Gates has zero credibility with me.
He has no moral authority to tell anyone about "cuts" or "savings" until he outlines exactly what the cost of open homosexuality endorsed in the military will be.
Believe me, this is going to cost the military millions upon millions. How much will it cost to provide a lesbian Colonel's "partner" housing, medical care, insurance, delta dental, etc?
How much will it cost for this new mandatory "sensitivity training" program he is demanding for all active duty, guard, reserve enlisted and officers? How much will the training program cost in terms of lost man hours? How much will it cost for DoD civilians and contractors? If anyone objects to the training due to religious or moral objections, how much will it cost (in man hours and legal costs) to compel them? How much training will be required for new recruits that will be needed when current military members leave the service early due to the new homosexual policy?
Believe me - the answer to all of the questions from Gates is either a shoulder shrug, or ignoring the questions all together.
Said to me 32 years ago....
“And just think, sergeant! If you re-enlist and stay in for at least 20 years, you can retire with full, free medical and dental benefits for you and your family, for the rest of your lives! Now, we know we can’t pay you much, and frankly, with your skill sets you’d make a lot more money on the outside, but, you see.... The Air Force really needs you. your country needs you! And when you retire, well, that’s when your country will pay you back for any hardship while you’re on active duty. It really is a good deal when you think about it!”
Said me... “Ok. Where do I sign.”
Folks, I know some of us think the military budget should be cut significantly. On a case by case basis, I might sign on to some of it. Here’s what weighs heavily on my mind as I write this.
At the present time, our Navy is smaller than at any time since World War II. At the present time our active military is smaller than it has been since World War II.
At the current time we are operating on a one theater military preparedness structure. Some people site hot spots in Israel, North Korea, areas around China, South America, and other parts of the Middle-East as powder kegs waiting to explode, and this doesn’t even fully address terrorism from Southwest Asia all the way around to Africa, Europe, and the Untied States.
China is arming. Russia is arming. Terrorist groups that have been chummy with Russia since the 1960s are even intent on taking us down.
We have cartels operating on our border, and frankly to be honest inside the United States as well. There are terrorist groups in Central and South America, and nations all the way down the Americas are signing on to a Marxist vent. Not good.
If we maintain things the way they are (or far better yet, were under Reagan) we’re going to ward off adventurism by our worst enemies. Mostly likely we won’t stop it all, but we will scare off some nations that seem to think we’re going to be ripe pickings in a few years.
We saw the Bush administration and now the Obama administration spend like there was no tomorrow. And now they want us to slice and dice our military to make up for it. Anotherwords, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. There won’t be a tomorrow if we do this.
Folks, we have (deficit only) spent five trillion dollars in the last three years. Now they want to slice and dice the military by a hundred billion or so to make up for it. Tell me that isn’t ridiculous, as well as peripherally insane.
If we cut $100 billion a year, in ten years we will have saved enough to make up for 1/5th of the excessive spending executed in the last three years. It’s a paultry sum when you think about it. It won’t make up the deficit. It will make us less than ready for what is ahead.
We can’t afford to cut our Navy further. We can’t afford to cut our armed forces further. We can’t cut our air force further. In fact we have an air force that needs new tools if it’s going to remain functional for another decade and on into the future.
The Leftists on the Left and the Right have savaged our budgets and our economy. Don’t let them fool you into thinking savage cuts in the military will save the day.
All it will do is hasten the night.
Quit the damned bail out funding. Stop paying the two year unemployment today.
Get rid of illegal immigrants. Cut welfare further. Get Social Security on a firm footing. And defund the Leftist groups supported by our tax dollars.
Defund ACORN or whatever it calls itself today.
Defund PBS.
Defund NPR.
Defund the myriad of leftist environmental groups in our nation, who use our tax dollars to turn this into a ecological fruit farm.
Defund the myriad stupid studies that cost us hundreds of millions.
Put people back to work in our nation. Start implementing some sane trade policies, that see equal tariffs placed on goods coming into our nation that the shipping nation charges on our imports to their nation.
There are plenty of places to cut. And yet where is the first place the left and even some of our own look to, to cut? Why the military of course.
No. I’m all for a review designed to make things run more smoothly, but I’m not for a second going to buy into some Leftist pipe dream that we’re all supposed to okay now that the Lefties on both sides of the isle have spent us into a corner.
Defense comes first. Without it, nothing else matters. Nothing!
DoD Budget 2012: Pay and TRICARE
http://militaryadvantage.military.com/2011/01/tricare-fee-outlook-for-2012/?wh=wh
he Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, is making the rounds talking about his proposed FY2012 budget. Although currently light on details, the news seems good for military pay and benefits, but, not-so-good for military retirees who rely on TRICARE.
Military Pay and Benefits — Defense Secretary Gates plans to cut troops in order to cut costs. The troop level cuts are not to start until 2015, but this does reflect Gates’ earlier statements about looking at cutting troops before cutting pay and benefits.
TRICARE – On the other hand, Sec. Gates has stated that he is seeking changes to the military’s TRICARE medical program, noting that fees have not risen since the program replaced CHAMPUS in 1995. He said he is proposing modest increases to fees for working-age military retirees.