The SLS rocket is the worst thing to happen to NASA–but maybe also the best?

I like the article; it's not kind to Big Aerospace and Congress.

Personally I think it has implications much bigger than NASA. When it takes three and a half years to fix a bridge, when the bus is delayed by 45 minutes regularly and the bus company doesn't care, when it seems we can't have nice things because any kind of public infrastructure project gets looted, it's one more thing that damages the legitimacy of government.

One thing that keeps the Republican party viable is the tendency of Democrats to celebrate spending money as opposed to getting results. If Democrats could just make it look like seeing graft hurts them and that they care about using tax dollars and borrowed money effectively then the seditious Republicans would go the way of the Whigs and we'd get a new party.

So long as public infrastructure costs an order of magnitude too much people are going to skip the bus and drive to work in increasingly large private cars, go home to a house with an ever-more complicated roofline and larger master bedroom suite, etc.