David Davenport puts up a whiny, snarky strawman of an argument in the comments section of this post.

…so-called Libertarians contradict themselves when they ask for the gu’ment to get out of the way … except to put up the money.

This reminds me of a teenager announcing his independence, and then asking for $20 and a car for Friday night.

Mr. Simberg, why don’t you write a column asking Bll Gates or Warren Buffet or suchlike to pay for your beloved X Prize, instead of Sugar Daddy, Uncle Sam?

Because such a column would have zero impact on any of those people. I can, however, influence government policy.

But I find this commentary quite amusing. As a libertarian, I’d be perfectly happy to see the government stop spending money on the manned spaceflight program. The problem is, the government persists in spending about five or six billion a year on it. All I’m asking is that they spend it more intelligently than continuing to hand out cost-plus contracts to a couple big contractors.

If you want to delude yourself that we don’t currently have a space industrial policy, David, go ahead.

As I said, I’d be happy to see all of the government funding go away, but as long as they insist on spending it, I don’t think that it’s unreasonable, or even particularly “libertarian,” to want to see more manned spaceflight for my (and the other taxpayers’) dollars. Prizes would almost certainly be a more effective means of achieving this than the current process.

The argument for protectionism on national defense grounds? Once can make the same argument for government subsidies such as X Prizes for atmospheric aircraft or shipbuilding or steel production.

And we get them. For example, look up the Civil Reserve Air Fleet. Not to mention the fact that the few American shipyards that remain in business do so via government contracts.

If private private private enterprise can DO IT in space, why doesn’t free free free private enterprise go ahead and do it and quit whining for the government to put up an X Prize?

It is. But it would happen even faster if the government wasn’t misspending so much money, falsely demonstrating that it can’t be done more cost effectively.