Why are there no moon base plans?

The  current space obsession is a manned mission to Mars. In the past couple of years there's been all sorts of stories and books on how to to do it, what the purpose of such a mission is, the difficulties, the variations.

Every president since Bush Sr (wait did Obama mention it?) has promised to put a man on mars (wait, did -Clinton do it?).

It seems like these big media plans are almost as common as plans to create a high speed rail line between NYC and Washington (or San Francisco and LA, or Chicago and St. Louis). Every new governor

I'm all gung ho for every sci-fi inspired space plan: mining asteroids for precious resources, terraforming Ganymede for farming, solar sails to travel among the planets.

But.. this should be sci-fi inspired engineering, not science fantasy. Wouldn't it be more cost effective and profitable and room for learning more about engineering around off-earth environments if we went incrementally? There is a space station, a bit smallish, with worldwide support. Shouldn't there be some intermediary step, like a moon base?

First, an efficient transport mechanism to a low orbit space station, via rockets or space elevator or what have you.

Then maybe an intermediate high orbit one.

Then a minimal lunar base.

Then lunar L1 and L2 satellite stations.

Then an expanded lunar base.

...and a whole bunch of intermediary supply chain steps, not just to support a permanent connection (realistically, we don't know if we'l be able to support that in the long term), but to support exploitation of those intermediate steps as ends to themselves.

Then, once all that's done, a visit to Mars (because all those previous items will make the trip that much easier. Don't blow a shitload of money on a one-off to Mars. Make it realistically attainable.

Also, in parallel (and maybe with more money than carved out for a manned mission), that much more robotic exploration. Let the machines die first. It's less expensive and less upsetting and demoralizing.

Oh. I'm sorry. There -are- plans for a moon base.. But I have no idea if this is part of a grand plan.

Also, what's the business plan other than 'Holy shit this will be cool'? (I'm all for that business plan, but my funding is in science fiction dollars)