing long term profits for them self. The only way they can keep consumers is by providing the best solution for the people that will buy their product. Very few companies are looking for the quick buck because it is detrimental long term. Companies with that kind of attitude go out of business fast( unless they are funded by government). Your short term argument only makes sense to used car salesman. I own 3 businesses in a small town, If I don't provide good service I will be gone fast.

Infrastructure, If you think that government is the only source for infrastructure growth, you are so far out of touch that I would believe you have NO business sense. Two parts to this: 1 ALL infrastructure that is built is funded by corporate taxes ( the $ amount of personal income taxes payed is equal to the cost of running the IRS). The government doesn't build any of it. 2: When a private entity decides to build a building, housing development, business complex, they pay for and build all roads, electrical, plumbing and cables that provide service for that venture. The Government doesn't give a red cent to these businesses. With the exception of Federal roads ( that are supposed to be funded by the 47+ cents of taxes for every gallon of gas you buy) the federal government doesn't pay for, nor oversee any infrastructure building.

Your larger point is abouslutly wrong, All infrasturcure, research ( I did 5 years biochemical research at a univeristy, all funded privately) and development is driven by private entities. The federal government should be the Millitary ( it is one of its few consitiutional function). Formal eduction has only been taken over and dictated to for the last 45 years( and we wonder why it is just my generation that has fallen behind other nations in education). Before 1967 education was left to the states and the private sector.

We can not keep giving tax cuts to the rich if we want to continue to have a space program that is viable. If we keep following GOP supply side economics we will cut government down to the size of a bathtub. This type of thinking is horrible because it means American decline. We only move forward as a country with a partnership between government, the military, and big business. This partnership is what built the steamships and steam boats, the transcontinental railroad in the 19th century. This same partnership along with the military built the telephone, the internal combustion engine, the aerospace industry, the computer revolution, that helped us fight Two World Wars and the Cold War. The military built up most of the things we use today from automobiles, telephones, trucks, microwave technology, computers, jet aircraft, radar, and the list goes on and on.

Somewhere, long before a corporation adopts new technology in a commercial product for marketing, a U.S. soldier, sailor, or airman has first used that technology as a prototype product in a military application years before a civilian ever touches that product. So the point is we either keep up our public sector investments in public education, higher education, state of the art infrastructure, and nowadays green technology. We must raise tax revenues on the wealthy and force them to invest more money in infrastructure and in higher education. Then after middle class people get better paying jobs, middle class people can pay higher taxes too because there are never enough rich people to pay all of the bills. There is a cost of civilization. If you want a big military that goes around the world and tells others what to do in far off lands you need to pay for it. More tax cuts for the wealthy mean more budget cuts, and more budget cuts for the government mean the Asians are going to steal all of our jobs and new products because American conservatives were too ignorant to want to keep up our public sector investments to keep up with our Asian competitors.

Rex, you are on point. There is something else that conservatives, our "rugged individualism" brothers and sister,s are intentionally or un-intentionally overlooking: The fact is, the corporate sector is not a fount of pure (spiritual) inspiration or pure Good.

We can hold government accountable, because individually we are vested with a vote. The election process acts as a check and balance system to tyrannical control and out-of-bounds radicalism by either party. This is not the case in the private sector, which is controlled by its Board. Stockholders, history has recorded, can become unbridled in their actions towards people. Oddly enough, stockholders can set aside their sense of right and wrong in pursuit of profit. That is not a good thing.

All you dumb a@s republicans want too kill this country, because we have a Black man in the White House. We will vote a Dem Ticket. F@ck you all. America