Heidi Hammel Quotes

Politicians and the government have become too interested in short-term gains. Of course, if you look at the direct financial returns in the short term, human space flight is expensive. But they need to look longer term.

Adhering to budgeting rules shouldn't trump good decision-making.

I don't think I could advocate for increasing NASA's budget by a factor of two or ten, because I want us to have good roads in our country. I want us to have good education in our country. And NASA's budget is part of a discretionary budget, and we can't make that bigger without taking away other things.

As chairman of the Senate subcommittee responsible for NASA appropriations, I say not a penny for this nutty fantasy.

Economy consists in a due and proper application of the means afforded according to the ability of the employer and the situation chosen; care being taken that the expenditure is prudently conducted.

Economy does not lie in sparing money, but in spending it wisely.

I'm not interested in wasting money on a project.

It is not possible to spend on one thing and then not have consequences on something else.

I believe the only measure of government response shouldn't be how much we spend on a situation, but rather how well we spend.

We have a responsibility to make sure that the limited resources we have are spent efficiently and effectively and that programs achieve their mission.

The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.

Good household decision-making often relies on thinking about your household like a firm.

It's a terribly hard job to spend a billion dollars and get your money's worth.

What is OK is to spend money for productivity. What is not OK is just to light money on fire.

Even when you have a big budget, you can't just shoot everything.

[The] up-and-down pattern of [defense] spending over the last 18 years averages out to below zero percent real growth. In other words, if defense spending had followed a path of zero percent real growth, the U.S. probably could have obtained more defense for its dollar.

It is a terribly hard job to spend a billion dollars and get your money's worth.

Cost effectiveness and effectiveness are not always the same thing in government.

Show me your budget and I’ll describe your strategy.

Because the resources available to the U. S. military will be increasingly limited, the objectives must be too.

Nation building cannot be done on the cheap.

We can't spend money on programs just because they sound good... Meals on Wheels sounds great.

I don't spend unnecessarily. The problem with the industry is we don't budget our films. Plus, we spend bizarre amounts on marketing. If you have a good film and a good trailer, you don't need to spend so much.

You have to spend a lot of money to build strong sides.

The Pentagon should use data to guide financial decision-making.