NASA Should Be a Higher Priority

There are many problems currently in the world that have been helped directly or indirectly by advances in space technology and the tools developed for space flight. In fact, even the personal computers and the internet owe their existence to these programs. Weather satellites, communications satellites, cell phones, and many more neat things exist to resolve serious problems here on earth. Not all the uses are serious, but some are. There are a huge amount of space technology spin-offs (including the CAT Scan and PET scan)

NASA's budget seems huge, but is really pretty small compared to the jobs and stimulus and other ways the government can spend our money -- The Apollo project, if I recall correctly, cost something like 25 billion dollars. To go back to the moon was going to be a bunch more than that, but is still pretty small compared to the hundreds of billions that are spent in other ways.

NASA should be funded. Whether we should go back to the Moon, or go to Mars is another set of questions. Priorities need to be set and then pursued if you want a particular result. If we remove the quest for knowledge (outside of Earth) we will ultimately suffer. 

If we stop searching for answers (any answers) and just work on "politically acceptable" problems, some of the basic science that will ultimately be needed for some solution, perhaps to a problem we don't even recognize yet, will be missing. So, technology and science should advance. The competition of the Space Race motivated the research and development in two great countries, but left a lot for others as well. Further, the information derived has benefited humanity and the Earth.