Again, it's not as straightforward as that. It was started under Reagan and never adequately funded which is why it was behind budget and schedule in 1993. Cato and other conservative think tanks came out strongly against it in the early 1990's as well[1] which is why Bush dramatically cut funding in his budget in 1992.[2] When it came down to the final vote in the Senate to kill the program, 53% of Democrats voted to keep it (29/45) and 70% of Republicans vote to kill it (31/44).[3] The Republicans then went on to a massive sweep in 1994 based largely on promises to dramatically decrease government spending, where they highlighted projects like the SSC as wasteful.

There is plenty of blame to go around.

Steven Weinberg has a good piece about the failure of US politicians to support 'big science': http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/may/10/crisis-...

[1] - http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-016.html

[2] - http://www.csmonitor.com/1992/0630/30013.html

[3] - http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_c...