Look on the bright side, we can let China pay for all the development costs and we can steal the technology from them for a change.
These days, my political attitude seems to revolve around the statement "we ain't got the money!"
I am a big space history buff, I love space technology and the exploration. But we ain't got the money to start some big expensive programs. Not saying that we will never have the money, but not just yet.
Also on the bright side, remember why we had a space race? Because there was someone to race. Remember how we got our butts handed to us at the start of the space race? Remember how that energized the entire nation? America does pretty well when first smacked down. We are pretty good at bouncing back
Maybe we need a good space opponent to get interest back in to it. Perhaps the Chinese would be a challenging opponent???