Government to suspend Tuition Assistance for Army

[THRRRPT]

@k3nny1550

There are plenty of places to cut spending, it’s just that no one will for fear of antagonizing one or both parties. Let’s have a look!

• Foreign aid. In some cases this might be justified, but we really should cut or eliminate this aspect of the budget. Particularly in the case of Egypt, because we’re basically giving them millions of dollars to pay for the tanks and aircraft they’re buying from us.

Agreed. You know how much military and financial aid we gave to Israel and Pakistan last year? Around $3 Billion for the one, and 2.5 Billion for the other. Not a bad haul what with one being an international pariah, and the other actively harboring and abetting OBL.

• PMC contracts. There are lots of private contractors supplementing our soldiers in the sandbox. Aside from the public’s reservations about the morality of contractors, we’re already spending billions on an inflated military apparatus, and we can’t field our own fucking helicopters?

Again, agreed. Right now we’ve got warehouses and lots full of tanks, vehicles, helicopters, weaponry, that we’re never going to use. The brass has been calling time and time again to cut the contracts we don’t need, because it’s all going to waste, but Congress isn’t going to do that. They get too much kickback money from contractors like Lockheed-Martin and General Dynamics. How’s that $40 Billion sinkhole that is the F35 program working out again?

• Education. The states with the highest funding in schools (such as California, where I live) actually wind up with the lowest grades on average. Perhaps it’s because of awful tenure laws that keep bad teachers in the classroom, and the ridiculous benefits offered to administrators? (My college was trying to get a new administrator, and they were offering some hotshot from LA a friggin 2 story house, paid for by the school, to live in, in addition to exorbitant pay.) Or perhaps it’s because of many schools constantly having to spend every dime they get to get raises in allotted money for the next year?

Eh…I think you’re wrong on this one. More a matter of what the money goes too than cutting the entire education budget. Teaching has always been an insultingly low-paying job, and in recent years it’s only gotten worse.

• Welfare (Corporate and citizen). Paying huge bonuses to the captains of sinking ships makes no sense. Nor does letting people sit on unemployment for two years before being cut off.

Corporate, yes. Citizen, probably not. I don’t want my taxes going towards some bankster’s golden parachute. Bailouts are a bad idea, ‘Too Big to Fail’ is a damn lie, yadda yadda yadda… Social aid, though? Of all the people I’ve worked with in this city, I haven’t found a single one that comes off as lazy, or a wellfare queen, or whatever the libertarian put-down du jour is. Rather they’re people working three jobs just to keep their heads over the poverty line.

• Salaries and benefits of Congress. Those fuckers can vote themselves raises, and all of the new legislation introduced in Obamacare doesn’t actually affect their health plans. This should give you a pretty good idea of why they didn’t bother reading the bill before passing it. The people elected to Congress should do so because they wish to serve our nation, not because they want a fat check and special interest funding.

Fuck Congress. Seriously. You know for years they’ve had a loophole in the law that makes insider trading legal if a Congressman does it? Right now, it’s corrupt, hopelessly divided, and irrevocably tainted by corporate money.

More as I think of it, but honestly, we should launch a full audit into every dollar this government spends. That way we can figure out exactly where to cut, and what to cut, and hopefully get rid of some of this waste. Also, the Fed should be disallowed from inflating the currency any farther, until such a time as the government actually formulates a solid plan to pay back it’s $16 trillion debt.

Doubt that would get anywhere with this gridlock.

But yeah, this should probably make it’s way back to topic soon, otherwise we’ll have to move these posts to a “Forumites Solve the U.S. Deficit” thread.

On topic…

Well, the Republicans voted for the sequester twice, rejected every compromise that was put on the table, including those they had suggested prior, and now they’re up in arms because the President actually called their bluff? Fuck 'em. They’re like five-year-olds whining that their mothers won’t buy them a new toy.

[k3nny1550]

To be fair, Obama himself was making the sequester’s consequences out to be far worse then they have been so far. But the old guard Republicans like John McCain are just buggering this up by trying to horse-trade. Horse trading creates pork, which merely exacerbates the problem.

[Pyroclase]

@k3nny1550

Horse trading creates pork, which merely exacerbates the problem.

What the fuck does that even mean?

[k3nny1550]

Horse trading = political vote trading.

Pork = sweetening a deal for a political figure by benefiting a state or municipality with special benefits.

[CPU]

[align=center]DON"T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS:[/align]

STATEMENT:

Lt. Col. Tom Alexander, spokesman for the Army’s personnel chief speaking of the announcement, said “This suspension is necessary given the significant budget execution challenges caused by the combined effects of a possible year-long continuing resolution and sequestration.”
SOURCE: ArmyTimes

WHAT HE REALLY MEANS:

We are suspending, not eliminating, tuition assistance. Why? Because by us doing that it will grab the public’s attention and will lead them to begin calling their congressmen to NOT CUT OUR BUDGET! Rather than simply eliminate other OBVIOUS cuts that actually need to be done we’re announcing this in order to manipulate the people to jump on our side!

FINANCIAL EXAMPLE:

Not only does the Army not need new tanks, it doesn’t need to upgrade the ones it has for another few years, Gen. Ray Odierno, chief of staff of the Army, told lawmakers during a March 7 hearing of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. https://www.defensenews.com/article/20120307/DEFREG02/303070011/U-S-Army-Congress-No-New-Tanks-Please
SOURCE: DefenseNews

So, rather than cut this HUGE unnecessary expense we’re going to announce that we’re suspending education expenses which will piss off the general public and lead them to make calls to their representatives thereby protecting our budget. (The tuition expense last year was only $373 million.)

ANOTHER CUT MADE TO PISS YOU OFF::

White House tours have been suspended because of budget concerns:

WHY DO THAT?

So we can piss off the public enough that they will call their congressman in order to end the sequestration.

FINANCIAL EXAMPLE:

The Marine One fleet is the Presidential helicopter fleet. Currently it is composed of 19 helicopters and 24 replacement helicopters are scheduled for replacing them. At $400 million dollars apiece, each new helicopter costs more than the President’s Air Force One Boeing 747. The development contract for replacements has ballooned from an original cost of $6.2 billion to more than $11 billion.

Cutting the White House tours is a yearly savings of less than $4 million and suspending the tuition cost is a yearly savings of just $373 million. That’s equal to less than ONE new Marine One helicopter. Rather than make one less Marine One helicopter they hit the public with the tours announcement because they, like the army, know it will piss the public off.

In each and every case the general public is being manipulated by these announcements simply to piss you off and to convince you to write in forums about it and to jump on their side. It’s not about tours or about tuitions it’s about manipulating you to call your representatives and side with them. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people react to these announcements the same way you did.

Simply put…You reacted to these announcements just the way that they wanted you to. You have been had.

[Idi]

the us provides israel with 8.5 million dollars of military aid every day

[k3nny1550]

@CPU

[align=center]DON"T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS:[/align]
-Snip-

As I said, realpolitik.

[bur]

/thread

[Idi]

the military should unionize