Lets also not forget that even then, much of the administration had to be dragged kicking and screaming into opening things up for private space enterprise. It took a lot of effort from a handful of people to make the government even give it a chance.

Recently I learned that the opposition to the idea was so harsh that an FBI investigation lasting 4 years was even kicked off based on a theory about how Obama, Musk and NASA's deputy admin Lori Garver were conspiring with foreign powers to destroy the US space program.