Pentagon budget cuts and sequestration finally got real to a portion of America's populace -- the portion that considers a day wielding a light saber as a day well spent.
Yes, the White House broke the hearts of more than 34,000 Americans who signed an online petition requesting President Obama to deliver a Death Star by 2016. The White House left Paul Shawcross, the chief of the Science and Space branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget, to explain why.
His excuse was typical for a Washington bureaucrat, the budget. Shawcross estimated that it would cost approximately $852,000,000,000,000,000 to build the Death Star citing a "study" by Lehigh University economics students.
Shawcross also said building a Death Star would strike against the White House policy against "blowing up planets."
The White House did do their homework. Shawcross made the salient point that building a Death Star seemed fruitless considering a glaring weakness.
"Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?" Shawcross said in a statement.
The rest of Shawcross' response loses much of its gusto for which it began as Shawcross tried to make the case for current military and NASA research projects. It just doesn't hold up to the beginning. It's almost like he's mocking those 34,000 Americans who truly believed the construction of the Death Star could prop up the American economy. Sadly, Shawcross justified its dismissal because of that very deficit.
So there you have it Star Wars fans. The deficit ruins another perfectly good plan. And I guess the stubborness of the White House on the planet destroying policy.
