Posted on 02/27/2013 4:13:38 PM PST by SkyPilot
Many conservatives and Republicans are greeting the looming sequestration spending cuts with a collective yawn. "The much-ballyhooed 'sequester' is a cut of $85 billion in a nearly $4 trillion federal budget. Good, let’s do it," writes one contributor to National Review Online's symposium on sequestration.
It's true that sequestration is a tiny cut to total federal spending. But it is also true that sequestration is a major cut to defense spending.
According to the House Armed Services Committee, the 2011 Budget Control Act (the law that imposed both spending caps and sequestration) will force the Marine Corps to shrink by 25 percent--from 202,000 Marines to 145,000. What's more, "by the end of calendar year 2013, less than half of our ground units will be trained to the minimum readiness level required for deployment," Marine Corps commandant James Amos testified to Congress this month.
The Army will lose 143,000 soldiers, dropping from an end strength of 569,000 troops to 426,000. According to Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno's congressional testimony, 78 percent of Army units will "significantly curtail training" because of sequestration. The Navy will delay the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. And 800,000 civilian employees working for the Department of Defense will face a 20 percent pay cut. These are just a few of the ways the military will cope with sequestration.
The problem is not simply that sequestration is designed poorly, which it is. The problem is not simply that President Obama is using scare tactics to beat down House Republicans, which he is. The big problem is the sheer size of the Budget Control Act's cuts to defense: roughly $1 trillion over ten years.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
I have never seen anything like the apathy and collective denial among Republicans, Conservatives, and Freepers on such an important issue as this.
Ever.
It is almost like I am living in a parallel universe.
Rush, Hannity, our Republican members of Congress - they have all gone off the deep end. Hundreds of thousands of loyal military members axed. Hundreds of thousands of DoD employees furloughed. A huge drop in the economy because of a 22% drop in military spending last quarter, and the bloodletting is just beginning.
And the reaction of most is.........who cares?
I guess I'll just join the Zombies, deny reality, and watch the horror unfold.
"Another option for Republicans is to call for suspending the sequester in whole or in part. That runs counter to the mantra of many House conservatives that the "only thing worse than defense cuts is no cuts at all." But is that really true? It would be one thing to cut a trillion dollars from the military as part of a plan to avert a debt crisis, as Senator Tom Coburn proposed. But weakening the military without solving the debt problem? Without even making a serious dent in it? What good is that? What will happen to an already-weakened military if and when a debt crisis actually hits?"
Our ONCE FINE MORAL COUNTRY IS DEAD!!!!!!! DEAL WITH IT!!! We willnow have a MAJORITY GAY MILITARY....ALL the DECENT PEOPLE WILL LEAVE.
“I have never seen anything like the apathy and collective denial among Republicans, Conservatives, and Freepers on such an important issue as this.”
If Obama moves against conservative gun owners, which I suspect will happen soon, then I would prefer he do it with a weakened military.
An anti-draft military, treating homosexual buddies and lesbians as married couples with expensive benefits, hiring single moms and families, and with a goal of 50% females, and who are putting females into the combat units, is wasting money, throwing it away, devoting it to waste and social engineering, and self benefit, they aren’t interested in combat readiness.
That makes it very hard for conservatives to find a way to fight what the military is doing to us.
The situation appears hopeless, and money is not going to change it.
Thanks SkyPilot.
The country is catching on to your and Obama’s false spin on sequestration. Even the media is catching on.
My son is swearing in with the Marines next Friday. Why would they be swearing him in if they are cutting their force by such an amount?
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