In case you missed the Bloomberg series on entitlement cuts...

[TPS]

for defense contractors, here's the link. It's a good series and explains that many items are simply make-work programs that help feed the Military-Industrial Complex.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-19/pentagon-budget-stuck-in-last-century-as-warfare-changes.html

[3rdnlng]

for defense contractors, here's the link. It's a good series and explains that many items are simply make-work programs that help feed the Military-Industrial Complex.

http://www.bloomberg...e-changes.html

 

 

If the article can be believed and we are wasting billions of dollars on unwanted programs and equipment, why isn't the Obama administration and Obama specifically taking the lead and proposing cutting those unwanted programs and equipment? Instead, because he doesn't want his own proposed spending cuts he uses scare tactics stating that first responders will be layed off, and makes it sound as if babies won't have milk, grandma will be eating dog food and the mentally ill will put out on the street. Total lack of leadership.

[Azalin]

washington is rife with wasteful spending, and like anything else associated with the federal government, the military has it's fair share of wasteful spending. nobody in charge is truly interested in reducing costs or eliminating redundancy, so just like it is with everything else in the federal budget (when they actually pass a budget), spending will continue to increase while beaurocrats continue to multiply.

[GG]

If the article can be believed and we are wasting billions of dollars on unwanted programs and equipment, why isn't the Obama administration and Obama specifically taking the lead and proposing cutting those unwanted programs and equipment? Instead, because he doesn't want his own proposed spending cuts he uses scare tactics stating that first responders will be layed off, and makes it sound as if babies won't have milk, grandma will be eating dog food and the mentally ill will put out on the street. Total lack of leadership.

 

The article can be believed, but Obama is not going to waste the political opportunity to blame GOP for making planes fall out of the skies and opening up US to a terrorist attack. OTOH, even if Obama wanted to tackle these costs, he'd be blocked by Congressional porkers who don't want to see reduced military spending in their districts. I'm guessing you forgot the whole BRACS fiasco.

[3rdnlng]

The article can be believed, but Obama is not going to waste the political opportunity to blame GOP for making planes fall out of the skies and opening up US to a terrorist attack. OTOH, even if Obama wanted to tackle these costs, he'd be blocked by Congressional porkers who don't want to see reduced military spending in their districts. I'm guessing you forgot the whole BRACS fiasco.

 

My question bordered on the rhetorical and I was looking forward to the spin from TPS. If Obama was a leader he would be making these proposals even if they would be blocked. Then he would at least be on the right side of the issue.

Edited February 27, 2013 by 3rdnlng

[B-Man]

In case you missed the Bloomberg series on entitlement cuts...

 

 

 

Entitlement cuts ???

 

There are no cuts in spending.

 

 

 

.

[VABills]

Of course all these programs that someone in the miltary says they don't need comes from a different branch or division. Pilots don't need or want tanks and heavy armor. Calvary don't think we need more bombers. Special ops don't need new commissaries.

[Wacka]

The $700 hammers and toilet seats are where they hide the funding for top secret things like the stealth fighters when they were under development.

[TakeYouToTasker]

The article can be believed, but Obama is not going to waste the political opportunity to blame GOP for making planes fall out of the skies and opening up US to a terrorist attack. OTOH, even if Obama wanted to tackle these costs, he'd be blocked by Congressional porkers who don't want to see reduced military spending in their districts. I'm guessing you forgot the whole BRACS fiasco.

It's politics rather than leadership; and in politics having the issue is more important than presenting the solution.

[TPS]

 

 

My question bordered on the rhetorical and I was looking forward to the spin from TPS. If Obama was a leader he would be making these proposals even if they would be blocked. Then he would at least be on the right side of the issue.

I didn't know I was appointed the Obama defender. I didn't vote for him.

[Magox]

Jill Stein?

[DC Tom]

The $700 hammers and toilet seats are where they hide the funding for top secret things like the stealth fighters when they were under development.

 

Source: Independence Day

[B-Man]

Source: Independence Day

 

 

Hey, hey, hey, don't you tell him to shut up! You'd all be dead now if it weren't for my David! None of you did anything to prevent this!

[DC Tom]

for defense contractors, here's the link. It's a good series and explains that many items are simply make-work programs that help feed the Military-Industrial Complex.

http://www.bloomberg...e-changes.html

 

Not a good article...but not a bad one, either. Biggest problem with it is that, although it identifies several notable problems with acquisitions (e.g. the LCS, which was dumb from conception. And JSF, which conceptually is absolute lunacy), it does so in an extraordinarily shallow context of "But this isn't what we need!" that misses the bigger point: no one, including the author of the article and the leaders in the Pentagon, has the slightest idea what the military needs.

 

Thus you get such stupidity as planning one airframe that does everything (the JSF replaces the F-16, A-10, F-18, and Harrier, which have such substantially different requirements that cramming them all into one airframe and pretending it'll be cheap is insane), because no one actually knows what they need, because there's no real coherent strategic direction over the next 10 years. The military's mission is so ill-defined ("Operations other than war?" Really?) that acquisitions can't help but be messed up.

[3rdnlng]

Not a good article...but not a bad one, either. Biggest problem with it is that, although it identifies several notable problems with acquisitions (e.g. the LCS, which was dumb from conception. And JSF, which conceptually is absolute lunacy), it does so in an extraordinarily shallow context of "But this isn't what we need!" that misses the bigger point: no one, including the author of the article and the leaders in the Pentagon, has the slightest idea what the military needs.

 

Thus you get such stupidity as planning one airframe that does everything (the JSF replaces the F-16, A-10, F-18, and Harrier, which have such substantially different requirements that cramming them all into one airframe and pretending it'll be cheap is insane), because no one actually knows what they need, because there's no real coherent strategic direction over the next 10 years. The military's mission is so ill-defined ("Operations other than war?" Really?) that acquisitions can't help but be messed up.

 

It's as if you are denying the success of this:

Do-All.bmp