Quote Originally Posted by SadisticNature View Post
And your argument seems to be "I pay taxes" the government can only spend money in ways I like. Well there are people who pay taxes and don't support the military, so by that argument the US shouldn't pay for one.
No, I'm arguing that the government should spend the money in a manner which is representative of the taxpayers. Granted, certain funding must be maintained, regardless, for purposes of national security. Others, however, are discretionary, and can be handled differently. Actually, I would think that NASA would fall into both of these.

But what I would really like to see is an optional tax form, which the taxpayer can fill out if he wishes, allowing him to request where the discretionary portion of his tax money is spent. So if we assume that, say 30% of my taxes are considered (by the government) to be discretionary, I can select maybe 50% of it goes to NASA and 50% to general science funding. This could even be just guidelines, not binding in any way but giving me at least some sense that some of my tax dollars are being used as I want them to be. Probably a silly idea, and extremely doubtful that it would be implemented, but hell, I can fantasize, can't I?