it has to do with how a nation views it self and how it will then step into the future, and without without big bold visions such as what nasa provides as a force of nature like any other, unlike any other, i don t see i don t see much more the future of america. during monday s republican presidential debate, all of the contenders appeared to take swipes at nasa, and there was a suggestion they are probably taking swipes at obama. indeed, yes. but they did talk about nasa and spending, and, of course, the budget is $18.7 billion this year and it s flat-lining for the next five years and that s a large amount of money. do you believe then like the contenders that we should leave this kind of space project to the private sector? no, no, that s a misconception. the private sector is being invited to participate in the things that the government has already figured out how to do and maybe now the private sentor can do more efficiently. newt gingrich is wrong when he says t
little more willing to negotiate. gas prices dropped a little bit the other day which is good news. gasoline sales 34.9 million travelers expected to hit the roadways. tourism industry $18.7 billion industry and those numbers look great and look at this, i went to wal-mart the other day to stock up for the memorial day weekend and we were there at the super wal-mart, the lines were deep, deep, deep. everybody with hot dog buns and burgers and so people are going out and buying these things for the memorial day weekend. is it sustainable? who knows. people in the meat industry say if the weather is really good, they say their meat sales clearly go up because of all the barbecues. they were hoping for warmer weather. dave and i had three straight days of barbecue. had enough. and the most popular meat in america, beef number two. but yeah, this is clearly a day we can all help out the economy and good to know people are still hitting the roadways despite gas being a lot more than
nasa has helped in the development of many things we use in everyday life, but back in february when nasa announced an $18.7 billion request for 2012, detractors once again called for slashing the budget. president obama called for the budget to be frozen at 2010 levels. and while the new budget blueprint would roll back spending, it does recommend boosts for some nasa sectors, including poort nership with commercial space flight companies. so the question today is, with the way that the space program is currently constituted, is it still relevant? is the space program still relevant? there they are, richard and pete. thank you for joining us today, guys. mr. wermen, you created what s call called t.e.d. conferences. you believe nasa is important,
slash their budgets, raising taxes seems to be it. you can see why they re seeing green on this one. soda is big business. $18.7 billion in sales over the past year. soda tax may push consumers to lower calorie options. it may help states fill their budget gaps, but if i want my sugar fix, is this somewhere the government should be vold? i guess my bigger question is, if you re going to take money out of my bad eating and drinking habits, are we narrowing the field too much by targeting sodas when there are many ways i can get fat and unhealthy? i think it s appropriate in some cases, cigarettes, gasoline, but the thing that s really weird about soda taxes is the federal government spends about $4 billion a year on corn subsidies and a lot of that goes
$18.7 billion in sales over the next year. it may push some consumers to lower calorie options. it may help states to fill their budget gaps, but, matt, if i want my sugar fix is this somewhere the government should be involved? i guess my bigger question is if you re going to be involved in taking money out of my bad eating or drinking habits are we narrowing the field too much by just targeting sodas when, in fact, there are many ways i can get fat and unhealthy? i m not totally against sin taxes, cigarettes, gasoline. the thing that really weird about soda taxes is the government fends about $4 billion a year on corn subsidies and a lot of that goes to high fructose corn syrup which goes to soda so they re subcy dieding the creation of soda and then tax us for drinking it. if they want to even it out they could eliminate the corn syrup