First, thank you for your guest column. However I cannot endorse this much:
Re: compounded by the blossoming deficits caused by an out-of-control welfare state
It was not an out of control welfare state (Social Security was taking in more money than it was spending back then) but rather endless rounds tax cuts, each more irresponsible than the last*, combined with a big defense build-up. The latter I will agree was necessary and bore good fruit- the fall of the Soviet Union. But we should have paid for it, not put it on the national credit card.
The percentage of GDP spent on defense in each of the Reagan years was about the same as in the peaceful JFK years. The percentage spent on the welfare state was much higher.
Your reply is not really relevant to my post above. It remains true that the Social Security system was on sound footing and not a source of deficits in the 80s. Moreover the Reagan era reforms should have put it on sound financial footing for a very long time-- if certain decades-long stable realities had remained stable (which they have not). Moreover the MAGA base, in common with the entire middle and working class, is dependent on the entitlement system for their own long-term survival, something which Donald Trump at least understood, at least in the past. Also, it was the Reagan tax reforms which convinced too many in the GOP (formerly the party of fiscal probity) that "deficits do not matter" to use Dick Cheney's words.
Anyway, this is entirely beside the point of this piece. I just wish the author had not veered out his lane to belabor this talking point of the old libertarian Right.
"Mars and the Asteroid Belt are, for now, psychological projections of resentment at the technocrats’ reliance on steel, power, water, food, manpower, and security from the Heartland, manifesting out of a stymied desire to discard the political obligations that emerge out of that dependency."
While this may be true in some cases, it's not true for the majority of them. The desire to go to Mars and the asteroid belt isn't the product of technocratic resentment; it's the product of resource hunger and the twin beliefs that, A. long-term, it will be easier to build spaceships in space than on Earth (barring use of the Orion drive), and B. that Mars and the asteroid belt are stepping stones on the way to mankind's interstellar expansion, akin to the Azores or the Canary Islands in the early days of the Age of Exploration.
Unless we find out Einstein was wrong about the universe's speed limit (the velocity of light) we will not expand into interstellar space. But the rest of the solar system-- yes, or at least maybe.
"America rests on the shoulders of a great colossus, and that colossus wears a short-sleeved shirt with a tie."
Watch that colossus fall in "Falling Down" (1993) Yes, he was an aerospace engineer.
First, thank you for your guest column. However I cannot endorse this much:
Re: compounded by the blossoming deficits caused by an out-of-control welfare state
It was not an out of control welfare state (Social Security was taking in more money than it was spending back then) but rather endless rounds tax cuts, each more irresponsible than the last*, combined with a big defense build-up. The latter I will agree was necessary and bore good fruit- the fall of the Soviet Union. But we should have paid for it, not put it on the national credit card.
The percentage of GDP spent on defense in each of the Reagan years was about the same as in the peaceful JFK years. The percentage spent on the welfare state was much higher.
Your reply is not really relevant to my post above. It remains true that the Social Security system was on sound footing and not a source of deficits in the 80s. Moreover the Reagan era reforms should have put it on sound financial footing for a very long time-- if certain decades-long stable realities had remained stable (which they have not). Moreover the MAGA base, in common with the entire middle and working class, is dependent on the entitlement system for their own long-term survival, something which Donald Trump at least understood, at least in the past. Also, it was the Reagan tax reforms which convinced too many in the GOP (formerly the party of fiscal probity) that "deficits do not matter" to use Dick Cheney's words.
Anyway, this is entirely beside the point of this piece. I just wish the author had not veered out his lane to belabor this talking point of the old libertarian Right.
"Mars and the Asteroid Belt are, for now, psychological projections of resentment at the technocrats’ reliance on steel, power, water, food, manpower, and security from the Heartland, manifesting out of a stymied desire to discard the political obligations that emerge out of that dependency."
While this may be true in some cases, it's not true for the majority of them. The desire to go to Mars and the asteroid belt isn't the product of technocratic resentment; it's the product of resource hunger and the twin beliefs that, A. long-term, it will be easier to build spaceships in space than on Earth (barring use of the Orion drive), and B. that Mars and the asteroid belt are stepping stones on the way to mankind's interstellar expansion, akin to the Azores or the Canary Islands in the early days of the Age of Exploration.
Unless we find out Einstein was wrong about the universe's speed limit (the velocity of light) we will not expand into interstellar space. But the rest of the solar system-- yes, or at least maybe.