Sen. Hutchison Discusses NASA's Future, President's Jobs Plan on Sirius XM Radio

Interview

U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) joined host Tim Farley on Sirius XM Radio's "POTUS" channel to discuss recent developments with NASA, deficit reduction, and the President's jobs plan.

Below is a transcript of her interview.

Tim Farley: Good to have you with us, Senator Hutchison. NASA Officials were joined by several members of Congress to unveil a new monster rocket intended to provide for human exploration of deep space like asteroids or maybe Mars. Charles Bolden is the Administrator of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and says that the space agency is moving forward on this rocket.

[Begin Clip]"Today I'm pleased to announce that NASA has designed its new deep space system, that will take American Astronauts further into space than any nation has gone before."[End Clip]

Farley: He also said that human exploration of deep space is not that far off.

[Begin Clip]"The first development flight or mission is targeted for 2017 with additional flights following that will get us on target to reach an asteroid and even Mars."[End Clip]

Farley: As the report goes, the announcement drew praise from Senator Bill Nelson who is Chairman of the Senate, Science, & Space Committee and the Ranking Member, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. Thank you again for being with us this morning.

Sen. Hutchison: You bet, Tim. Good to be with you.

Farley: Is this going to mean jobs in some ways to replace those are lost because of the ending of the space shuttle program?

Sen. Hutchison: Well, yes, it definitely is. We have a very balanced plan for space now. I think the vision of going beyond where we've ever been before is very important. And we are going to be building that rocket, which does mean jobs.

Farley: Is there any way to quantify how many might be created or saved by virtue of this program?

Sen. Hutchison: Oh, I think it's in the thousands, and it's also something that I believe is going to create an economic base that will create private sector jobs in the future. One of the things that we've gained from our space exploration is new industry. The MRI machines, the advances in healthcare, have been phenomenal from the research that has been done by us going into space. And I think it's the economic benefits that will create even more jobs in the future that are really part of the announcement today.

Farley: Now, there was a story recently in the Wall Street Journal which evidently had used some sort of a leaked document to say the development costs for this SLS Program were going to be much more than originally projected, like fifty-seven billion dollars more. You've called that into question though.

Sen. Hutchison: Oh, definitely -- that was someone trying to kill NASA and kill our space program. And it is clear, and Booz Allen Hamilton, the private firm, scrubbed the numbers and came up with the thirty-three billion that we had envisioned in the first place. And the program had been authorized in that range. So the numbers came out exactly the way they should. Someone was really trying to submarine the space program, and I'm sorry that the Wall Street Journal bought into it without checking other sources.

Farley: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is with us, Republican from Texas. I wanted to ask you. It's not directly related to this story but since you are on the Appropriations Committee, we are now watching the debate over the jobs program, plus the Senate Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the so called "supercommittee" is underway. These are tough times obviously. People are looking to Washington, D.C. to see if something can happen. Give us your sense, the temperature if you will, in the Senate and whether or not there is an opportunity to move forward, and how it's going to progress in both of those areas.

Sen. Hutchison: Well, it's my great hope that we can have priority setting so that we spend on the things that will be right for our country, right for our national security, and cut back on the things that aren't. Just as an example, yesterday we had a mark-up in the Appropriations Committee for a bill where we actually eliminated programs. And I think that's good, that's what we ought to be doing, because we set priorities to fully fund science and space, but we cut back on some of the other programs that were lesser priorities. We cut back on travel expenses in these big departments; we cut back on administrative costs, which is what we ought to be doing to be more efficient. We've got to get this deficit down, we've got to get this debt down for our country to be on a financially sound track.

Farley: As you do that, the challenge it seems, and this has been made by economic analysts, not myself, but I'm re-stating some of those, and that is, for example, cuts in defense, which have been something that people have talked quite a bit about. Not just the fact that it's the bottom line for the federal government, but a lot of people could lose jobs. It could mean investments are withdrawn from certain areas of the country. Even unions are, have skin in this game, because a lot of their union members would be kicked out of work. So how do you strike that happy balance without threatening whatever recovery there is by making these kinds of cuts that the Congress is looking at right now?

Sen. Hutchison: I think you set the priorities for the kinds of programs that build and will create private sector jobs in the future. We don't want to create government jobs; we want private sector jobs. We want the government to be lean and efficient, and we need to open the market to encourage employers to hire and create private sector jobs. And the way we do that, Tim, is to cut back on the regulatory morass that our businesses are facing - and we cut back the Obama healthcare plan that is really the key reason that small businesses aren't hiring.

Farley: Is there, on the jobs plan, the American jobs plan, is there any way that that gets even action. Is there even going to be a vote in the Senate, do you think? Because Senator Reid, discussing it the other day, said there is an awful lot of stuff that needs to take place, that needs to happen before there's going to be a vote on it. It almost sounds like a push back on this. What's your sense on where this is going?

Sen. Hutchison: There's so many things in it that people disagree with. There are parts of it that people agree with. But I can say that I don't think it's going to pass, certainly. It might come up, but it's not going to pass as a total package. For one thing, it makes Davis-Bacon apply to everything that might be covered in the bill. Well, that increases the costs for government projects because you need to be able to bid and get the most efficient bid, whether it's a union contract or a non-union contract. That's one thing that is going to kill that particular big bill in the House, I can assure you.

Farley: Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison that you for joining us this morning! We appreciate it!

Sen. Hutchison: Alright Tim. Thank you, good to be with you.

Source