Reflections on the Debate (St. Petersburg)- No. 9

A question from Steve Nielson of Denver, Colorado at the CNN/YouTube debate of Republican Presidential aspirants on 11/28/07 elicited a good, and honest, answer from U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo, coincidentally, from Nielson's home state. Tancredo responded to a remark by from Mike Huckabee in which the former Governor seemed to advocate pumping billions more dollars into the space program, and then made a joke about Hillary Clinton (you can guess what it was). The question, and Tancredo's response (which followed Huckabee's), were:


JFK's vision put a man on the moon from a nonexistent space program in about seven years. The new vision for space exploration has provided about 15 years for that same feat.

Meanwhile, Congress is pulling funding for human-to-Mars research altogether.

Is there a candidate amongst you willing to take a pledge on behalf of the Mars Society of sending an American to the surface of Mars by 2020? If not, what is your vision for human space exploration?

Tancredo: The question is a serious one and it deserves a serious answer, and that is this: Look, we've been -- how many times up here, how many questions have dealt with the issue of deficit spending, the debt out of control? And yet, we have somebody saying, "But would you spend more money on going to Mars?"

And the suggestion that we need to spend more money on space exploration. This is it, folks. That's why we have such incredible problems with our debt, because everybody's trying to be everything to all people.

We can't afford some things, and by the way, going to Mars is one of them.

Everybody trying to be all things to all people. Like pursuing an ill-conceived and misguided war, refusing to veto spending bills (unless they're to enhance children's health), and all the while cutting income taxes for millionaires, Halliburton, and other mega-corporations. Anyone know a President like that?