You probably missed the testimony - Neil Tyson took Augustine to task (apologetically) for his commission having failed to change things the last time around. Learning what went wrong the last 3 or 4 times people have tried to redirect NASA is exactly what they should be doing right now.

Democratic input to a process shouldn't mean major NASA programs are started and then forgotten every year or two - we need some management organization that smooths out the year-in year-out political battles while pulling together for a common goal. Moon, Mars, and beyond is a sufficiently widely agreed upon goal (and vague enough at this point) now with presidential validation. Sort of like building the interestate highway system - as long as we keep at it, it's ok if the budget for road building goes up and down a bit, but if we keep changing where we want to build the roads, we'll spend a lot of money and have nothing to show for it.