Weather Channel

[snopes]

Comment: This is a new one to me. I have read all over the internet since
Super-storm Sandy that during a congressional budget hearing presumably
for NOAA, a GOP congressman asked Dan Goldin, NASA administrator “Why are
we building meteorological satellites when we have the Weather Channel?”

Usually the quote takes this form:
Dan Goldin, NASA administrator, was once asked “Why are we building
meteorological satellites when we have the Weather Channel?”

What makes this suspicious to me is that the congressman is always unnamed
and unidentified and the time frame is undetermined from 'recently' to
'several years ago'.

[Nick Theodorakis]

I can find a reference from 1995 that refers to a "disgruntled citizen" rather than a congressman:

...
It was in this general vein that my friend, Dan Goldin, told me when he was Administrator of NASA that he had received a complaint from a disgruntled citizen who inquired, “Why do we need meteorological satellites . . . we have the weather channel?”

http://www.aau.edu//WorkArea/showcontent.aspx?id=10648 [loads a PDF file]

“Making the Case for University Research” by Norman Augustine, Chairman and CEO of the Lockheed Martin Corporation and former Under Secretary of the Army, from his April 19, 2005 lecture before the Association of American Universities.

See also:

http://www.aps.org/publications/apsn...7/backpage.cfm

[Mickey Blue]

Well we did have the one guy comment about how he never had anybody helping him, even when he was down on his luck and on welfare, so I certainly wouldn't put it past a politician or pundit to say something stupid like that.

Course that doesn't mean it happened..

[fitz1980]

Don't forget "keep your government hands off my medicare."

and

"Stephen Hawking would have died under a socialized medical system"

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Mickey Blue

Well we did have the one guy comment about how he never had anybody helping him, even when he was down on his luck and on welfare

[Floater]

Reminds me of the lady who asked why we need nuclear power when we have electricity.

[hankering]

This line has been repeated for years, it's among those that seems clever to people who haven't thought it through.

This sort of thing gets picked up and reused over and over, much like the "volcanos emit more CO2" idea.

Most recent example I recall was quoted by Jane Lubchenko of NOAA:
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2013/0...satelli-1.html

And no, she did not name the congressman. That would've been suicide for her agency's budget.