Angry Letter to Senate Republicans on Fiscal Cliff

[CuteOldGuy]

This guy is great!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=dLE9DndksEc

[JD Barleycorn]

I will be contacting my senators tomorrow. To give them an ear full and a promise to support a primary challenge with time and money. Roberts is up in 2014.

[CuteOldGuy]

It's time for Roberts to go.

[i'va biggen]

they had to or loose their big military budget.

[JD Barleycorn]

/\ too stupid to live

[essence]

Where does the 40 to 1 come from? I thought debate on spending cuts has been delayed a couple of months. Let's wait and see what the relative amounts are then.

But, obviously, big problems. 600 billion over 10 years is very roughly 60 billion per year which doesn;t make much of a dent in 1.3 trillion annual deficit.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by i'va biggen

they had to or loose their big military budget.

Yep

I have told these Tea Pots to follow the money if they want to quit blowing steam and know what will happen before it actually does.

I have told JD his beloved military is the problem.

They will now turn to SS and Medicare and make adjustments to them to continue with this massive military budget. .

That will just kick the can down the road because they will not have cut military spending by one dime.

It is the exact same thing Reagan did in 1986.

[gnadfly]

They've already counted the 200 billion dollars a year from ending the wars in Iraq and Pakistan. That's what Obama was referring to in his NYE speech when he said they've already cut a trillion dollars. Seriously.

Right Essence, there's some confusion as to what the Cliff was and how steep the fall after Geithner said he found a couple of hundred billion dollars to continue to run the govt and avert the debt limit a few days ago.

So WBC, who is going to make adjustments to Medicare and Medicaid? Your beloved Democrats! Bet you don't even know why.

[Laz]

Originally Posted by essence

Where does the 40 to 1 come from? I thought debate on spending cuts has been delayed a couple of months. Let's wait and see what the relative amounts are then.

But, obviously, big problems. 600 billion over 10 years is very roughly 60 billion per year which doesn;t make much of a dent in 1.3 trillion annual deficit.

For all practical purposes there were no spending cuts in the bill. It just raised taxes. To make it even worse it deferred the spending cuts already scheduled for two months. Since those were preexisting cuts they should not even be counted as part of this bill. This is that so called balanced approach that Obama keeps talking about. It would have been better to go over the cliff.

[Randy4Candy]

Y

[JD Barleycorn]

WTF it seems to be impossible for you to tell the whole truth. Yes, Reagan increased military spending but you neglect to mention that for four years Carter neglected the military and Reagan had to rebuild. That also included a substantial pay raise for the members of the miiltary. Why do you hate military people WTF? Do you want their familes to be on food stamps?

Of course I'm waiting to hear why Obama flew off to Hawaii without SIGNING the bill.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

WTF it seems to be impossible for you to tell the whole truth. Yes, Reagan increased military spending but you neglect to mention that for four years Carter neglected the military and Reagan had to rebuild. That also included a substantial pay raise for the members of the miiltary. Why do you hate military people WTF? Do you want their familes to be on food stamps?

.

I am very wary of the vast military industrial complex. That is a far cry from hating grunts in the military that joined just so they could further their quest for free their education and play with guns.

The people that I really admire in the military are the folks that actually have seen combat, death and destruction. The families that have had to deal with the death of loved ones or have had limbs blown off.

I do not respect people like you that argue against bigger government and yet are not willing to cut one of the biggest expenses in government, Defense.

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

Of course I'm waiting to hear why Obama flew off to Hawaii without SIGNING the bill.

Yea and your still looking for the other shooter on the grassy knoll and your girlfriend is looking for the connection between Obama and the Newtown shooter.

[CJ7]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

WTF it seems to be impossible for you to tell the whole truth. Yes, Reagan increased military spending but you neglect to mention that for four years Carter neglected the military and Reagan had to rebuild. That also included a substantial pay raise for the members of the miiltary. Why do you hate military people WTF? Do you want their familes to be on food stamps?

Of course I'm waiting to hear why Obama flew off to Hawaii without SIGNING the bill.

inform everyone how Carter neglected the military


----------------------

did Cheney neglect the military too ?


Cheney proposed cutting 90 C-17 Air Force cargo transport planes and 14 B-52 bombers. Cheney also sought the retirement of two Navy battleships, two nuclear cruisers, and eight nuclear-powered attack submarines. In 1991, Cheney scrapped the Navy's A-12 Stealth attack plane, a fighter that was proclaimed to be a key part of the future of navy aviation in advanced stealth technology. (Newday, 2/5/91; NY Times, 1/8/91; Boston Globe, 4/27/90; Boston Globe, 1/30/90)

C-17s and B-52s Vital to Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to Defense Daily, "From January through mid-April C-17s in the Central Command's Middle East theater of operations conducted 2,600 missions, carrying more than 23,000 personnel, and more than 73 million pounds of cargo." An analysis by Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies showed that the Air Force B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers dropped nearly two-thirds of the total bombs in the war. (Defense Daily, 5/21/03; Copley News Service, 7/3/03)

Cheney Cut Thousands of Active-Duty, Reserve, and Civilian Forces. In January 1990, Cheney banned the hiring of any new civilian personnel in the Defense Department through the end of September, which left more than 65,000 jobs vacant. Under the budget proposed in 1990, the Pentagon would have reduced active military personnel by 38,000; selected reserves would have fallen by 3,000. The budget called for the deactivation of two Army divisions. Long range, the Pentagon planned to reduce its work force by 300,000, including about 200,000 military personnel and 100,000 civilians. In 1991, he called for reduction of 200,000 active and reserve military personnel over two years. In 1992, Cheney called for cutting 500,000 active-duty people, 200,000 reservists, and 200,000 civilians over five years. (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 2/2/92; Chicago Tribune, 2/20/91; 1990 CQ Almanac, p. 672; Washington Post, 1/13/90; Boston Globe, 1/30/90)

Reserves Being Used at "Unprecedented Rate" in Iraq. National guardsmen and reservists will soon make up 40 percent of the total U.S. force in Iraq. Reservists are being used at "unprecedented rate," according to Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the Army National Guard. Tasked with homeland security missions and combat rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of the part- time soldiers mobilized in the first days after September 11 have yet to be deactivated. An internal Army National Guard survey of 5,000 soldiers in 15 states recently presented a disturbing forecast: The rate at which Army Guard members leave the force after extended deployments could nearly double to 22 percent. (U.S. News & World Report, 2/9/04; Chicago Tribune, 2/9/04)

[LordBeaverbrook]

None of you (especially this guy in the video) seem to understand anything at all about macro-economics and seem to think that the budget of a sovereign currency issuer with a fiat monetary system should be handled the same way a household or business budget it handled (even the accounting/math is different because the private sector doesn't have any currency at all until there is a debt/deficit on the sheet of the currency issuer).

The 40 to 1 figure comes from some manipulated CBO figures. Basically, it would have been a very big tax hike for everyone with NO spending cuts and possible market disruption if a bill had not been passed. Much better deals were offered in the last two months, but the Republicans walked away so unless they wanted to be blamed for going over the cliff, this was their only recourse.

Please, please, please support primary challenges to every Republican who voted for this so we can defeat more hard right Tea Party Republican ignoramuses who won't compromise on anything in 2014 and the Democrats can take back the House and get a 60 vote margin in the Senate for Obama's last two years. Then lots can be done and there will be an end to blocking any initiative that might create jobs because it could make Obama look good. Thanks!

Originally Posted by WTF

I am very wary of the vast military industrial complex. That is a far cry from hating grunts in the military that joined just so they could further for free their education and play with guns.

And you should be as should we all. Defense money pretty much doesn't go to soldiers, it pretty much all goes to defense contractors. Do the math, if we paid each and every active duty soldier $100,000 a year it would only add up to $14 Billion. Yep, only $14 Billion and we don't pay most soldiers near that much so only a tiny few percentage points of the DoD budget pay soldiers, sailors and airmen. Where then does the other $500 to $700 Billion a year go?

The last year for which I've seen figures there were $296 Billion in cost overruns for weapons systems (no soldiers salaries, small arms or ammo, training, veterans benefits, funds to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan or soldier's healthcare in that half) in the DoD budget. that was nearly 50% of $549.6 Billion and that is just the cost overruns and doesn't even include the original funds allocated for purchase!

There are several reasons this figure is so high, but basically it is sloppy waste and corporate welfare for the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned us against. Since there is a revolving door between the contractors building these systems and the DoD people who procure them, no one really wants to get rid of the waste because it provides their salaries once they leave the military or Pentagon. To say cutting $60 Billion or even $160 Billion from the DoD budget (after it has risen 50% since 2002 as well) is foolish ignorance. On top of that, many of these weapons systems were developed from the Cold war and a huge tank battle on the eastern plains of Europe as well as fighting a two front tank war like in WWII and won't be useful for what modern asymmetrical warfare has become, but we keep on buying them and paying for them.

BTW, most of the $1 Trilliion deficits we have been running got triggered automatically when we hit a serious recession in conjunction with tax revenues falling because people were unemployed (it is called automatic counter cyclical spending and includes unemployment insurance, Medicaid, SS, Medicare, Foodstamps and many other programs that pay out when people become unemployed to keep them from starving and dying so quickly) and the deficits will go away when we get people back to work (as well as raising more tax revenue to offset the spending). Our only real problems are unemployment and slow GDP growth. Jeesh folks, get a clue or do you just like being upset about imaginary stuff?

[LordBeaverbrook]

Originally Posted by CJ7

did Cheney neglect the military too ?

Yes, of course he did, so they could privatize most of the military's functions and make billions for the likes of Haliburton and Blackwater. Soldiers can, could and did do most of the "support" work that these companies do for the military at a fraction of the cost. Most of that cost gets funneled to execs, owners and in some cases shareholders (but not employees, though they are paid extremely well compared to soldiers).