By Jonah Goldberg
Even decades from now the costs would still dwarf the benefits.
Whenever you hear a politician start a sentence with If we can put a man on the moon . . . " grab your wallet.
For years Democrats enthralled by the cargo cult of the Kennedy presidency have used the moon landing as proof that no big government ambition is beyond our reach.
The latest example of anthropogenic-lunar empowerment is global warming. Al Gore and Barack Obama routinely cite the Apollo program as proof that we can make good on the presidents messianic campaign pledge to stem the rising ocean tides and hasten the healing of the planet.
The problem with the if we can put a man on the moon we can certainly spend trillions on this or that" formulation is that it sees political and scientific accomplishments as interchangeable. The moon landing was a daunting but nonetheless discrete challenge. Throw in enough brainiacs and blank checks and heroes willing to risk their lives and it is almost foreordained that someone will make that small step for man and that giant leap for mankind.
But politicians see things through a political lens every great accomplishment looks like a political accomplishment. Kennedy cultists seem to think that JFKs pledge succeeded in
part because he was eloquent and inspiring and popular. No doubt all that helped. But if Kennedy had promised that by the end of the decade America would have a fully functioning perpetual-motion machine his grand challenge would be remembered as a joke.
Recall that Kennedys successor with far more political capital than Kennedy had promised to defeat poverty. Historian Steven Hayward notes that in 1966 Lyndon Johnsons commander in the War on Poverty Sargent Shriver told Congress that the White House believed poverty in America would be eliminated within ten years. Why" Hayward wryly asks should social science be more difficult than rocket science?"
I dont know that one is more difficult than the other but I do know that they are not interchangeable. Physics is good at figuring out how to split atoms. And what has sociology figured out? Not very much.
Obama seems to be on both sides of the lesson. The president says he wants to invest massively in scientific research eventually spending 3 percent of gross domestic product on scientific R&D with a big chunk devoted to energy research. Who knows? That might work.
But at the same time the Democrats are pushing their cap-and-trade scheme the Waxman-Markey climate bill through Congress and it surely wont work.
The Apollo engineers motto was Waste anything but time." Waxman-Markey seems to do that one better promising to waste everything including time. Its a legislative blunderbuss that fails any remotely honest cost-benefit analysis as Jim Manzi painstakingly demonstrates in the current issue of National Review. Under the bill the government would sell or give away waivers call them ration cards for carbon emissions worth tens of billions of dollars. The system is destined to become politicized. Waivers will be granted to favored industries and donors in states with political clout.
Read more:
Here
*This story is from the National Review Online
Whenever you hear a politician start a sentence with If we can put a man on the moon . . . " grab your wallet.
For years Democrats enthralled by the cargo cult of the Kennedy presidency have used the moon landing as proof that no big government ambition is beyond our reach.
The latest example of anthropogenic-lunar empowerment is global warming. Al Gore and Barack Obama routinely cite the Apollo program as proof that we can make good on the presidents messianic campaign pledge to stem the rising ocean tides and hasten the healing of the planet.
The problem with the if we can put a man on the moon we can certainly spend trillions on this or that" formulation is that it sees political and scientific accomplishments as interchangeable. The moon landing was a daunting but nonetheless discrete challenge. Throw in enough brainiacs and blank checks and heroes willing to risk their lives and it is almost foreordained that someone will make that small step for man and that giant leap for mankind.
But politicians see things through a political lens every great accomplishment looks like a political accomplishment. Kennedy cultists seem to think that JFKs pledge succeeded in 
part because he was eloquent and inspiring and popular. No doubt all that helped. But if Kennedy had promised that by the end of the decade America would have a fully functioning perpetual-motion machine his grand challenge would be remembered as a joke.
Recall that Kennedys successor with far more political capital than Kennedy had promised to defeat poverty. Historian Steven Hayward notes that in 1966 Lyndon Johnsons commander in the War on Poverty Sargent Shriver told Congress that the White House believed poverty in America would be eliminated within ten years. Why" Hayward wryly asks should social science be more difficult than rocket science?"
I dont know that one is more difficult than the other but I do know that they are not interchangeable. Physics is good at figuring out how to split atoms. And what has sociology figured out? Not very much.
Obama seems to be on both sides of the lesson. The president says he wants to invest massively in scientific research eventually spending 3 percent of gross domestic product on scientific R&D with a big chunk devoted to energy research. Who knows? That might work.
But at the same time the Democrats are pushing their cap-and-trade scheme the Waxman-Markey climate bill through Congress and it surely wont work.
The Apollo engineers motto was Waste anything but time." Waxman-Markey seems to do that one better promising to waste everything including time. Its a legislative blunderbuss that fails any remotely honest cost-benefit analysis as Jim Manzi painstakingly demonstrates in the current issue of National Review. Under the bill the government would sell or give away waivers call them ration cards for carbon emissions worth tens of billions of dollars. The system is destined to become politicized. Waivers will be granted to favored industries and donors in states with political clout.
Read more: Here
*This story is from the National Review Online
