And both parties will do it.....the military is getting ready for some big time cost reductions, mainly from the drawdown of forces. Now's when we see the folks with bases or contractors in their states start screaming about security and so on and so forth. And its election year. what a perfect storm for bullshit.
BKB
Oh, amen. Everyone wants to cut...........in another state.
WARNING - Due to the rising costs of ammunition, warning shots will no longer be given.
Now is when we see the true nature of who owns a signifiacnt part of this country. Big defense bidness. The entire washington dc metropolitan area is built on it. Politicians live in it, beltway bandits thrive in it, no political force is strong enough to change the dollars flowing thru it.
If we all threw our problems in a pile, and you saw everyone else's problems-- you'd take yours back.
Its also the time when politicians do the unthinkable, and that is to play on the fears of the voters that some boogeyman is gonna come and get us if we don't let them continue to build whatever armaments in whatever state or keep that base active. They do it every time and to me its unconscionable.
BKB
Our military runs the show. We fight wars, and get entire Administrations defeated, because they can't go more than 5 years without testing their new stuff that we paid a hundred times what it's worth.
WARNING - Due to the rising costs of ammunition, warning shots will no longer be given.
Any of you guys think this might actually be the time they really do some cutting? It almost seems like they may be serious this time.
As a personal aside, I think hearing the supposed small government conservatives howl when military cuts are mentioned is almost as fun as listening to the politicos rationalize their hypocrisy.
Will
Seeing as how this is coming from the Pentagon, I figure its either an attempt at an end run to get try to get ahead of much bigger cuts than they actually want to see. Or its an election year gambit to draw out the other side to see if they'll make some sort of big political boo boo.
Or it could be complete horse shit.
Probably the latter.
BKB
Hahaha, well it could be. Lord know it wouldn't surprise me too much.
I hope we do some cutting actually. We need to tone down our profile a bit. Seems like the nation has lost the ability to make friends and influence enemies unless we do it at the end of a gun. We have a pretty damned impressive military. But by now we should have learned (but haven't) that there are a lot of things the military can't do.... like make things turn out for the better long term in Ukraine for instance.
Will
Sounds like they're proposing to cut force size. I wonder what kind of cuts they're proposing for contractors and weapons systems...
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Raoul Duke
A negative cut on those...........
WARNING - Due to the rising costs of ammunition, warning shots will no longer be given.
OK, here's a great example. Never mind the efficiency, never mind obsolescence, just note who is married to whom..........
The entire fleet of A-10 “warthogs” would be eliminated and replaced by the F-35. The so-called tank-killer, designed in the 1970s to go after ground targets, is not nimble enough and too expensive to maintain because of its age, Hagel said.
Cutting it would save $3.5 billion over five years. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., whose husband was an A-10 pilot, has already vowed to fight plans to ditch the fleet.
WARNING - Due to the rising costs of ammunition, warning shots will no longer be given.
It will be interesting to see. From being in the military I can tell you from when I was in, there are tons of meaningless military jobs that could easily be eliminated. Real soldiers positions can be eliminated as we pull back but can the Dems really afford to flood the ranks of the unemployed with jobless soldiers? Sorry I just don't see that happening.
Contractors are going to be more difficult because they bring expertise that does not exist inside the military so you can only cut so much. Weapons and their cost can certainly be cut significantly but we'll have to weigh and acknowledge the risk that comes with that decision.
If only we had an intelligent military leader at the helm.
Seems to me the military is our government in a terrarium. It's grown so damn big that to prune it back would have significant consequences to local, state and national economies. Did we let the beast get too big?
If we all threw our problems in a pile, and you saw everyone else's problems-- you'd take yours back.
~snort~Originally Posted by Buckrub
The ironic thing to me is that although Eisenhower noticed and warned us of the "military industrial complex" he didn't see the real danger: that other industries would recognize the genius of this business model and adopt it as their own. Finance, Insurance, Real Estate, Medicine, Education.... you name it and the most successful and parasitic industries in the US have adopted the "Industrial Complex" model as their own. And it has bankrupted us.
Will
I think America is so scared of "serious consequences" that they can't stop making terrible decisions.
Gag.
Serious Consequences, if not the name of a new Band, should be the result of the next 32,088 decisions this government makes. THEN we might start on a decent road to somewhere.
WARNING - Due to the rising costs of ammunition, warning shots will no longer be given.
I was chatting with an old timer born in the Great Depression time period a while back on another site. He mentioned this. Asked me when the hell did America become so afraid of everything? I don't have the answer.
Will
Ever since we started enacting laws that gave us the pacification of feeling like we were somehow safer, thanks to the government.
If we all threw our problems in a pile, and you saw everyone else's problems-- you'd take yours back.
Look at how the Patriot Act worked out for us.
BKB
The list is endless.
If we all threw our problems in a pile, and you saw everyone else's problems-- you'd take yours back.
WARNING - Due to the rising costs of ammunition, warning shots will no longer be given.
And here we go. Note the sentence that says ".........whose husband is a reservist........."
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/whit...ap-face-n37536
What I'd be opposed to, if'n I were a Congresscritter, is if this is the ONLY cuts. I'd say "OK, I'm wid ya. I'll match dollar for dollar every cut in defense with a cut in welfare".
Heck, I might go two for one, just to get the ball rolling.
Hard decisions, indeed.
WARNING - Due to the rising costs of ammunition, warning shots will no longer be given.
~snort~
Amazing how all of these folks are worried about "hollowing out" the military. WTH? They've been on board lock, stock, and barrel with the hollowing out of the entire US industrial tax base. And that is where the real power lies long term. I suppose that is what happens when you have a large portion of the electorate who believe Chile is the preferred economic model we need to emulate.
Point is whether we like it or not, whether it happens now or later on, it WILL happen. Just like I told you we would reform our health care industries. And our education system. And our socialized housing industry. And none of it will be done out of ethical or moral considerations.
We'll do it because we have to. We cannot afford them any longer.
Will
Dick Cheney is blasting loud and long on this issue this morning. Now THAT'S irony.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014...cmp=latestnews
BKB
Yep, that not unexpected though is it?
Stand back a pace or two, squint your eyes a bit, and it gets a little more clear. Fact is that a small military, and the inability to impose our will on multiple countries is more than just a difference of opinion. Goes all the way to the marrow: your worldview.
Without this kind of military you cannot have a lot of what passes for this version of globalization. This effed up version of globalization depends on capital and investment being safe and sound in some very unsafe and unsound areas. A whole lot of the world has only been kept out of chaos by US military. And that military ceases to function without the dollar as the world reserve currency. Save that we'd only be able to spend on the military what we could afford based on internal budget and trade surplus. The fact that the reserve currency status of the dollar is one of the prime reasons we no longer have a viable industrial base is one of history's larger ironies.
In the long run I have to think it is much better for us to downsize now while it is still our choice to make.
Will
It never ceases to amaze me though, that America has never learned the lessons from one of it's first wars: the Tripolitan War. If you think about it, we're still using the same approach and still getting the same unsatisfying results.
BKB
And while we're at it, don't think for a minute that the plan to get these cuts in place ahead of elections this fall aren't part of Obama's strategy either because they are. There's no altruism in this deal from any side.
BKB
No doubt about that. Never has been. All of this goes back to the original sequestration deal and that was nothing more than a way for each side to inflict the greatest amount of pain onto their political foes. I never thought they would get to this point in all honesty. Not that I mind it at all.
But I still say do it now. The pain will be much less if we can take our time and figure out how to do it right.
I do feel sorry for a lot of the military guys that are going to be tossed into this economy. Those poor bastards have no idea how rough the job market really is. The same thing could be said of everyone in DC though couldn't it?
Will
I'm not sure what component national guard and reservists are of the current troop deployment but most of those guys have jobs. And given how much money we are cutting from the military budget, there needs to be a significant part of that set aside for jobs programs for veterans. I know people don't like programs but there has to be some safety net. Almost anyone that gets laid off in business gets some sort of severance package. If we go above and beyond normal attrition to cut our military forces down, then there needs to be a severance of some sort paid to them too.
BKB
I remember back in the midst of the financial crash that several friends of mine served a tour over there and returned stateside hoping to get a job and move on. Every single one of them went back. Again and again. Contractors for the most part at the end. Couldn't find a job and most still can't.
They'll need a safety net and everything else they can lay hold of. I wish them well.
Will
Much of that financial burden, you know, is going to fall on the states. The feds have a nice way of shedding their debt and flicking those boogers off on the states. the Republican hero Ronald Reagan was most adept at that.
BKB
Normally when there's a draw down like this, I believe troops with more than 6 years (or it might be 4, can't remember) service gets a package. (If I remember correctly it called "involuntary separation pay") I don't remember the details and things may have changed. I think it falls under the title of "transition benefits".
Not sure what's available (if anything) for "NUG's".
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