Over at Houston’s Clear Thinkers, Tom Kirkendall notes a Washington Post story from yesterday about Rep. Tom DeLay and his impact on NASA’s budget:
NASA was identified as a major sticking point when Senate and House conferees sat down to craft the final version of the omnibus spending bill near midnight Nov. 19, but Bolten, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and DeLay were holding out for more money.
The negotiators appeared to agree on $15.9 billion for NASA, but that wasn’t good enough, DeLay said later at the Space Center. “The main responsibility of the majority leader is to set the agenda for the House floor. I wouldn’t schedule the bill until NASA was taken care of,” he said.
And it was.
“Once you get into an omnibus bill, the leadership takes over, and you need to have an advocate in that circle,” Walsh said. DeLay “was getting me more allocation every time he stepped up to the plate. He made the difference.”
Wonder if Richard Morrison could have delivered that, if he had been elected instead of DeLay?
Wonder why the Chronicle hasn’t picked up this Washington Post story yet or, even better, put its Washington bureau to work on it?
