Carter Cost Fix Rumors Fly

Carter Cost Fix Rumors Fly

Over the last few hours calls have gone out from the head of Pentagon acquisition to senior defense industry types to stand by for a Monday morning briefing on cost cutting or efficiency measures, setting off a frenzy of speculation and concern. We hear Ash Carter will make a major public announcement about acquisition processes that afternoon.

Industry is mighty worried.

“This is so last minute,” said one industry observer, noting that the Pentagon has shared no information with industry yet. “If this was seen as collaborative effort on how to fix challenges you would see much less anxiety since it would then be predictable.”


Another defense source said “industry “is quite apprehensive about what cumulative impact this may have on profits.”

How concerned should they be? We don’t have much information yet but we hear this marks follow up to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ speech at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas.

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Good Morning Colin,

An early Christmas present for the tax payer, maybe. We can can only hope. I know no fair peeking.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

They should be worried, since most defense contractor profits use the percentage method, any cut to the system or service itself or the associated overhead will result in a lower cost base on which to compute that profit. Once this tightening up starts, both worker bee jobs and senior executive jobs will be lost as a by-product.

Defense News has details — it’s about energy, they claim.

Actually, that would be efficiencies, not energy efficiency.

Byron, Byron, Byron. Why is the prospect of thousands of defense wokers losing jobs in the coming years a present for the tax-payer? Why does everybody else need a bailout besides for those who work in the defense industry? A real present would be the end of this health care debacle and the bailouts to these wall street companies that have continually failed and produce no product.

I swear you have an axe to grind against both the military and defense industry Byron. It is a bit disturbing.

Byron Skinner is one of those many idiots who think ending thousands of jobs saves money…sure,cut the military,cut defense spending to the point where industry closes its doors and moves over seas…well Byron, when all those jobs are gone in an already dead economy, industries like aerospace/defense,automotive, moved over seas, how are you going to make your precious money paying welfare so all those workers can survive?

Byron Skinner…I will say it again,you are an idiot. Better go back to what ever college from under a rock you came from and get a real education into business and defense…

Now…now that I am through venting.…we do waste billions on gee wizz weapons that really have no value. Especially when we have current products in production. With a few upgrades to electronic suites, and weapon system capabilities,we could have new buy weapons at the fraction it would cost developing new and exotic weapons. (case and point…F16 Vs F35)

Just the spectre of “a Monday morning briefing on cost cutting or efficiency measures” is causing folks to get “defensive” and freak out. Just because the Military-Industrial complex wasn’t pre-notified to enable lobbyists to water down any proposals isn’t the end of the world — for those NOT in the M-I. Defense spending is the largest single expense in our budget by far. Much of it is warranted but much is wasteful gold plating and R & D and B.S. in accounting and overhead we really, really don’t need. Much non-value added waste.

I also suspect the worker bees and top dogs IF layoffs come would be ableto find work if the U.S. makes it a priority to wean off oil and back renewable sources of energy. Renewable energy takes technicians, engineers, installers, repair teams, logistics teams etc. etc. Perhaps we can afford the BEST military by far AND the BEST renewable energy sector at the same time.

Perhaps it is worth a try, less waste in DOD and more implementation of renewable energy. Two good strategic 21st century goals.

Unfortunately for Carter, he has a huge credibility problem on these exact issues.

Case in point; He recertifies the F-35 program after Nunn-McCurdy stating that there are no technology problems with the program, all while DOD test is sitting on a report that shows that the STOVL drive shaft on the F-35B isn’t good enough and needs to be re-designed. And well there are other points about the jet that are tech problems too. But that’s OK, Carter went and just lied (in-writing) in his F-35 recert. letter.

Gates cries about the alternate engine for this program but can’t do math and figure out that we are buying $40 + billion in mistake jets before the program is anywhere flight tested enough to make those kinds of decisions in a climate where 41 cents of every dollar in the Fed budget is borrowed money.

And we really need the Littoral Combat Gyp and the gold plated DDX—

Way to go Carter and Gates. You are real super-brains with the taxpayers money.

Good Evening Folks,

The economic reality is, defense spending creates no growth in the economy those “jobs” as the winger head bangers are talking about are nothing more then the redistribution of income. As a late Senator from South Carolina was fond of saying, “…it just throwing money down a rat hole.”

The fact is current defense “jobs” are creating a large national debt. A nation debt of $12 trillion on a $15 trillion economy is not good. The only thing I an say is that in this one case its good that those who calculate GDP are way off in there estimate (the real number fortunately is closer to $22 trillion GDP) and don’t have a clue or the country would be bankrupt.

I would rather see the workers in the defense industries, working on needless projects be employed in jobs that are “real jobs” not just a transfer of funds from my wallet to their wallets that produce economic growth and lower the debt to GDP ratio.

In short much of defense spending is nothing more then (Corporate) welfare. Witch is fine but if we are going to just pitch around money lets give it to the poor and the homeless Veterans, lets provide all Americans with healthcare instead of building useless never to be used defense hardware.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

Really? Lets use the example of a friend of mine who helps produce vehicle and aircraft optical systems in a defense company. He is delivering technologically advanced products to the military and ensure the United States maintains the technological edge over other nations and continues to progress in the field. Yet you say he doesn’t have a real job! You think some person who has never worked a day in his/her life deserves free healthcare while my friend loses his job! You sir, disgust me.

You say that is “redistribution of income”? No that is working to make a living while contributing to the common good of the country. Redistribution of income is seen in all of these social projects Obama keeps pushing and that you evidently support.

Corporate welfare? Those companies are delivering products key to national defense and help ensure America has a strong industrial and technological basis. Note that Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics and other companies that survived the 1990s haven’t bailouts like those seen on Wall Street.

If we are going to pitch around money the first duty of congress and the federal government must be to ensure our national defense. And the products the defense industry produce see plenty of use. Just look around the world today.

You might as well admit you are some far-left moonbat who hates the defense industry and our current military structure rather than pretend to be neutral. I must say, being called a “winger” by you is a great method of determining that I am still sane.

Mr. Skinner sounds like my Grandson, who has his BA and MA in Biology. He still hasn’t figured out who manufactured his lab equipment, who paid for it, and how it got there.

As we all have participated in forms regarding social, politics, military, cultural affairs we always come across the “know it all” with his pretentious script. We feed his ego with our counter points for which the precocious adolescent now an adult either dismisses or fails to acknowledge, pontificates with opinion as truths. For there is no accountability, no consequence for being obnoxious and anonymous. So if you want to continue bearing with his ego, counter the statements hoping to win the argument you have a better chance of winning the lottery.

ALLONS,

vicgilryoy

Bill must work for a defense contractor — there isn’t a wasteful project he hasn’t endorsed. He seems to think that the sole purpose of government is to shovel cash to wasteful defense contractors on no bid contracts.

Lets get this right — the most expensive military in history that can’t beat a bunch of afghan farmers and high school students, and we should throw them more money because hell everyone else is getting bailout.

But who is going to buy all that fail ?

Considering you have badmouthed every project regardless of the role it play’s in our future force structure and believe we should just keep flying F-15s and F-16s until 2050, I hardly think you are in any position to judge me. And when have I stated that I support no-bid contracts?

Ah Oblat, your ignorance never ceases to amaze me. We have been killing these militants for the past 8 years, we beat them in battle constantly. Yet more keep pouring in to join these jihadists and their twisted form of Islam. You’ve got Chechens, Saudis, Syrians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, and even some nutjobs and traitors from Europe and our own country. They don’t have any high schools and Afghanistan is nightmare to establish any sort of competent government with authority in.

Good Morning Folks,

I would go into the economics of defense and national income accounting but I’ve done that before and you right wingnuts just haven’t a clue.

I find it a little, just a little mind you, amusing that the wingnits are coming unscrewed on just a rumor that something might happen.

It would seem that the political right is going back to its toots and distain any educated opinions. Of course that might explain their personal insecurities.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

Are they going to cancel the war on drugs? They want some money to do something real, that seems like a good place to start. We have spent Trillions of dollars on it, killing Millions of people, and drugs are cheaper and easier to get that ever. Lets go ahead and cut that 100+ billion out of the budget for awhile shall we?

The idea the Ash Carter and his boss are somehow going to start saving money, as they continue propping up the worst US fighter program in history to the tune of billions of dollars a year is ludicrous.

Want to save funding? Fire all the other morons in leadership and start with a clean slate at the top. And then take a logical and balanced look at present and future threats/needs, and kill the programs not needed, and support those that are.

Yes the excuse is that we just cant do any better.
I think you’ve been excusing failure so long you don’t even know what success is anymore Bill.

Bill and his friend’s ideal is a Soviet style military economy where they can just name whatever price they want produce whatever under-performing equipment they feel like and never have to answer to customers or competitors.

Do you honestly think you could do better if in charge Oblat? Tell me what you would do differently.

Amazing how you are able to derive what me and my friend want from a single comment. Unfortunately you are totally wrong again but that doesn’t seem to phase you now does it?

Ignoring the opinions of holier-than-thou individuals claiming to be smarter and better educated on an internet comment board seems pretty wise. Maybe people would take you more seriously if you got off your high horse rather than pretended to be some sort of industry insider and expert in everything. And personal insecurities? The left has that area covered.

Good Afternoon Oblat,

You nail ‘em here Oblat. The American Right wingers with their save the jobs line is right out of the Marxist Trade Union manual of the late 19th. early 20th. Centuries.

I can here them singing Joe Hill at a WWW rally. Worker of the World United, build more and bigger arms to conquer the world for Communism.

The American right wing is just the old Marxist line. What we need is ol’ J. Edgar Hoover around. He knew how to deal with this kind of socialists talk, quick trial, found guilty, put on a train to New Your and on a boat going back to where your family came from, if you family had been here for awhile then they were just sent to the Soviet Union where they like a big military and spent a lot on arms.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

I’m glad there are those like ELP who add “common sense” to this whole defense budget. Guys like Carter are pawns in Gates game and NO ONE who works for Gates has the BA_ _ s to speak their mind or bring about any “common sense”. America we are in serious trouble if people in power believe that the defense industry workers are driving up the national debt. Lets look at all the social programs and other checks we are mailing out before we start ending productive defense contracts that preserve our national security, keep leading edge technologies in development and maintain critical skills we keep loosing to China, India, Poland and Mexico.

Byron this alternate reality you live in must be fascinating. Your actually claiming the right is a bunch of unionized socialists because we support maintaining defense jobs and the military over Obamacare, foolish bailouts, and teachers union bonuses. And then despite how you liberals always claim to be favor of free speech, you suggest shipping us conservatives out of the country? How can your brain not register the amount of hypocrisy in your own words?

Just admit it it Byron. You are one of those lefties who wants to leave our military little more than a glorified national police force, and have even more of our industrial and technological base leave the country.

Do you do anything but read Wikipedia and post to DoD Buzz? I have yet to see anything in any of your posts that’s deeper than a high-school history class could produce.

“It would seem that the political right is going back to its toots and distain any educated opinions.”

I’m not sure what you French-wannabes do up there in Quebec, but I haven’t gone back to my “toots” since I was potty-trained at sixteen months.

I love how people keep saying “wean off oil”, like we’re children sucking tits or something. Even if we all switched over to battery cars tomorrow we’d still need petroleum products–unless you want your iPhone to be made out of bricks or something.

Opine
A DOD Budget call to “Industry”?

You can D… well bet this will cause a Logistics, Accountants, and Fiscal guys a weekend of angst. DOD on the phone, given the Leftist Czar led Agencies, with the new SEC Regs bit in thier mouths, bodes nothing but ill winds and trailing seas for “Industry“
end
Semper Fi

The American right wing is just the old Marxist line. What we need is ol’ J. Edgar Hoover around. He knew how to deal with this kind of socialists talk, quick trial, found guilty, put on a train to New Your and on a boat going back to where your family came from, if you family had been here for awhile then they were just sent to the Soviet Union where they like a big military and spent a lot on arms.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Mr Skinner. You need to read the text “Masters of Deceit” J. Edgar Hoover. circa 1953/54. Your facts are totaly in error. Marxist line = Right wing rhetoric? Even a newly minted Leftist Liberal of the current generation knows better than that. I recc you read “Come Nineveha, Come Tyre” better yet, the Teddy Roosevelt Progressive speechs of his failed Presidential bid in the early 20th century elections.
You definetly need to update your rehetoric with at least some evidence of knowledge.
end
Semper FI
We,the USA Electorate, Will Prevail

all you guys like byron that do notlike military and defense spending need to learn mandarin chinese.

Y’all are gonna need to learn Mandarin so that you’ll be able to understand the fine print on the eviction notices.

BTW, I hear your new landlord is coming over so superintendent Obama can give him a guided tour of PRC Inc’s latest real estate acquisition…

Deputy Secy Lynn has said that two-thirds of the $100 billion to be saved over FY 2012–2016 is to come from “overhead” reductions AND (importantly) that the Services will be instructed/encouraged to transfer the money associated with the overhead reductions into their modernization accounts — so that the latter can continue to be funded at 2–3 percent (vice only 1 percent) growth above inflation over the FY 2012–2016 period. That suggests that what defense contractors are likely to hear from Mr. Carter tomorrow is NOT that they need to be worried about cuts to the modernization accounts. Rather, they need to be prepared to see reductions in the contracts they are getting that are funded by O&M appropriations — e.g., the big, “business-IT-systems” contracts — that have been an increasingly important source of revenue for the defense industry over the last 20 years.

The US investment in defense spending since Ike (remember, Truman ramped the military down too fast & enabled Stalinist aggression) has served the world well. The world has know unprecedented peace & prosperity in the last 50 years (the rise of China, India, Brazil, Turkey and recovery of Europe), enabled by stability created by a strong US military. Bywrong’s inputs are almost always poorly informed & tinged with anti-American bias; however, a stopped clock is right twice per day. The strategy of “rebalancing” US military to emphasize IW is a prescription for a “death of a 1000 cuts”. We must invest to dominate high end warfighting & adjust our strategy to accommodate GWOT. GWOT can best be fought with covert action, alliances, a real energy plan (vice cap & tax), controlling our borders, a coherent immigration policy & return capitalism to federal policy to rekindle our economic engine. Bywrong’s objection was correct; but his conclusion was silly.

Maybe you haven’t noticed the statistics but so far there is NO “renewable energy” that is cost effective. They are ALL red number produced kilowatts. We will need petroleum based fuels for decades until we can find a profitable way to produce “renewable energy” and replace all the petroleum products with another substance that will eventually be found to cost the environment too much to continue to use.

Has Lynn or anyone else in the puzzle palace actually stated what those “overhead” savings are going to be or is it fanciful planning? Cutting $100 billion in a 4 year period is a big enough figure to easily pinpoint in the budget — unless Lynn and Carter pull their numbers from the same place Gates gets his F136 facts.

“Defense spending is the largest single expense in our budget by far.”

Not true at all. Social Security and Medicare are. With Health Care coming in to add trillions more. Our welfare state is what is sending our costs through the roof. Don’t believe me? You are Welcome to read the monthly US Treasury statements as I do.
http://​www​.fms​.treas​.gov/​m​t​s​/​m​t​s​0​5​1​0​.​pdf

He does not give a crap, frankly. It will give him more to write about. Wake the hey up America, before it is too late.

There are a number of aspects not looked at here. truth be known — when Carter and Clinton started closing Government owned manufacturing facilities cost skyrocketed. Take for example Lake City Army ammunition Plant — because the facility and equipment belongs to the government the ammo comes out of there 50% cheaper than what can be purchased from contractor facilities. the same holds true for facilities in VA, PA, IL, NJ, and so on. Also when these facilities closed thousands of people lost the only source of income in the area, lost all they had or became welfare recipiants. Outsourcing of equipment has hurt more than it has actualy helped. The military needs to actualy rebuild its industrial base even if we continue to use contractors to run them, facilities for ships, vehicles, aircraft, small arms, ammo, explosvies, clothing, etc. on

CONTINUED: govt property with govt equipment will reduce cost of the overall product greatly and produce more jobs for the public. The military engineers and techs at these facilities need to be doing r&d inhouse to proof new designs and not asking industry to do it for them in order to have a better ideal of a platforms capability and future adaptability. At one point we could reproduce any repair part in house in a matter of days in our own facilities where no propriatary designs were allowed rather than having to draw up new contracts for spare parts or go through various contractors. We need to get back to this type of operations before we can actualy reduce cost and regaing control over contractors.

The Services and Agencies have been instructed to identify the overhead activities of interest in their FY 2012 POM/BES submissions due to OSD on July 30. The “pinpointing” of overhead that you would like to see “in the budget ” will be reflected in differences (in fiscal years 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015) between POM 2011–2015 and POM 2012–2016.

You’re half right,99% will be worker bees.……you can’t lobby congress that you’re losing VP jobs. :-)

EDUCATION = Not called for by US Constitution = not federal responsibility

I believe it is the parents’ job to educate and train their children, and in the best interest of local community to help them do so.

In US, education primarily state and local responsibility… ~$1.1 trillion spent nationwide on education at all levels 2009–2010… elementary+secondary ~89.5 % of funds come from non-fed.…

DEFENSE = called for by US Constitution (Preamble & Art. 1, Sect 8)

Current spending ~$1T per year for defense = ~6.5% of GDP on total DoD & related funding

PREAMBLE: We the People …provide for the common defence…
ART 1, SECT 8: Congress had the power… To declare war … raise and support armies… provide and maintain a navy…provide for the militia…

NOTE: Much more of federal budget going to entitlement programs than anything else.

ANYONE could do a better job than these guys. In all my life I don’t know of a more dysfunctional grabasstic group than these Senior Military Officials. Exactly WHAT do you think they’ve gotten right?

yeah, and so do you Mike. All you guys who love unaccountable and wasteful spending will need to communicate with our creditors in Bejing.

Women’s right to vote, not called for by the Constitution. Equal rights for African Americans, not called for by the Constitution. Personal IncomeTaxes.…..etc, etc, etc. What’s your incoherent Point? I really wish they taught history when you were in school. The Constitution is a LIVING DOCUMENT. It isn’t the Bible.

The founding fathers meant the Constitution as a starting point, and left room for our leaders to change the change it and our laws to reflect the times in which we live. Quoting what was written in 1787 is nice, but shows your lack of understanding. BTW, providing for the Defense meant raising an Army from time to time constructed of Militia.….NOT keeping close to 1 million people in uniform while building an armed forces 5x the size of any threat.

yeah but by golly they sure go ape over the welfare of the people portion dont they. Only they have come up with new definitions of welfare that were not even concieved of when the constitution was written and changed it from welfare of the people to welfare for the people. A lot of whom are not even citizens which the constitution is meant for.

Years ago I found out that the Pentagon supports about one-third of all basic research at U.S. colleges and universities, and that much of those research grants for grad students is paid by Uncle Sam.

The first act in cutting wasteful DoD spending is to get rid of micro soft project so that power point briefngs can stop. Second act would be to ban travel and require Dod officials to vidoe conference, third act would be to end the IPTs, government reviews in contractor facilities until the testing is required by government, forth is to rack and stack all of the trillion dollar inventory and see how many redundant programs can be merged into a selct few, fifth, stop the revolving door of military and civilian workers and defense workers from getting double and triple salaries. AND tlet’s take these billions of taxpayers dollars and give tax breaks so that we America patriots can create privqate jobs and rebuild america and we will put the defense workers to work building value added items, instead of wasteful non used junk and pwoer points. A 30 year vetern of DOD acquisition who knows this stuff and has seen it all, waste, waste, incompentence, waste, etc.…

Interesting concept, Boomer. I like the idea of using GOCO to maintain the defense industrial base, rather than eliminating them as a cost reduction initiative. I’m a big supporter of the need to get more kids into our science, technology, engineering and manufacturing pipeline. Our business leaders have given it all away to foreigners and foreign companies in their make-more-money-for-themselves-at-the-cost-of-the American-worker business model. We need to bring it back to the U.S. Combining an education pipeline and a GOCO business model would keep our national defense strong.

I’m in total agreement with you. I got into an argument recently with my higher ups asking them why we are giving a 36 million dollar contract to overseas corps for making 7.62X39 ammo when we could build it for a fraction of the cost with better quality right in our own factory where we made it for a number of years, of course they did not listen as usual. I also agree with you on getting our kids trained and in our production pipeline, I have often thought that if our education system was revamped to add 4 more years to it (elm, mid, interm, jr high then high school). With the last four years being directed at providing training for journeyman training, IT, paramedics, law enforcemnt, fire fighting and so on. This way our children would leave school with training for the work force, be better educated, not have to go to a university, and be off the streets for an additional 4 years, and that it be mandatory or you can never get a drivers license until completed. Some of these courses could be arranged so that they count towards higher ed such as science — technoligy — medical — etc.

We will do everything our power except what makes the most sense. Why should we keep spending on war war war. After every other war we cut our military size and expenses. What about the users who are locked up that we spend 50,000 a year on. It would be much cheaper to just give the drug addicts welfare then to put them in prison for no reason really. Lets save the prisons for the real criminals.

The point of all of this is that we need to cut, no one can have it all but some in here think we should. Cutting welfare is going to nothing but get you more crime. I am not for welfare, but come on you have to through it a bone, or it might bite back. I for one don’t want our country to slip to a third world status. Our inner cities are already about as bad as the war zones we are fighting in, it should not be like that in the richest country in the world. Some seem to think that history is wrong and this time during the recession we should just keep it going. Cutting the war on drugs would save us countless billions.

You guys are so worried about not giving out handouts that you don’t realize your comments and actions are inhumane. It seems some in this world prefer war over peace. You would rather see kids starving in the street then to cut raptors. That is just wacko and you need to do a self evaluation.

30 July — will that be an actual document that we can pick apart here?

Four extra years of education, some of which is gonna involve very pricey hands-on training , if it’s gonna actually accomplish something. Which means a lot of extra money is gonna have to come from somewhere.

Guess you could start by getting rid of the bomber part of the triad. And that redundant Marine Corps…

JL

Actualy a lalarge portion of it could provide additional income if done correctly, i.e. paint and body shop, electronics repair, home remodel — electrical — plumbing, computer repair and so on that they could charge fees for while learning and providing a service to the community at the same time. The American education system is broken severly, not only have they redone history into fiction I was amazed at how different it is from one part of the country to the next, my daughter is now repeating what she had already learned four years earlier in another part of the country, its not right and one reason why we are starting to fall behind other countries.

Don’t forget that other element of the constitution that actually connected congress with private industry during wartime, or during peace time. Letters of Marque and Reprisal.

‘To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water’

I hope everything works out with this knew plan. We need to find ways to reduce the costs of the weapons that we are buying so we can continue buying them in large enough numbers. The Chinese may not be able to beat us with quality weapons but they sure can beat us with a large quantity of less capable weapons.

The complexity of weapons have drastically increased but nothing has been done to deal with the corresponding huge cost increases that have come with this. I am not saying dumb down the weapons but may be we should look at how they are manufactured, contracts and other things that go into the cost of the weapons (ex labor costs).

There are a number of things the government needs to look at better that we have to pay the tab for, Man hour labor and annual cost of living is considered into 95% of the contracts for overall cost, but in fact most of the contractors are pocketing the annual pay increase that is not passed onto the employees. Plus a lot of the contractors are shut down from the week prior to thanksgiving till the second week of January, plus other holidays (fed & state) but we still flip the bill for thier thier holiday. contractors also charge us for storage of completed assests — this is really stupid when a lot of the time the items are being stored at government owned locations and not the contractors. Transportation is another area we take it in the shorts, especialy if its ammo or explosives where the cost quadruples per mile. we should be providing our own transportation, it’s not like we dont have enough people or equipment lying around waiting to be used other than just on post. There are a lot os simple solutions that could benefit us.

the strength and size of the Armed Forces provides the Strategic Deterrent that secures YOUR FREEDOM. That is, THEY are what prevents the globe from going up in smoke, and should all Hell break loose, we will be much better off positioned than if we had to rely on Militia to do the jobs that can only be done by Professional Military. And as far as 1 million people in uniform, there are billions of potential terrorists, it only takes 1 to set off a WMD that would end your life rather quickly. 1 million of the bravest men and women are OUTNUMBERED.

I’m not suggesting we go back to minutemen, so relax. I’m simply pointing out that KPZ has flawed logic, and an even worse understanding of consitutional law.

As to your second point.…..I don’t understand what it is. A military isn’t our main protecting from terrorism. That’s a host of civilian/intelligence/law enforcement agencies jobs. (CIA/FBI/INS/ICE/etc/etc) The military has tangental roles (like operating radar, etc.) but equating number of Joes to number of Terrorists doesn’t wash. I could triple the Marine Corps and Army, but that wouldn’t have stopped 9/11.….…and if we did it tomorrow explain exactly how the hell that would stop someone sneaking in bombs on a cargo ship. (that would be the job of DHS/Coast Guard.…..neither of whom are in the Constitution either)

Well said Champ. We have every branch of the service researching air defense, small arms, etc; all while running SEPERATE “joint” task forces who no one listens to. It’s frustrating to watch and unbelievebly expensive.

Is this “Byron Skinner” even a real person? Reading his posts I get the impression he’s just out trolling to piss people off. It boggles the mind that anybody might actually think like that.

Uh, maybe because the F-16 would get it’s ass handed to it if it ever had to be used against a near peer. Maybe because the F-35 is suppose to be the front line aircraft for the next 40 years. I swear, I read comments like yours there and I don’t have the words. Why the hell do you think we aren’t still flying P-51s or F-4s for gods sake?

Hate to break it to you but “common sense” and “ELP” have never met when it comes to fighter aircraft. Ask him to provide a *viable* alternative to the F-35 and all one ever gets is a vague house of cards for an answer.

Good question, TMB. Unfortunately, POM and BES submissions are not made publicly available either in print or on the web, so Buzzers won’t able to check the details for themselves until the President’s Budget for FY 2012 comes out in February. (POMs — which include the next four years in addition to the budget year — are never made public.) Secy Gates and Deputy Secy Lynn will see the details on July 30, however, so if the Services and Agencies don’t rise to the occasion, buzzers will probably hear about it, because the shouting will probably be louder than usual at the POM reviews.

Very deluded. You give the US far too much credit for what peace existed in the world. Unprecedented peace? Do you realize how many wars and proxy wars the US alone has been involved in the last 50 years let alone Kennedy bringing us to the brink of nuclear annihilation? Go do some reading. And your wrong about this point, the 200 years after Augustus was the longest period of peace humanity has known, particularly the period of the five good emperors.

Ok this is off the subject but it was brought up by some of you and it urks me to hear folks be so liberal about it. WAR ON DRUGS is it expensive yes, why because of bleeding heart liberals. Can we stop it 100% no there will always be someone willing to take a chance, can we make a big dent in it yes by manning up — I dont mean by hiring more men I mean grow a backbone and act like a man instead of cowering. rather than paying 4,500 a day over and over again to keep these folks locked up and suposedly rehabed we kill them, yup if your caught trafficiking, harvesting, manufacturing, or soliciting illegal narcotics it is a death sentence with no bargaining period, the same for murder, armed assault (robbery & rape), and child molestation. and carried out within 90 days.

CONTINUED: It will make people think more than twice and save trillions of dollars and we wont have to let criminals back on our streets because of overcrowded prisons, we also need to take all the TV’s — gyms — schools — books — and congical visits away as well and make prisons so strict and confined that no one wants to go there. So in part you had a good ideal, but make it legal or release them no way. My way you only spend money on them once rather than multiple times, drug trade will go back into the closet and no longer be main stream and money will be saved by the truck load to be spent on defense and education. aND IF THEY ARE WORRIED ABOUT GETTING SOMEONE TO CARRY OUT THE SENTENCING THEY CAN E MAIL ME AND I’LL SAVE THEM EVEN MORE MONEY AND PROVIDE MY OWN WEAPON AND AMMO, I HAVE NO PITTY OR REMORSE FOR THOSE THAT PREY ON OUR CHILDREN.

So we let those who refuse to work live beyond their means? that is no basis for running a country. And I would gladly have more F-22s than pay for welfare beyond that which enables and helps a person to find a job.

As we all have participated in forms regarding social, political, military, cultural affairs we always come across the “know it all” with his pretentious script. We feed his ego with our counter points for which the precocious adolescent now an adult either dismisses or fails to acknowledge, pontificates with opinion as truths. For there is no accountability, no consequence for being obnoxious and anonymous. So if you want to continue bearing with his ego, continue to debate hoping to win the argument you have a better chance of winning the lottery.

ALLONS (translated: I’M FULL OF MYSELF)
vicgilroy

Good Afternoon Folks,
It’s fun to check in occasionally and note that the Skinner robot has not been reprogrammed for some time and is still spewing out the old saws about production of weapons being redistribution while apparently viewing all other government spending as being productive. However Gonzo says it, straight forward, upside down, sideways, you name it, his consistency in being as incorrect as he is inept in his miswording or spelling is a joy to behold. We’re going back to our “toots” to disdain any educated opinions? Seen any lately guys?

77705256 Hooorah! “…shorten our tail and sharpen our teeth…“
My M16A3 converts to …22 cal… or Beowolf .50 cal… no sweat my sidearm is proven and my long guns .308 and .338 Lapua are all I need to be… Still think war paint and scalping the enemy is the only way to go!

SF… Rangers… Marines… USA should and must be support, control and give command to those whom get the job done best! It is still kill or be killed, not — let us talk, compromise and forgive or I will have to be mean…
Give it a rest just “Get the job done now!”

Read more: http://​www​.dodbuzz​.com/​2​0​1​0​/​0​6​/​3​0​/​m​a​r​i​n​e​-​d​o​c​-​s​ays…

Arguing that one kind of corporate welfare over another is an improvement, is like debating the merits of Gonorrhea over Syphillis. I’ve worked in defense industries over half my career and witnessed first hand the waste, but have also seen the technology growth and benefits that filter down to other sectors.

There is a fundamental difference between defense spending and social spending. It is the concept of wealth creation, that eludes most socialists. Service industries consume wealth (although benefits are provided). The wealth creating industries (mining, manufacturing, argriculture, etc.) take raw materials worth pennies and transform them into products that are worth $millions. This economic activity generates new excess wealth which can then be spent on services.

A welfare check or a paycheck?

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