Posted on 02/10/2013 3:40:59 AM PST by SkyPilot
WASHINGTON: Rarely have such pretty slides told such an ugly story. While Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno tries to talk up "The Force of Tomorrow," Army briefing documents obtained today by AOL Defense lay out the near-term impact of sequestration, the Continuing Resolution, and unresolved overseas contingency operations needs: an enormous $18 billion shortfall for the service that will be borne almost entirely by federal workers and military readiness.
You can see the slides by clicking "download this document" (up and to the left) and read the detailed talking points here, but the highlights are harrowing enough:
Training: The Army will have money to fully train only a fraction of its total force: The 82nd Airborne's Global Response Force paratrooper brigade, units in Korea, and troops headed for Afghanistan. Everyone else will cancel everything more elaborate than "squad-level training."
That means the largest Army formations that practice together as a team will be eight-man squads. For comparison, even a football team gets to put 11 players on the field at a time – and as hard as you have to practice to win the Super Bowl, the Baltimore Ravens didn't have to rehearse how to coordinate the actions of thousands of players working as a unit while somebody was trying to kill them.
(Excerpt) Read more at defense.aol.com ...
we’re so screwed
People here on FR think this is a good thing.
I have found that out.
Many, many Freepers are in "Shoot! Fire! Aim!" mode on this. It is both disappointing and amazing at the same time.
We all want the deficit reduced. But breaking faith with our military this way is obscene. They also do not understand that the military is already dealing with almost half a Trillion dollars in cuts over ten years (cuts that began 2 years ago), on top of Sequestration.
The military is hemorrhaging.
I can tell you that America is going to get an education this week. The Joint Chiefs are going to Congress to testify.
I am told that at least one of them is close to putting his stars on the table. The level of frustration and desperation is reaching fever pitch, and Congress and the American people simply do not (yet) care.
Good. Best way to have a government fall is to lose the military. The faster this puss-filled, corrupt dictatorship falls, the better.
I can tell you from personal experience that the Army needs to stand down for 6 months or so every couple of years for “people Maintenance”.
Wrong.
The "Burn it All Down Then!" approach is immoral and is nothing less than a treasonous betrayal of the very best of what is left of America.
Since 911, no facet of American society has given more, suffered greater loneliness and hardship, and worked harder than our military.
Obama is a curse. At least half of the voting population is a secular, rotten mess. But that does not justify breaking faith with our military like this. Nothing does.
A lot of that going on, unfortunately.
US military veteran suicides rise, one dies every 65 minutes
OK. How much more in taxes are you willing to pay to keep this from happening? We either gut the military, gut Medicare, or gut Social Security, increase the deficit, or raise taxes. Those are the options. pick one.
Defund Michelle’s staff. Defund Congress’ staff and get rid of Congress members’ pensions; they’re not doing anything anyway. Defund the DOJ; they’re all in bed with the crooks anyway. Limit Obama’s travel to essentials. Ditch Obamacare and all its extra IRS agents...
They should start with the elements that have won the least trust from the public and go from there...
(Note: I haven’t thought this through. This is just a quick suggestion. The Constitution authorizes certain things for the feds to be doing, and the one thing it MANDATES the feds to do is provide security from invasion. That’s the military. The military should be the one thing left standing after all the other cuts have happened. If we followed this, maybe we would end up in compliance with the 10th Amendment, after all...)
You left one option out. Defense spending is about 19% of discretionary spending but is taking 50% of the hit. Making the cut proportional to spending would help too.
“But breaking faith with our military this way is obscene.”
Sorry, but a $650+ billion military budget that we current have isn’t even remotely necessary for the defense of this nation. They are crying over losing roughly $50 billion of that, still leaving $600 billion for the military.
I wonder how much of that is related to Obama’s regime putting out brochures(?) for wounded military telling them they should ask themselves if it would be better to just die, and spare their families the pain of dealing with long-term disability?
I can’t even say how disgusted I am with what the slimeballs in this regime (and the idiots who put this regime into power the 2nd time; 1st time was deception/coup, the 2nd time was stolen but it couldn’t have happened without enough idiots supporting Obama) have done to our military. It seems like it’s the most selfish bastards in the world taking out the most selfless people in the world, while we all watch. Some of us because we don’t know what else we can do.
We coulda had a country.......
Instead, we have ObamaCommieland and his welfare state.
SOON, WE WILL HAVE NEITHER.
So where else would you make the cuts that would actually save any substantial money? We are not cutting non-discretionary spending like entitlement spending. There is basically nothing left in non-defense discretionary spending to cut that is actually meaningful. It’s the budgetary equivalent of pocket change.
Yep - they paint all government employees with the same broad brush and don't have the brain power to make any distinctions. they espouse conservatism and then suggest liberal "solutions". I can feel for some of them because I have no doubt they are having to deal with unemployment/underemployment and other job issues, but hardship isn't an excuse for dumb.
“People here on FR think this is a good thing.”
Some people wonder why, with a guaranteed $500B budget, the present Defense Department leadership cannot seem to accomplish things that contribute to our defense, such as training soldiers, and deploying aircraft carriers.
DoD budgets are facing a cut of less than 10% per year.
What our DoD leaders are doing is simply lying in hopes of preserving their bureaucracies. They are lying about where our Defense Budget priorities should be, they are cutting high-visibility things so they can pretend that the cuts are worse than they are, and they are exaggerating the real impact of a mere....yes “mere” 10% budget cut.
Since they are bureaucrats first, Americans second, they should be replaced by people who can take $500B and accomplish a reasoned, capable defense of our country and it’s interests.
I suggest there are many aspiring leaders who could accomplish this. The only people we know FOR SURE that cannot accomplish this is the present leadership - so they must go, immediately.
Also, we need Americans who care about the issue of our Defense to also stop repeating the bureaucratic lies.
Rather than focusing on what gets cut, let’s focus on what gets done with $500B in defense spending.
Why do you think the present bureaucrats won’t do this? I’ll tell you - because they’d be exposed for the liars they are.
Gay outreach over combat training, green fuels over much cheaper conventional fuels, police over soldiers....priorities such as that would come glaringly to the surface.
They are lying, and you are repeating the lies.
Stop it.
Unfortunately, I think you're completely correct. I've seen some MASSIVE waste of taxpayer funds over the years. You wouldn't believe how much money is wasted in-theater over in Iraq and Afghanistan. Example: my Brigade Signal Officer took it upon herself to purchase 50+ 7-foot tall server racks for our brigade. Every server in the Brigade wouldn't have filled one of them, let alone 50 of them. They just sat unused in connexes on KAF. And that's just one example of many, many others. This kind of waste is unsustainable, yet, to preserve the nonsense, the brass are going to do what governments do--cut where it hurts first, just to show how unfair it all is, rather than cutting where it needs to be cut.
This is all just a game, and the Soldiers who do their jobs from day to day are going to pay the price for it.
“I have found that out.”
No, you have found that you cannot articulate a coherent argument for what Defense spending should include, instead you parrot the bureaucratic manipulators lies.
“I am told that at least one of them is close to putting his stars on the table. “
Another lie. Not one JCS member will put their stars on the table. Not one senior staffer, not one senior military officer in this budget discussion will quit. Why? because they are bureaucrats first Americans second and they like they position they have, they like to power they wield, and they don’t mind lying to the America they are supposed to defend rather than take the budget they have and articulate an effective plan for the defense of America.
You, at best, are too naive to not parrot the bureaucratic lies.
Really? Those are our only choices? Personally, I would start by gutting the EPA and about a dozen other worthless and or dangerous agencies first. The side benefit would be the return of a robust economy. How about we cut back on the countless muslim outreach programs both at home and abroad? obama wants to give all of the non-military federal employees a raise. There are other places to cut spending without gutting anything that you suggest.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.