Posted on 03/03/2013 6:47:39 AM PST by SeekAndFind
“This has got to stop, because we are literally destroying the future of this country.”
Not gonna happen. Just keep buying food and ammo.
Hey if your family was short of 'means' you wouldn't put your family on cat food and throw grandma off the bridge. You would find another way to increase your means. Tariffs works for me on these boatloads of tax-free goods.
Huh? That small group of determined Communists you speak of, already pulled off their coup in 2008. We're living under their dictatorship now.
Why would anyone think that exile of individuals that have no interest in and are unwilling to support the aims and objectives of the locality where he resides is the definition of a “dictatorship”?
Low-information voters are by definition those who have no interest in and no support for the aims and ideals that founded the country they found themselves in.
Cuts, reductions...what else can you name it as other than what it really is?
So what would Obama and the Dems be kidnapping or hijacking?
The gloves are still on. It will take riots or something similar to get ‘real’ communism. Night arrests, road blocks, travel papers, charges for thought crimes, etc.
Every cut will now be demogogued by the liberals/commies just as they were in Greece.
They'll never pull that off without disarming the citizens first. Good luck with that.
alloysteel wrote:
“Low-information voters in the “red” region would be exiled, forcibly if necessary, to one of the “blue” republics.”
And Misterioso replied:
“So. the ‘solution’ is a dictatorship? That’s what’s coming but there is no way to predict what life will be like for us.”
I’ve posted for quite some time here on FR about a possible breakup of America into several “red” and “blue” areas.
I’ve also posted about how with the continuing “polarization” of the nation, we will see an increasing migration of citizens (of both red and blue persuasions) towards the areas that will best serve them.
I can’t say whether “dictatorship” is a solution, but there will certainly need to be some “strong coercion” to persuade “those of the blue” (i.e., the “low-information” types) that their lot would be better off in the blue areas. Such cooercion could include the removal of ALL “benefits” to which they may now “entitled”, perhaps even providing a “transportation stipend” and “papers out”. Remember that after a separation, we will no longer be “one nation”, but several nations, with real “international borders” between.
Misterioso, you really don’t expect that we could somehow magically transform those “low-information voters and benefit consumers” into productive citizens, do you?
Well… do you?
RE: Do you not fathom these facts, or are you just being disingenuous?
I appreciate this fact that you mentioned. However, let me ask you this, SHOULD THE MILITARY BE TOTALLY EXEMPT FROM CUTS?
Let’s say that Operations and Maintenance should not be cut, are you telling me that unlike other government programs, there is no FAT and WASTE going on in Defense?
Works for me as a definition.
They are acting like kidnappers. They are holding the country hostage, demanding payment (no budget cuts) from the citizens, and threatening to harm the nation (military, DHS, border, etc.) if they don't get their demands.
To answer the question, no, the DoD should not be exempt. In fact, the DoD is the only Federal agency that has been cut in real dollars in the past several years. Not "baseline budget" gimmick cuts either - real cuts. Thousands of jobs were lost, hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen are going to be thrown out of the service that they scarificed and sometimes literally bled for.
That in itself is an obscenity.
Can the DoD be cut even more. Yes, but not this way. Not with Sequestration. It is the worst possible approach for the military.
Moreover, it is a Constitutional institution. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, TANF (all of which are exempt from Sequestration) are not Constitutional.
I understand the anger towards the government. Every time a obese TSA agent with the IQ of 65 touches a member of my family at an airport, I weep for what this country has become.
However, there are also the noble. There are DoD teachers, nurses, logisticians, machinists, electricians, dog handlers, engineers, and truck drivers who are loyal, patriotic, hard working Americans who are hurt by this process.
Read this - it is true.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/2992388/posts?page=40#40
Every time you mock and scoff, you mock and scoff the likes of her. She isn't ficticious.
Think about it more before you post.
See here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/2012-us-defense-budget-largest-since-world-war-ii-2011-7
The FY 2012 budget requests a total of $676 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD).
The base budget for DoD includes $553 billion in discretionary funding and $5 billion in mandatory funding, and an additional $118 billion is requested for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The budget request also includes $19 billion for defense-related atomic energy programs and $8 billion for defense-related activities in other agencies, bringing the total national defense budget to $703 billion.
Adjusting for inflation, the level of funding proposed for the base defense budget in the FY 2012 request is the highest level since World War II, surpassing the Cold War peak of $531 billion (in FY 2012 dollars) reached in FY 1985.
So, Defense has a budget of nearly $676 Billion dollars.
Sequester for this fiscal year is a mere $44 Billion ( because much of the months for this fiscal year have already gone ).
Of the $44 Billion, HALF is defense cuts, which comes out to $22 Billion.
If you subtract that from $676 Billion, that’s still $654 Billion dollars. GREATER THAN the 20 most powerful military in the world combined!
Don’t tell me that the DoD cannot work with that number and has to cut to the bone and lay off all these good people you mentioned.... What about doing a serious accounting and cutting the FAT.
Every agency from top to bottom has to do it.
Now, if your main concern is that defense gets the BULK of the cuts compared to the other government departments, I get your point.
However, WE HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE.
We’re not going to even get a good start with a Democrat controlled Senate and this man in the White House.
If a good start means cutting a mere $22 Billion from a nearly $680 Billion budget ( because we have been dealt a lemon in November 2012 ), then so be it.
A really competent head would know how to find $22 Billion in waste to cut.
And as if to soothe your fears, The new Continuing Resolution will include a provision that restores $7 billion in funding for specific Pentagon accounts:
House Republicans are proposing this week to restore upward of $7 billion to operations and maintenance accounts for the four military services hit hard by the automatic cuts that went into effect Friday night.
That’s the bottom line driving a hybrid spending bill to be unveiled Monday and intended to replace the stopgap continuing resolution or CR due to expire March 27.
The measure will keep in place the overall spending reduction known as the sequester ordered Friday. But in the case of the Defense Department, it substitutes an updated full-year budget that shifts money to address the GOP’s great Achilles’ heel: the serious danger to military readiness if the standoff with President Barack Obama drags on for months.
Republicans know they can’t sustain a long fight without addressing this vulnerability, but the CR is also a political tinderbox that could blow up despite all sides now insisting that they want to avoid a government shutdown.
SEE HERE:
Now, the cuts for this fiscal year will be a mere $15 Billion. $15 billion is a mere 2.2% of $676 Billion.
Don’t tell me out of a nearly $676 Budget, they can’t find 2.2% in cuts....
I'll believe it when I see it.
First of all, the proposal only attempts to stop the bleeding caused by the CR by adding in O&M funds, which combined with the $487 Billion in cuts starting in 2011 on top of the Sequester dictating a 13% cut, has sent the Pentagon reeling.
The article acknowledges this fact. I have been shouting this from the rooftops at FR for weeks now, and I have been shouted down. The very thread this is posted on (your thread!) attempts to minimize the horrible effects of Sequestration, and yet you send me this article which affirms everything I have been saying.
Next, the Democrats are not going to allow the Congress to restore funds only to the DoD - they will wand AIDS reserach and everything under the sun funded as well. Watch.
The O&M restoration will stop some bleeding, but the Pentagon still will "owe" $46 Billion from Sequestration no matter how this is sliced. That means readiness is still gutted, hundreds of thousands of furloughs, installations closed, TRICARE for military and families still underfunded, DoD school teachers furloughed (saw that approved just today), and on, and on, and on.
The late "mea culpa" by the Republicans is nothing but an acknowlegement that they sacrificed Defense on the altar with the Faustian bargain of the 2011 Budget Control Agreement.
Isn't it great when the husband who beat his wife last Sunday apologizes on Monday morning when he sobers up? Well, a half apology in this case.
Sequestration has to stop for the DoD. It is a Constitutional enterprise.
The military can, and will cut. It already has. But when North Korea or some other hotspot explodes, our political masters will thrown our volunteer men and women in uniform into the trench in a heartbeat.
Crazy Joe Biden threatened Iran with military force.....this morning! Great Joe. Just great.
You and what Army?
Notice the operative words: "Continues Sequester."
The proposal is only a hopeful bandaid for the gaping wound the GOP allowed to be inflicted on the military.
Not to mention that they Democrats will never allow only DoD to recieve more funds without strings attached to their pet programs.
In other words - more of the same gridlock.
I’m still interested in finding out HOW MUCH CAN BE CUT FROM THE MILITARY.
You and I both agree that there’s a lot of waste going on. So how many percent realistically can we cut from a $680 Billion a year budget assuming we had the political will to do so.
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