Obama Proposes Defense Cut (To Above 2007 Levels): Wingnut Outrage
By Steve Hynd Sunday Feb 01, 2009 6:00amAccording to Fox News, Obama is proposing a measly 10% cut in the Pentagon's declared budget. Predictably, wingnut heads are exploding.
But Justin Gardiner of Donklephant has some real facts at his fingertips in an astute comment over at center-right blog Poligazette. I'm going to lift his comment in its entirety:
A few things…
1) The Pentagon’s budget (not including expenditures for Iraq and Afghanistan) has grown from $316B in 2001 to $536B in 2009. This represents a 70% increase. So a 10% decrease is funding will take us from $536B to $483B, which is still more than the $463B the Pentagon had for 2007. All Obama is doing is preventing the budget from growing an average of 10% year after year when there’s no discernible advantage to doing so.
2) Obama has said consistently that ALL government agencies will see cuts, but the military budget is the biggest so that has to be one of the first to be addressed.
3) The United States spends more than the next 40+ countries combined in defense spending. How that’s tolerated by our taxpayers is beyond me, but I’d imagine they’d like a little of that money back at a time like this, wouldn’t you?But to the broader point of this post, I think it would be refreshing to see these cuts being characterized as something other than an ideological win for the Dems. Cutting back right now makes sense because our current budgets aren’t sustainable.
In other words, if McCain had won the election and was proposing these cuts, what would this post say? Would you call Republican voters gullible? Would you tell people to contact their congressional reps or senators?
Well yes, exactly. Plus, remember that the declared budget doesn't include supplementary amounts for Iraq and Afghanistan or the defense spending spread around other departments like Energy (nukes), veteran care and Homeland Security. Add it all up and its closer to $1 trillion, or well over half of all government spending.
And no, defense spending is not good stimulus spending unless you work for a neocon think-tank. If it were, increased spending since 9/11 - almost a trillion a year - would have had a far more noticeable effect on GDP. Lets face it, we've had tax cuts for the rich and defense spending out the wazoo. If they were effective as stimuli to rescue the nation from depression, the economy wouldn't be in this state to begin with.
Crossposted from Newshoggers
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The Pentagon couldn't protect us or itself from the 9/11 attacks occurring. The Pentagon can't solve the Anthrax murders that occurred here before the passage of the Patriot Act.
The Pentagon LOST 2.3 Trillion dollars.
The Pentagon needs some adult leadership and oversight.
Herr Rumsfeld announced those losses,
wait for it...
suspense killing moment...
even Matlock could figure this out...
even Barney Rubble could solve this...
Inspector Clouseau has a warrant...
ON SEPT 10th, 2001.
Gullible son's of bitches.
2.3 trillion missing sept 10th 2001
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rRqeJcuK-A&fe...
don't tell anyone but that pays for all the black-ops we do around the world!!!!
I meant Barney Fife.
Edit button disappeared. Was is renditioned?
I mean, I second that comment by Orangutan.
As to the budget and about 60% being used for the military, I suggest the analogy of a family (our country) where Mom needs a hysterectomy as she constantly bleeds and suffers from pain, and little Susie misses school constantly due to tonsillitis and desperately needs her tonsils out and little Bobby just broke his arm when he fell off his bike.
The only problem is that Dad spends all his check, after food, rent and utilities on guns. The entire attic is filled with guns and ammo. It's so bad he's just brought another trunk load home and he wants to take over the kids room for storage.
Will Mom put her foot down and say "ENOUGH!! ENOUGH WEAPONS!! WE NEED HEALTH CARE MORE THAN WEAPONS NOW!!"
Bring all of the troops home.
Cut the 'Defense' budget in half.
Re-negotiate Nafta and the WTO for fair trade and start making things that don't explode.
PS 10% is better than not at all. His campaign pledge was to INCREASE the military. I wholeheartedly forgive him for not keeping THAT pledge.
Imagine if your family spent .60 cents of every dollar on guns and ammo.
How long would you continue to be a family?
The US is going down.
sadly. But it's the only manufacturing left.
What does the US make anymore?
I guess the answer is WAR.
There's no money in love.
The rise of the hippies has to occur to save us from ourselves!
"Quick freakboy, to the acid bus. It's time for a koolade test trip, and this time it's national."
We're one of the few places that still makes mines and mortars. I'm sure they could be repurposed for farming or something, no?
Imagine having the largest house in the world. Twice the size of all the other houses combined. Of the top 19 house below yours, 17 are your allies. You've got 100 bed rooms and 105 bathrooms and your income keeps going up. At this point, don't you think: Hey, maybe I should spend on something else, my house really is big enough.
Do the riches people in the US keep building bigger house? Did Bill Gates or Mr. Buffet build a bigger house every year?
"..If you spend 60 cents of every dollar on guns and ammo, you might be a redneck!"
Thank goodness. We get that same line every news conference from our Governor, Timmy Polenty, here in Minnesota. No new taxes! Inflation doesn't really exist. If a government agency had a budget of 400 million five years ago, it should have a budget of 400 million today. Bravo, Obama! Let's get the Pentagon so small we can drown it in a bathtub like a good Republican!
The Pentagon _is_ government right? They are spending our precious tax dollars, right? Hell, no I say! We can spend our money better than some government agency. It's a beautiful thing to see Republican values in action.
Either massive tax increases, massive cuts to every government agency and program, or both. It's inevitable with the debtload.
where are the taxes going to come from? No one has any money, unemployment is skyrocketing, state assistance/federal assistance is drying up...
and the Chinese/Saudi's/Japanese/et al aren't going to lend the US anymore (or at least as much) as they have in the past.
The water is creeping onto the main deck of the Titanic, and their isn't enough life-boats. The elite and super-rich have already commandeered them.
You know as soon as some type of recovery hits, that is the route every government will take. They always do.
The IMF demands it, and right now the IMF is forcing every nation from Iceland to England to France to do their bidding. And they all are.
to see my tax bookie the other day he said we have problems, hardly anyone in the middle is paying in this year, so something has to happen.
Is: Reality does not exist! Instead, I'll just make up my own deranged form of it and the results of my fiscal irresponsibility will be an IOU to the next generation--in other words, I live well at the expense of others who serve my self interest.
That's the Neocon way.
It wouldn't hurt us to scale back that massive budget some.
Ben and Jerry's oreo cookie demonstration...
http://prioritiesnh.com/images/both_spend.gif
http://happyfeettravels.org/wp-content/OreoMo...
Thank you for posting. I really respect this stuff because it puts it in concepts that anyone can understand. That's a skill. Thanks.
so even a cut to 2007 levels still leaves us spending more than the world combined? Nice.
I am willing to bet that the rest of the cuts will just go into the black budgets and not be counted.
The MIC doesn't like to give up its projects that it has spent millions/billions in development costs.
Someone is going to eat those losses, and it sure isn't the defense industries.
stimulus spending. Somebody has to make all those weapons and machines. Or have they started to contract that out the Asia too?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countrie...
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-US-w...
It's just insane how big the Pentagon's budget is. The rate at which it is growing is even more insane.
Yes, that's the old Reagan logic: We'll take in less and less in taxes and spend more and more in defense and as it unbalances it will balance out perfectly! - but nobody on the right can exactlly explain who this is supposed to work - or why it never has!
Exactly. Not to mention on Sept 10, 2001, there was a meeting held there about that (OH NOOOOO !!!!) 'missing' 2.3 TRILLION....but no one has heard a thing about that since 9/11...("What A Difference A Day Makes")
Okay, tin-foil hat time here: it would have been interesting to find out just how much of that 2.3 trillion was used to bankroll 9/11....also, no one has ever mentioned that the SEC actually shutdown any 'investigations' on those pre-9/11 'put-options' on United Air Line, and American Air Lines. From what I've read, the money made was never claimed. Smart people. They knew THAT would leave a trail for sure.
SEC didn't have the evidence anymore to pursue those cases. The evidence was in WTC-7.
how convenient.
and we all know that you don't need more than a 'couple of hours' to wire a 50-story building in order to "pull it"
how convenient indeed.
...was the huge amount of gold bars supposedly being held in the Fed Reserve offices (basement?) in the WTC. It couldn't be found, of course.
you know that was a plot right out of Die Hard 3 don't you?
The divesionary bomb plots, the rail car explosion to stand-down the Fed Bank...
Why did the hijacker, Hani Hanjour, who it has been discovered had zero piloting skills in a Cessna....why did he fly in straight toward Donald Rumsfeld's office where Donald Rumsfeld was sitting and not just slam the plane into THAT side of the Pentagon? A straight shot.
Instead, if you look at the research, he flew in a very sharp, low to the ground circle around the Pentagon to the opposite side and slammed exactly into the area where all the records were related to the missing trillions.
Hundreds of expert airline and military pilots have given testimony to the fact that even THEY would not be able to execute a maneuver like that with a huge jet that low to the ground.
What gives?
there was no jet flown into the Pentagon. It was a missle.
That's right. Hani Hanjour was known by his friends in the Saudi Air Force as "the best missile pilot I have ever launched with."
A cab driver I know in DC was on that road minutes after it hit. By the time he did that route again an hour later, a barrier was set up along the roadside. No wings, he reported, except the tiny ones on the tail.
The problem with witness testimony, is it is often unreliable, and in this case, there is multiple conflicting reports.
However, one thing is certain. The mass of debris removed from the Penta-Con does not match up to a 767. Less yes, even, no. Nor was there the expected to see cabin wreckage, the cargo deck debris, the bodies, the jet fuel, etc.
The glove does not fit.
...then you must aquit.
These are all great points, everybody. I'm just surprised this slipped through the C&L loophole...
I didn't know it was that top-heavy. And yes, that's the only manufacturing left, and both Smedley Butler and Eisenhower were right.
The loser Reslugs are just crying and wetting their panties again.
46 out of 50 states could file for bankruptcy in 2009-2010,
http://freedomarizona.wordpress.com/2009/01/3...
Guess that defense spending will be useful for Homeland Defense when the riots and the martial law ramps up.
Many people suspect that was already supposed to have been in effect long before now. But "the best-laid plans" have been known to go awry.
It's a war of the magicians.
Well we have it on authority from Rep. Sherman on the House floor that the threat of martial law was invoked in order to get the last $750 billion stimulus package passed.
see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8
I would equate the ability to threaten it, with it already being able to back it up.
And Sen DeMint says that the current administration will create crises to push through its economic agenda/bailouts.
http://businessandmedia.org/articles/2009/200...
I am thinking there is going to be an all out war against police and citizens this year, just wait till the weather breaks.
The bullshit Defense cuts should be 50% or more that is bullshit. I wanted to start a business not die by a fascist police officer. This sucks.
The only "infrastructure" that our new administration is gonna get around to building are more of these FEMA camps...
http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&...
...have been debunked over and over for many years. People who live in the areas where they're reported to be have said that it's bull. For example, of the several reported in Arizona, we KNOW that the old Japanese internment camp that's supposedly close to operational is nothing but a tiny remnant of boards and blocks. And the prison system reported at Florence and surrounding Pinal County area is overcrowded facilities and has been for years... that state has to build another new prison of at least 1000 beds just to keep up with sentencing. And they're always behind.
There is some sort of Military complex built in the south mountain 20 mile from me...
...are not included in the list of 800 FEMA camps. They DO exist, but how likely are they to be used for prisons? Ask Dick Cheney if his underground retreat is ready to hold anyone besides his nearest and dearest.
Fema camp video...Indiana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P-hvPJPTi4
this ain't no tiny remnant of boards and blocks. This camp is all new with new turnstiles and jail bars...the helicopter windsocks arent even ragged yet!
I thought that was for the Boy Scout Jamboree 2010.
And all the security was to, umm, keep the Girl Guides out.
Yeah that's the ticket.
...are probly to keep "the cooties" out.
It's common knowledge that Girl Guides are covered in cooties.
One touch is known bring on an erection infection.
Further research into this is warranted.
Any volunteers?
Camp One Stick Together?
Debunked it. There are more cameras at Wal-Marts. Jails don't use turnstiles. "Suitable for processing" can also mean food, or goods, or whatever.
Lee County, FL, for example. (Firsthand experience...) But they are used internally, not between public access and prisoner housing.
But overall, I agree. This facility is way too lightly armored, even for a county jail facility. Not that it probably couldn't be ramped up quickly, I suppose.
When? March, April or MAY, what do you think. I am expecting some sort of bullshit charges to be brought against me soon, I guess Cumberland County Prison is far better than a Fema camp........
West Virginia.
I always was fond of the movie, "Deliverance" with Burt Reynolds.
list how much money the government earns from selling arms around the world? That has to be considered. Sure it costs X amount, but how much money does it raise?
But the government only acts as a facilitator and financier. I don't think it profits directly from arms sales. And US exports of weapons to developing countries, while leading all other nations by a large margin, comprise only a small fraction of US GDP; it's not like we NEED to be engaged in this shameful business. Note too that US taxpayers pick up the tab for much of this trade, since much weaponry is given away as "military aid" to poor but deserving despots who serve our interests.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/74/the-ar...
are the ones who profit.
This finally will put Americans on notice that we have allowed our country to evolve into a society run completely for the short-term interests of those in the Petro/Military/Industrial Club. Look carefully at the chart and you will see how we have prioritized things for ourselves. This is not a picture of a budget designed to create a more productive, healthier, well-educated nation. It is one, rather, that represents a belligerent, arrogant, waste of the wealth created over many generations in a mindless belief we "rule" the world through force.
Obama was 100% correct by proclaiming this society needs change - too few grasped how deep the changes that are necessary really are. The existing power-elite (you know, the ones that brought us this current financial disaster while feeding the pig on Wall Street) and their obedient followers will squeal at every turn as changes are suggested or forced on them. The good news is that they will have to stand tall and say out loud why they want to continue down the disastrous path we have been on over the past 8 years. And it will be loud as is always the case when there is no willingness to think, to work, or to participate if there is an indication you might lose the status and power you have held so dear.
that really irks me about this is that we're selling F-16's all around the world, so now we have to work on something better in case they are ever turned on us.
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19960211.htm
there is no room to trim the military budget, I offer this:
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view...
"Ship (bridge) to Nowhere" leaps to mind.
there is no room to trim the military budget, I offer this:
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view...
"Ship (bridge) to Nowhere" leaps to mind. When defense contractors come in over budget and fail to deliver the promised goods, are there any penalties? Do they trim to cost of the items to compensate for their own inability to deliver the goods they promise? The answer of course, is no. The tax payers eat the additional expenses.
...Americans obviously need to quit paying taxes!
The amount of money spent is truly offensive...
The United States long ago reached the paradoxical state in which the more it spent on defense, the more inclined to war its elected leaders became. The greater its military hegemony, the greater the temptation to "solve" political problems with cruise missiles and "democratic" invasions. Slashing the defense budget would make us SAFER: we have nothing to fear but the fear itself of us felt by others.
If our national destiny really is to engineer a road to global peace and democracy, we cannot pave it with the corpses of our putative enemies.
Here's what my husband wrote some time ago on this subject. Rather than try to rewrite it from my memory, I'm putting it here. If you want to discuss this with him, that's okay too: captaindragonfarstar@yahoo.com
800 FEMA Concentration Camps
Wow! That's scary. It would be if it were true, anyway. 800 camps. Let's do the math. That works out to 16 per state, if you count Alaska and Hawaii. That's an average, of course. I doubt if Vermont has room for that many. So, bigger states, like Texas perhaps, would have more. Still, that's a lot of camps.
So many, in fact, that the average Joe would only be an hour or two drive away from one. You could gather the family in the minivan and go have a picnic right outside the gates. Show Dick and Jane the guards in their towers. See the inward pointing wire. "Someday, kids, this is where we'll all be living." Talk about fun with Dick and Jane!
That many camps, there should be maps showing where they all are. One could take his motor home and just tour the country visiting concentration camps, taking home movies, and sending scary e-mails to the neighbors back home. Some retired couples spend their time going from one casino to the other. Forget the stickers on the back window, one for every state you visited in your mobile home. We could have stickers for each concentration camp.
And Yahoo chat groups! Can't you just see it? Ralph and Shirley e-mailing to Fred and Ethyl in reponse to their last post about Camp Wegonnagetcha? Posing for pictures in front of the guard towers. So why does this not already happen?
That's because the damn things do not exist. This story has been circulating on the 'net since before they invented YouTube. It was there when I got my first computer in '99. With few changes, it still makes the rounds.
So I say to you the same thing I say to every person who passes this stuff along:
Show me one camp. Just one. No one has ever done that.
What these dippy idjits who write this stuff do not realize is, we are already living in a prison camp. You don't see the fence until you try to leave--or get back, as one of my acquaintances did in England. You don't see the fence until you try to move more than 10K in money from one point to another. The fences are there, but they're like the iron fist in the velvet glove. The cameras are there, too. And so are the guards. And it all came up so slowly that it just seems natural now.
Go back and listen to Morpheus telling Neo about the prison that he was born into as a slave. The Matrix, Diane. It is all around you. Concentration camps are for the few, to be used to frighten the many if and when the time comes.
FEMA camps? There were some constructed right after Katrina. Trailer parks where the residents were not allowed to leave. Where's your man with the camera to tell that story? The real stories get buried or ignored, even by the so-called alternative or free press.
The only Morpheus I liked was a scientist with a hott daughter in Forbidden Planet.
$400 million for new detention facilities ... Note that these aren't "FEMA camps," per se. Nevertheless, a lot of beds for an "emergency influx" of ... Canadians?
==================================================================
ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 24, 2006--KBR announced today that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component has awarded KBR an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contingency contract to support ICE facilities in the event of an emergency. KBR is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL).
With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, consisting of a one-year based period and four one-year options, the competitively awarded contract will be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005.
The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.
===========================================================
But wait! There's more ....
===========================================================
Civilian prisons coming soon to Army base near you
By Jerome R. Corsi
Posted: August 31, 2007
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
The U.S. Army is authorized to create civilian prison labor camps on military installations, according to a little-noticed regulation.
The camps are allowed if the request comes from the Federal Bureau of Prisons or state corrections facilities under leasing requirements defined by federal law.
WND's discovery of the regulation comes shortly after Bush administration directives expanding presidential powers during an emergency.
The Army prison camp policy is defined in Army Regulation 210-35, entitled "Installations: Civilian Inmate Labor Camps," signed Feb. 14, 2005, by Sandra R. Riley, then-administrative assistant to the secretary of the Army.
The regulation revises an earlier civilian inmate labor camp regulation signed Dec. 9, 1997, under the Clinton administration.
Ned Christensen, spokesman for the U.S. Army Installation Management Command, confirmed to WND the 2005 version of Army Regulation 210-35 is currently valid and fully operative.
The regulation specifies "the Army's primary purpose for allowing establishment of prison camps on Army installations is to use the resident nonviolent civilian inmate labor pool to work on the leased portions of the installation."
the Defense Department can easily find 10% simply by going out to bid on contracts. No-bid contacts (such as to Halliburton) should no longer be allowed.
I used to work with a lot of Navy logisticians. There are so many regulations in place to ensure that contracts are done fairly that it would take someone VERY high up on the food chain to force a no-bid contract through.
Perhaps someone who deferred their retirement bonus that was determined based on the company's stock prices.
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=HAL#chart1...
Don't worry about that sudden drop at the end, they got that money back by moving out of the U.S. to avoid paying taxes.
It's a great racket if you have no soul.
I knew Halliburton stock went up over these past years, but I never saw by how much.
That CEO of Halliburton, whoever it was to have caused such tremendous growth, should get an 80 billion dollar bonus!
Halliburton moved it's HQ to Dubai?
Hard to follow the money trail, compliant government, out of reach of domestic scrutiny.
A Disneyland for financial skulduggery and shenanigans..
Oh Darth Cheney, you evil genius, how much will a new heart cost there?
Taken from an unwilling live donor no doubt.
Which begs the question:
Why is the Pentagon awarding no bid/cost plus contracts to foreign corporations?
moved his accumulated wealth out of US dollars and into euro bond funds in 2004, b/c anyone with a brain knows that inflation is soaring and the value of the dollar is tanking. I don't have a link at the moment, sorry.
http://www.kiplinger.com/features/archives/20...
Also cost-plus-no bid contracts!
I think that's why conservatard "historians" are trying to claim FDR's domestic programs did nothing to alleviate the Depression, and may've prolonged it, and that WWII got us out, so they can justify outrageous "defense" expenses. The main outcome WWII did to help the US economy was destroy the infrastructures of our foreign competitors.
Nailed it
It was a Pentagon hammer
A steal at only $500.00.
I read that the contract for Blackwater is being dropped (O happy day) but this measly amount from the Pentagon's budget only covers a few of those famously pricey toilet seats and wrenches.
Cut it in half.
Personally, I'd like to see the whole thing suspended for a year.
Ohhhhh, countdown. 9,8,7,6,...............
'The United States spends more than the next 40+ countries combined in defense spending.'
All the while the occupation of Iraq continues, our borders and ports are still as wide open as ever and the country isn't any more safer than it was eight years ago. Just what exactly does the Pentagon do with all that scratch, other than dreaming up new and different ways to kill off our fellow human beings? Must be. The numbers exclude expenditures for Iraq and Afghanistan, right?
Change is going all around in this administration. This new political direction is a good healthy start this country needs.
There will be fewer of them to have to contend with.
"The United States spends more than the next 40+ countries combined in defense spending."
Nice way of putting it that doesn't really tell the story. The fact is in 2008 the U.S. nearly spent as much as the rest of the world combined. The U.S. accounted for 48% of world defense spending. This has been an outrage for years.
for drug companies to spread a disease and then sell a cure? Why isn't it illegal for the defense industry to sell weapons to allies and then sell them to the US for defense against same allies?
imagining what kind of good could be done if that budget was spread around.
Just
imagining what kind of good could be done if more thighs were spread around.
As Cernig correctly observes "the declared budget doesn't include supplementary amounts for Iraq and Afghanistan" and that "defense spending is not good stimulus spending." It should never be forgotten that Obama ran as president as an [alleged] anti-war candidate as well as an [alleged] agent of change. It can not be stressed enough that if Obama were to eliminate the money which is being used to illegally and unjustly occupy Afghanistan and Iraq as well as giving Israel bombs and missiles and F-16 fighter planes, then it would certainly be possible, for example, for the United States to have what every other advanced country in the world has and that is free access to universal health care for its citizens.
If Obama is serious about stimulating the economy, then the best thing that he could do would be to impose heavy cuts on the military budget as well as cutting off funds for the war machine. But seeing as Obomb-a is part of that same war machine, it seems extremely unlikely that Obama will impose any meaningful changes that might actually challenge and disrupt the system, despite his claim of being an agent of change.
or in this case whose sector of the economy.
defense spending employs many, many, differing elements of the economy.
here are a smattering of defense contractors that employ significant amounts of manpower:
pratt & whitney aircraft
general electric
ford motors
chrysler
boeing
martin marietta
sikorsky
dupont
monsanto
electric boat
kaman
Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding
general dynamics
lockheed martin
united technologies
raytheon
honeywell international
as you can see they're a large, diverse, contributor to our manufacuring/employment base.
The reward-for-support cycle has been engaged and this is nothing new.
This is why a business philosophy of supporting one side or the other is a financial mistake.
The same thing happened when Boosh took over. He cut loose most of the Democrat supported Vendors and hired loyal Repug Vendors.
Cutting 10% from the military budget means a financial secure position for a Dem. Vendor somewhere else.
Yes, that sounds cynical, but it is reasonably accurate and sadly enough, the process has little to do with "We the People".
Spend less money on our military than EVERYTHING ELSE in our budget? Are we crazy bat shit nuts??
We are nothing more than a bully, military nut cake. Spend every f*cking dime we have on bombs and guns. IDIOTS!! And we call the Russians bat shit nuts?? Look in the mirror USA!!
BUT IT'S A START.
Most of that "national Defense' money goes for bullshit that doesn't work, shitty helmets, shitty unarmoured HumVees, shitty body armour, billion dollar jets that disintegrate in the rain, missile defense systems they can't even rig to work, and I'm sure you could still find department that are still paying $600 for a hammer, because it's invoiced as a 'manual low-velocity impact tool,' and Pentagoners are no doubt still buying personal items on gov't credit cards.
I'll bet if their budget were slashed by half and they were ordered to make due, they'd find a way.
The way to put people to work in this country, right now, is to hire tens of thousands unemployed financial industry types as auditors. Those with the skills.
If there's one thing we could use right now is a defense system made up of people with fine tooth combs wielded by some very angry people who have been getting shafted by these thieving creeps, masquerading as 'Patriots.'
However, just like we are seeing with the corporate bailouts, the pinch is only felt by the rank and file.
As someone who works for the DoD, I see many places where the funding is no where near enough to meet the mission.
Where we're taking it in the shorts is on pie-in-the-sky programs that don't work and that no one wants to pull the plug on. To stop funding a money pit is to admit you have wasted money, so...the status quo is maintained and the product remains in the "developmental stage."
5% Health
6% Education, training, employment & social services...
LOL this is slightly worse than Zimbabwe.
Help me here.
Wasn't the defense budget about a third of total spending in the late 80's? I seem to remember that figure from jr college.
So we defeat the soviet union in the cold war with all their advanced weaponry. Then our new enemy is a bunch of people rigging explosives and using MacGuyver tactics, so we double the budget, percentage wise, to fight primitive guerrilla warfare?
...we needed to lose a lot of our constitutional liberties too!
The cave dwelling jihaad boys in Afghanistan apparently have an intelligence capability that is greater than the KGB, thus warranting such constitutional disgraces such as the Patriot Act and the Homegrown Terror act.
to be honest the wingnuts have a point in being out raged, however as usual they don't get the entire picture.
our military at the moment is in sorry state due to the ministrations of bushco inc over the last 8 years. there are currently no divisions at 100% combat readiness. it's equipment is in sore need of refurbishment, conventional munitions are at an all time low, and key personell have been not reenlisting due to the strain of over long tours of duty. in short, bush has destroyed the finest military force on the planet. our military.
it can be fixed but it needs 2 things, money, and an easing of the current mission load.
bush, not being a student of history repeated germany's wwII mistake of attempting to conduct a 2 front war in addition at the same time trying to do it on the cheap on credit by not raising taxes or selling war bonds to pay for it. as a result, he wrecked both the military and the economy.
now, while the wingnuts are correct in that the military needs the money to rebuild the 10% can be absorbed thusly; elimination of 1 or two marginally effective but expensive pet weapons systems in favor of more mundane but more effective and cost effective expenditures.
as an example:
elimination of the osprey: at $110m/aircraft would produce a $35b cost savings over the life of the cancelled project's life time.
savings such as this could be redirected into munitions, small arms, bullets, armor for hummvs, better medical care for the troops and so forth.
in short, the pentagon, can't tell us with a straight face that they're spending our money 100% effectively and we shouldn't let the wingnuts get away with the notion that they are.
obama is starting the ball rolling on fixing bush's mess by reducing the military's load in getting us out of the worthless iraq theatre.
here's a method by which the military can deal with a 10% budget cut to emerge as a leaner, meaner, more focused fighting machine that's lighter on our wallets.
Chuck Spinney has a paper on defense spending. The contributors include some very experienced military officers.
http://www.cdi.org/program/issue/index.cfm?Pr...
Well worth reading. The Pentagon is a money sink. Defense Spending is a pork project for the Senate and House.
(back when being a republican actually meant being conservative):
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist" - dwight d. eisenhower
He's got the right idea, but it's not nearly enough.
Cut the defense budget by 60%.
You need to keep in mind that the wing-nuts do honestly want to see the United States destroyed. And one of the best proven ways to bring down a nation IS extravagant defense spending.
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