Thank God for Florida

Texans are always thankful for Mississippi, and sometimes thankful for Louisiana. Those great states often keep us from being first or last in categories such as teen births, electricity rates, and other categories. Now we can be thankful for Florida and their ability to potentially bail out the Johnson Space Center:

The House on Wednesday rejected pleas from pro-NASA lawmakers to include up to $2 billion for space exploration and accelerated construction of the next generation of manned spacecraft. The measure, approved by a vote of 244 to 188, allotted just $50 million to NASA to repair Houston-area facilities damaged by Hurricane Ike, along with a half-billion dollars for non-space activities. ---- The House Rules Committee refused to allow the full House to vote on the proposal to boost spending on the manned flight program by $2 billion.

I guess House members aren't in the mood to reward Clear Lake voters who ousted their Democratic congressman, Nick Lampson, and put in Pete Olsen (R-Unable to Bring Home the Bacon). The Senate may come to the rescue:

NASA’s prospects seem much brighter in the Senate, where astronaut-senator Bill Nelson, D-Fla., succeeded in inserting $1.5 billion in the Senate’s version of the measure, including $500 million for the manned space program to shorten the five-year gap between the shuttle’s retirement and the initial flight of its successor. ---- Senate staffers said Hutchison did not take a direct role in crafting the Democratic-authored Appropriations Committee plan. The Republican senator has backed earlier efforts to boost NASA funding, saying a gap in manned space operations “makes no sense.”

President Barack Obama has not taken a stance on the conflicting proposals.

To restate the obvious:

NASA’s supporters, to win the internal political fight, are relying on lawmakers from Florida, a perennial battleground state in presidential elections, rather than Texas, which has voted reliably Republican for years.

I'm not sure how voters in Houston's Bay Area are ever going to learn. They proudly vote against their own interests, but then they stick their hand out, expecting a government bail out, anyway. If the Democratic senators from Florida are going to do all the work to get money for NASA, one would think most of those dollars would go to Florida.

It seems like Obama has sorta left NASA hanging. As far as I know, no new Administrator has been appointed yet.

Raise your hand if you think that if Lampson was still in the House, there would be $2 million in the House approved stimulus plan right now and we'd only be discussing the difference between that and the $1.5 million Senate proposal? Yes, I see hands.