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One answer is that the town's elected officials thought that the project served a public purpose and that the various subsidies and favors were worth the price. But they may or may not have thought this.

Most of the men and women who vote in Congress each year to continue subsidies have taken campaign donations from big energy companies.

After the Great Depression and after public urging, a nationwide public competition was held to determine a design for a memorial that would honor President Thomas Jefferson's bold vision for westward expansion for America.

When we give a subsidy, the benefits to the public ought to exceed the benefits to the company. When it doesn't, that's our definition of corporate welfare.

That is what made America great: that everyone had the opportunity to be a winner. And I think it's still there. I'm certainly a beneficiary of it.

I believe we can do more in making the President's vision for space exploration a reality by awarding cash prizes to encourage greater participation of the private sector in the national space program.

The problem is we have a Wall Street-to-Washington access of power that has controlled the political climate. The donor class feeds the political class who does the dance that the donor class wants. And the result is federal government keeps getting bigger.

The Citizens United ruling did not invent special-interest spending; it enables corporations and unions to advocate directly on behalf of a candidate rather than running more subtle 'issue ads.'

If leaders in the space program had at its beginning in the 1940s, pointed out the benefits to people on earth rather than emphasizing the search for proof of evolution in space, the program would have saved $100 billion in tax money and achieved greater results.

Donors don't win elections; voters win elections.