There have been a few people make the mistake of assuming that lowering NASA’s budget will lower the deficit. Our NASA Administrator and his Deputy, for example. While in the aggregate, yes, subtracting $5 B/year from a $1.276 T deficit does lower that amount, it’s by just a hair’s, or more precisely by 0.4%. So, here are pictures.
These are based on 2011 U.S. Budget numbers:
- U.S. Budget – $3.721 T
- U.S. Discretionary Budget – $1.415 T
- U.S. Non-Discretionary Budget – $2.31 T
- U.S. Budget Deficit – $1.267 T
- NASA Budget – $19 B
- Constellation Budget – $5.54 B
If you want the full spreadsheet, that includes both the pre- and post-kill human space flight numbers, here you go…