Posted on 02/24/2013 7:54:16 AM PST by vbmoneyspender
But perhaps the biggest example of the Washington Monument maneuver is coming from the Defense Department, where it goes by another name. Over many decades of defense budget battles, the Pentagon has often used a tactic known as a "gold watch." It means to answer a budget cut proposal by selecting for elimination a program so important and valued -- a gold watch -- that Pentagon chiefs know political leaders will restore funding rather than go through with the cut.
So now, with sequestration approaching, the Pentagon has announced that the possibility of budget cuts has forced the Navy to delay deployment of the carrier USS Harry S. Truman to the Persian Gulf. With tensions with Iran as high as they've ever been, that would leave the U.S. with just one carrier, instead of the preferred two, in that deeply troubled region.
"Already, the threat of these cuts has forced the Navy to delay an aircraft carrier that was supposed to deploy to the Persian Gulf," Obama said at a White House appearance on Tuesday, in case anyone missed the news.
Some military analysts were immediately suspicious. "A total gold watch," said one retired general officer who asked not to be named. Military commentator and retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters called the Navy's move "ostentatious," comparing it to "Donald Trump claiming he can't afford a cab."
And Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a Marine veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, is worried not only about the Truman decision but also the Navy's announcement that it cannot afford to refuel another carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln. "I am concerned that these decisions are being made for the purpose of adding drama to the sequestration debate," Hunter wrote in a Feb. 12 letter to the Pentagon, "given the continuation of other programs that are worthy of cost-cuts or even elimination."
Lol, man that is foolish, but to be expected from someone who supports the lefty goal of making the military more female.
Here are the 'crap' sites I am linking to and deriving my lying numbers from:
http://www.defense.gov
http://www.cbo.gov
“It cannot touch military pay, so it will have to gut Operations and Maintenance (O&M).”
All types of accounts are being cut the same amount. Only Military Pay and Wounded Warrior activities are exempt. The damage in O&M is especially hard since the political appointees failed to plan for these cuts by reducing spending rates.
Now these same political leaders are unnecessarily furloughing some defense employees.
This two things, a failure to plan and unnecessary furloughs, are designed to cause the biggest possible train wreck to maximize the pressure on Congress to raise taxes.
I know those sites - they speak towards budgets. All budgets have to project increases and adjust for inflation.
Did you ever hear of the term? Do you realize that the Department of Defense has to pay for things such as fuel?
How is the cost of that doing lately?
You are a fool. As many here on FR are. I have arrived at this epiphany only as of late, and it is amusing and distressing at the same time.
Did you serve in the US military?
I linked to the United States Department of Defense’s site. The numbers I posted are their numbers and they are not projections. The numbers are what the United States Department of Defense actually spent.
You have to be kidding me.
You sound like the wife beaters on the House Armed Services Committee that went after the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter.
First of all, BOTH political parties told the DoD that Sequestration would not happen. Do you want to Google that DugwayDuke?
Next, if the DoD had "planned" for it, Congress would have assumed it was not painless. Moreover, to the point, Congress itself said that Sequestration was painful - THAT WAS THE POINT of it all!
Now, because of Entitlement greed, this nation is about to betray the US military, and those who have given the most will endure the most pain. Everything will be affected, from health care to the troops to training and operations.
Did you? You claim to have been a United States Marine but people don't believe you.
Wow.
A Marine?
Thanks for the compliment, but I never said that here. Ever.
I am a retired Air Force officer. I was a pilot. Want to seem my medals?
I have plenty of them.
They don't mean that much. My only honor in life is being a child for Jesus Christ.
You went through Marine Corp basic training, how did you not become a marine?
It was a ‘failure to plan’. The fact that some members of both parties told someone that it would not happen does not justify a failure to follow the law and that law was quite explicit. Congress, not just a few members, said there would be a sequester when it passed the law.
“Do you want to Google that DugwayDuke?” If you were to follow your own advice and do a bit of googling, you might find that this sequestration was envisioned in 2011. Part of that budget deal said that sequestration would occur unless a ‘super committee’ found approximately $1T in cuts. That ‘super committee’ failed in 2011. IOW, this sequestration has been ‘baked in the cake’ for at least one if not two years. Claiming that someone told me it wouldn’t happen is no defense.
“Next, if the DoD had “planned” for it, Congress would have assumed it was not painless. Moreover, to the point, Congress itself said that Sequestration was painful - THAT WAS THE POINT of it all!”
Horsehockey. The only reason to forgo planning was the fact that such planning was inconsistent with the prospects for Obama’s re-election. It’s part of the official record that Panetta forbade planning until Obama was re-elected.
When Congress passes a law, DoD has no recourse but to follow the law. If DoD had planned for this, then there would have been time to reallocate funding between the various accounts.
Also, DoD is guilty of what you’re accusing Congress of doing, namely indefensible and unnecessary across the board cuts it is imposing upon itself.
BS.
You keep telling yourself that DugwayDuke. I might assuage your guilty conscious.
Joint Chiefs warn budget issues could create ‘hollow force’
This nightmare is going to cause a massive cut to Operations and Maintenance in the middle of a fiscal year, and then there are 9 more years of this - which are nothing more than a blunt knife to the US military.
Yes, this garbage has been in the fix since 2011 - even Obama the homosexual Marxist said it would not happen! Romney said it would not happen. It was envisioned to be so deep and so bad that it would not happen. Do you know what? Because of our horrible "leaders" in both parties who are such cowards that they cannot even make small adjustments to Entitlement spending for the takers of this country - it is going to happen.
We are going to punish the noble, and reward the takers.
Bake that into your cake.
I was an Air Force pilot and officer.
What is so hard to understand about that?
I was confusing you with SkyDancer.
SkyDancer is the Ex-Marine, super pilot, who is always promoting feminizing the military.
I bet you have been really baffled by my posts, sorry about that.
I’m not saying these cuts are acceptable or that they should happen. I am saying that for political reasons, this administration is making them hurt more than is necessary for it’s own political purposes.
Shoot, though, SkyPilot, many of us see the spending (certainly not just military, or perhaps not military spending at all, if you are correct) going onward and upward forever...
And we all know what will happen then: a collapse of the system, of laws, of reasonable governance, and certainly a complete collapse of our great and good military as we know it today.
How DO we make any of the cuts we need to make?
It was that whacked out, ridiculous statement which made me think of a weirdo whack case.
What a bizarre pathetic, statement, and the rest of your trollish anti-freeper stuff didn't help.
No wonder the modern officer corp is destroying the military and is responsible for so much corruption and waste and self service.
Reform Entitlements. They are 63% of all Federal spending.
You cannot balance the budget by exempting Entitlements (which sequestration does), but attacks the military (which is Constitutional by the way) with 50% of the cuts.
That is the "forumla" for sequestration.
Really?
Sequestration is such a bad idea, that in the past 6 months Boehner, Romney, Ryan, and even Obama has said as much.
But it is going to be enacted because no one has the stones to tell the "takers" in this nation they have to accept less.
If you want to know what corruption and waste is - look at entitlements.
No worries.
You are one sick and confused puppy, our officer corp must have really become degraded since my time in the military.
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