It completely fails as a justification for SLS, though. It's preserving nonsense that needs to die, instead of pushing the actually successful part of commercial space.

How do you recon Spacex has managed to recruit several thousand US citizens with the proper expertise?

These people don’t grow on trees(/classrooms).

Surprisingly NASA, or ULA, couldn't recruit those very same citizens.

I think you’re missing the point.

NASA and ULA like programs trained and built expert training to create those citizens.

Being able to recruit them is a non-goal.

The missing is all yours :) . The citizens aren't the goal, the space achievements are. And that's where NASA and ULA were left in the past.

The only goal of any democratically elected government program is: improved citizens.

It is in the definition: “for the people”.

It's a good thing during down times. But now is not down times. Experienced, qualified space & rocket engineers are in high demand. Employing them to do useless make-work means they aren't available to work on rockets and space systems that will actually be useful in the future.

If you could predict good times and downtimes accurately, you’d be a multi-billionaire.

These people enjoy a cushy revolving door between several private and public sector aerospace jobs.

Who said anything about predicting? Reacting would be just fine.