Posted on 02/22/2013 6:07:38 AM PST by Kaslin
“Good, unless you consider gutting the military as a bad thing.”
You could protect the country and even engage in a flat-out war for much less than the present budget. The cost of everything is higher because:
1. Purchases are spread like peanut butter across as many Senator’s districts as possible.
2. Defense allocations are on a year to year basis, not for the entire project. This means there’s no investment in automation. Everything is practically a custom make one-off.
3. Contracts require ridiculous set-asides for special interest groups.
4. Contracts require ludicrous “greenness.”
5. Congress wrote laws requiring the taxpayers to pay for attorneys for special interest individuals and groups that feel wronged so they can sue a company without spending their own money or even having a legitimate case.
6. Contracts require ludicrous tests that go WAY beyond reasonable. (Why would you test 200 hammers to destruction?)
7. The military diddles in every phase of the contract thus increasing costs.
8. The military keeps moving the target for their own political reasons. (A fighter plane must now be a bomber, a recognizance platform and a be able to plow 40 acres for planting in 15 seconds.) And, they want all of that demonstrated with the first model. You just went from a five year development effort to 15 years and then it’s obsolete and gets cancelled.
9. Oh, I almost forgot, EOE. You must have a certain percentage of highly compensated black executives and engineers. (I have known some who pulled their weight. But most of the ones I’ve known were there for decoration; sucking up charge numbers and contributing nothing. They usually head up the mandatory “diversity” program.)
The list goes on and on. But nothing will be done to correct these deficiencies because each deficiency has a constituency of its own who will argue loudly and persuasively (the Senator; “money talks.)
I’m all for sequestering presidential vacations and congressional retirement funds.
Technically his employer is the Air Force and that is the way they are going to handle it.
i’ve been for “sequstration” for years, I just didn’t call it that. It is human nature it seems to spend what you make whether it is 20K or 200K and think you need every penny of it.
The sequester cuts are deliberately designed to cause the maximum amount of human pain, which will generate the human interest news stories that will pressure Republicans to cave.
It’s absolutely no different than the tactic PBS trots out every time their budget is threatened: put a gun to Big Birds head and say he’s going to be taken out first, rather than just cutting back on other areas.
If the GOP is smart they’ll have a list of alternative cuts to bloat ready to go, and will summon Obama Admin agency heads up to explain why they’ve chosen to cut in certain areas rather than others.
Senators don’t have districts. They have states.
I can’t wait for the sequester. Working in Baltimore where 49% of the population works for the government, it’s guaranteed to improve traffic.
After losing my private sector job to the Obama/Granholm economy, I have little sympathy for government workers, even friends in responsible government careers in the sequester. Big deal, they get furloughed once a week and have a pay cut.
I was given ten minutes notice that an 18 year career was ended...permanently. I had to move 600 miles away for a new job. I had to live apart from my family for 8 months.
The sequester will ultimately help the country. Bring it on.
Embrace the whole default process. The so-called economy is running mostly on debt and funny money.
I do not understand why a contractor would be subject to such terms, nor do I understand why they would choose to mirror such terms.
The local supervisers have not been able to tell the contractors how the sequester is going to affect them yet. If they have to take the furloughs it will be one day per week for 22 weeks.
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.