Cut the Budget, Put the Military to work

[shintao]

When I went to nam we made our own base camps, dug our own bunkers, made showers, and had our own cooks, mine sweepers, security, etc. That is what you did when you weren't in the jungle killing gooks. And you went on major operations and you did it out in the killing fields, digging, cooking, washed clothes in rivers, etc.

So what the fuck is wrong with our military today? They got way to much time on their hands to think about the wrong crap. There are more contractors with boots on the ground in Afghanistan than US Troops. Cut the budget and get rid of all those corrupt corporations that have our lazy assed soldiers sitting on their butts and marking time. Bring in Army Engineers that can do the work for a fraction of what Haliburton does.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

When I went to nam we made our own base camps, dug our own bunkers, made showers, and had our own cooks, mine sweepers, security, etc. That is what you did when you weren't in the jungle killing gooks. And you went on major operations and you did it out in the killing fields, digging, cooking, washed clothes in rivers, etc.

So what the fuck is wrong with our military today? They got way to much time on their hands to think about the wrong crap. There are more contractors with boots on the ground in Afghanistan than US Troops. Cut the budget and get rid of all those corrupt corporations that have our lazy assed soldiers sitting on their butts and marking time. Bring in Army Engineers that can do the work for a fraction of what Haliburton does.

Contractors exist because the Government cut back on all the support billets. Hell even the technicians can not work on half the gear because the Government won't pay to teach them the techniques.

Someone convinced the Government it was cheaper to contract the work then to use troops. In some respects that is true, for example on Lejeune the mess halls are almost exclusively run by contract help. Every year or 2 the base has a new contract process and the mess halls change hands as contractors underbid each other.

My wife worked in a mess hall for years out there until the process finally cost her her pay. You see the first way to "save" money on the contract is to cut the employees pay and fire some. Then all the current employees have a choice, work for less or have no job at all. And you get few raises because ever year or 2 the contract gets changed.

 

[waltky]

Balloonin' the debt, killin' jobs...

Obama Budget Doubles National Debt to $26.3 Trillion in 10 Years
Monday, February 14, 2011 – If the federal budget released by President Barack Obama today is implemented, it will double the national debt over the next 10 years. The current national debt is $13.56 trillion (end of FY 2010). By the end of 2021, that debt would rise to $26.3 trillion under the White House budget.

The figures reflect the effects of Obama’s fiscal year 2012 budget priorities, particularly a federal deficit that never falls below $500 billion in any year between 2010 and 2021.

The national debt – both debt held by the public and debt held by “government accounts” (the Social Security trust fund chief among them) – was $13.56 trillion on Sept. 30. 2010, the end of fiscal year 2010. (The national debt today, Deb. 14, 2011, is $14.08 trillion.)

In 2021, the national debt will have risen to $26.3 trillion, increasing by $1 trillion every year until 2021. Obama’s budget does not contain any plans for balancing the federal budget or reducing the national debt. (The national debt figures used by the Obama administration are on p. 203 of the budget, Table S-14, released today. )

Source

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CBO: Obamacare Will Kill 800,000 Jobs Over Decade
Monday, February 14, 2011 – On the same day that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was chiding House Republicans over job creation, the director of the Congressional Budget Office was testifying in the House Budget Committee that the health-care law President Barack Obama signed last year will kill about 800,000 American jobs over the next decade.

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf was responding to a question from Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.) regarding an August report from the CBO. “We do estimate, as you said, that the household employment will be about 160 million by the end of the decade and half a percent of that is 800,000,” said Elmendorf. “That means that if the reduction in the labor used was workers working the average number of hours in the economy and earning the average wage, then there would be a reduction of 800,000 workers.”

“In fact, as we mentioned in our analysis last summer, the [health care] legislation also creates some incentives that might affect the number of hours people work,” he said. “It might affect the propensity to work of higher and lower income people.” But the analysis shows that “it is the equivalent of withdrawing 800,000” workers from the workforce, said the CBO director.

According to the CBO, some of that decarease in American jobs would come as a result of employers cutting hiring while others would come from those who quit their jobs once they could rely on the new entitlement to pay their health care costs. Ironically, Elmendorf's testimony came on the same day that Pelosi, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) and other congressional Democrats held a news conference to say that House Republicans are not doing enough to stimulate job growth

“The American people are crying out and sending a clear message to Washington: Our number one priority is creating jobs--creating jobs now. Democrats agree. We will will continue to measure every effort as it comes before the Congerss as to whether it creates jobs, whether it strengthens the middle class and whether it reduces the deficit,” Pelosi said at a Capitol Hill news conference. “Americans are demanding that we put jobs first, that we act to invest in our future and help our economy grow.”

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