Any argument which uses the shuttle as a measure of the intrinsic cost of doing business in space, is just plain balderdash. Doubly so for the ISS. The fact is that if enough pork, poor design, and mismanagement is applied to anything, the cost can go asymptotic before it ever gets off the ground. You could just as easily use the X-33 and NASP to conclude that a moon base would cost $50 trillion in the viewgraph stage alone.

Or, you could look at what the actual costs would be in a technically pragmatic and well-managed program (say the DC-X, or even various Russian programs). Not saying that our government is actually capable of being this level-headed, but to say that a moon base necesarily costs $200 billion, because of the shuttle and the ISS, is patently false.