Note: No graphic with this one. Just a story from the New York Times.
The use of the military as a political prop is now about to come back and bite all those who benefited from that exposure.
Pay and benefits are about to get meat axed.
Quite honestly if its an across the board (meaning federal govt) type thing then its a bit more comforting but its still going to come as a shock to many. If the editorial board at the New York Times is now speaking out about cutting pay and benefits then you can bet that big ticket items like the F-35 are going to be the first things to go.
Sequestration is going to continue. The F-35 will be cut. So will pay and benefits.
The saddest part of this entire saga is that the JCS has failed us all. The Hollow Military is here.
In a speech last month, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned that without serious savings in this area, “we risk becoming an unbalanced force, one that is well compensated but poorly trained and equipped, with limited readiness and capability.” Meanwhile, Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, told a hearing: “The cost of a soldier has doubled since 2001; it’s going to almost double again by 2025. We can’t go on like this, so we have to come up with [new] compensation packages.”Bush started it. Obama continued it.
The Wall Street Journal reported recently that military commanders have agreed to a plan that would curb the growth of pay and benefits for housing, education and health. But it must still be approved by Mr. Hagel and President Obama. In past years, Congress has approved pay raises and benefit improvements and resisted rollbacks. It is possible that politically savvy Pentagon leaders may be hitting the personnel issue hard right now to force lawmakers to end the sequester or to otherwise soften its blow to the overall military budget. Personnel costs are not the only ones rising. Weapons procurement has risen 88 percent from 2001 to 2012.
The use of the military as a political prop is now about to come back and bite all those who benefited from that exposure.
Pay and benefits are about to get meat axed.
Quite honestly if its an across the board (meaning federal govt) type thing then its a bit more comforting but its still going to come as a shock to many. If the editorial board at the New York Times is now speaking out about cutting pay and benefits then you can bet that big ticket items like the F-35 are going to be the first things to go.
Sequestration is going to continue. The F-35 will be cut. So will pay and benefits.
The saddest part of this entire saga is that the JCS has failed us all. The Hollow Military is here.
Wait until 2016 for the "our military is turning to shit" posts.
ReplyDeleteThere is NO OTHER military in the world that matches our in training and equipment and size.
So may be bigger, but they are NEVER going to be as well trained.
Who said anything about training? Are you dyslectic or something?
DeleteThis is not the first time.
then you have a basic misunderstanding of how the military is built if you think we can wait until 2016 to see where the military is headed. the Marine Corps of the 80's is the Marine Corps that won in the 90's. same for the Marines that kicked ass in the 2000's. now its 2013 about to be 2014 and we can look ahead and see that even if no further degradation occurs, we're headed toward a much less capable force than we had even 10 years ago. new leadership across the board can start reversing those trends but for now its baked in the cake.
DeleteIt didn't take long in the 1980s to reverse a lot of 1970s malaise.
Deleteit took a strong President, a cooperative Congress and an American people that recognized the danger.
Deletewe don't have that today.
instead we have a bunch of decadent children and adults, an elderly class that is spoiled, wants to relieve the 60's and are scared to act their age, we have chubby kids that are too fat to do one pushup, women that want to be men but don't have the necessary gear, men that want to be women but don't have the necessary gear, masculinity under assault, women behaving badly, a govt that spies on its citizens, a dysfunctional Congress, a confused President and a nation at war with itself.
do you really think we'll be able to turn it around quickly?
Yes. It was bad in the 70s, and it was turned around. We just need a President with a Strong vision and a willingness to get shit done, and a supportive Congress.
DeleteOne problem that nobody wants to touch is Pentagon corruption, particularly as it involves "sweetheart" sole-source contracts awarded by insiders to their friends (and future employers) on the outside. They are breaking the law.
ReplyDelete-- 10 U.S.C.2304 and 41 U.S.C.253 require, with certain limited exceptions (see Subparts 6.2 and 6.3), that contracting officers shall promote and provide for full and open competition in soliciting offers and awarding Government contracts.
--Feb 28, 2013: Defense Department Struggles to Justify Sole-Source Contracts -- The Defense Department failed to properly justify 75 percent of its sole-source contracts worth more than $20 million over a year period, says the Government Accountability Office.
--Oct 28, 2013: Leiodos Inc., McLean, Va., was awarded a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract with a maximum amount of $36,717,969 to provide maintenance and logistics services in support of Intelligence, Reconnaissance and Surveillance programs. Fiscal 2014 procurement funds in the amount of $17,991,804 are being obligated on this award. One bid was solicited, with one bid received.
--Oct 31, 2013: General Dynamics C4 Systems Inc., Taunton, Mass., was awarded a $475,000,000 cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for research and development requirements to support the Warfighter Information Network- Tactical Increment 3. . . .One offer was solicited and one bid received.
Back in the forties we had the Truman Committee that went after these scumbags, but there are no more Harry Trumans. They are all on the take.
corruption is evident in so many programs its become a common way of doing business. quite honestly we've left so many innovative ideas on the table and bought the shit that the greedy are peddling that the only thing that explains us being technologically ahead of most other nations is the fact that they must have an even larger corruption problem.
Delete