im blaming most of congress and more so on Obama. Bush wanted to have a backup before the shuttles were retired, and signed the funds for the constellation program.
Actually Bush drastically cut funding for NASA back in '05 declaring:
"We cannot find any justification to continue the deficit funding of a program that has no application other than proving that with enough money America can do anything,"The Constellation program was created during the NASA Authorization Act of 2005. Bush had already cut Federal funding for, with the intent that the private sector would pick up the tab, with NASA's oversight... Read; No corporation was fool enough to go it alone.
The Obama administration cut the program (feb.2010) and later announced on April 15, 2010, at a
major space policy speech at Kennedy Space Center. Obama, committed to increasing NASA funding by $6 billion over five years and complete the design of a new heavy-lift launch vehicle by 2015 and to begin construction thereafter.
Sure sounds like He wants NASA to get started on a new project...