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By that logic, so is the military, public schools and highway maintenance.

• systemvoltage 5y ago
  Any over budget and poorly run government program I see it as a jobs program. F-35, CalTrain, NASA SLS, etc. This is in stark contrast with partnerships with private industries. For eg DARPA + Moderna or NASA + SpaceX.
  • DubiousPusher 5y ago
    I fail to see the difference. Private contracts often go over budget. The F-35 itself is full of privately contracted parts. Many public/private partnerships contracts are even no bid, meaning they are essentially uncompetitive. Whether the government hires people directly to do a job or whether they contract it out is equally distortionary. By allocating tax dollars to a public rocket lab or to a private rocket company you are increasing the demand for rocket engineers and thus creating a "rocket engineer" jobs program.
  • wolverine876 5y ago
    All those projects were built by private industry, including the latter two.
    • systemvoltage 5y ago
      That’s true. I concede my point.
  • bumby 5y ago
    While I am as critical of government overspending as anyone, this comparison misses some important nuances. Let's take the SpaceX example. SpaceX is great in terms of pushing innovation. But there would be no SpaceX without NASA or other government entities. They need those tax dollars (especially early on) to survive. And when they lose a government payload, the government takes something to the tune of 80% of the loss because they are self-insured. This has the effect of SpaceX farming out their risk to the government. But this is one of the areas where the government excels. Namely, taking large risks in nascent fields where the risk is too big for private companies to balance against the benefit by themselves. But the complexities and unknowns that create that risk is also the very same thing that creates the budget and schedule risk as well.