Comments on: Obama’s power grab at the Pentagon

By: Bouncy

Bouncy — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:02:47 +0000

What about the trillions of U.S. taxpayer dollars spent bailing out the Eurotrash Socialists for the past 95 years? And for the most part everytime theres a international crises all the pacifists start sniveling for the U.S. military to do something. I would rather give my taxes to the military industrial complex than the welfare industrial complex!

By: IRATESCEPTIC

IRATESCEPTIC — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 10:02:30 +0000

JerryB08, What’s wrong with socialism? It works in Sweden, whose budget balances despite having free and excellent medical services, free education, generous social security and unemployment benefits. Further, there are NO poor in Sweden, unlike the good ole US of A that has 46 million citizens living below the poverty line. Shame on you!

By: IRATESCEPTIC

IRATESCEPTIC — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 10:02:25 +0000

By: kennif

kennif — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 07:30:59 +0000

Not sure where Micheal Hastings and consciouscool are geting their numbers from, but look at the president’s proposed budget for FY 2012. The US Government is planning to spend 6.31% of the budget on interest payments on our national debt (no principal), but plans to take a chainsaw to the 4.16% the military spends on personnel. The military is no longer the biggest budget item, those that think iit is are living in yesteryear (It’s time to come home from Woodstock). It’s just that only 1% of Americans have served in the military and the 99 percenters feel justified in kicking dirt in their faces to preserve their own entitlements. Look at the numbers from the President’s own budget, its a fiscal eye opener, hard to believe we’ll spend more on social security than we will on current military expenditures. Check the numbers at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget)or (WWW.Federalbudget.com) who pull their data directly ( supposedly) from the US Treasury Dept. If we were to look at the President’s own budget we will see he has allocated a total of 9.78% for Veteran care and 19.27% for all other Military expenditures for a total Military outlay of 29.05%. If we were to compare that to entitlements 20.04% social security, 12.88% Medicare, 7.28% medicaid, other health 1.42%, 1.06% health research,Other income Security 5.67%, Food Stamps 2.83%, Earned Income Credit 1.87%, housing assistance 1.59% and 2.34% on education for a total outlay of 54.64% on entitlement programs. Entitlements have almost doubled what we are spending on defense and our elected officials (dems and repubs)continue to ignore the real problem.

By: consciouscool

consciouscool — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:13:15 +0000

The fact is the military has so many civilian employees and venders that are just suckling the governments teat that we can’t afford it anymore. (Remember haliburton charging the govt $10 a gallon of gas in iraq?) So much of our military is contractor supported that now the president has to make a lot of hard choices. He is not swinging an ax at these things, he is trying to strike the best balance of trimming fat to get us where we need to be. Now all those crying of entitlement cost our government spends more than 50% of the budget on the military and entitlements to our veterans for their sacrifice to us. (see pie chart http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piecha rt.htm) 30% on social services which include programs for schools to educate kids and keep them off the street. If we don’t invest in the children we pay the price later on.If we don’t have healthy citizens they can’t produce and work. Why do you think we keep importing scientists from other countries fund them then they ultimately take the knowledge back to their home. Who is going to figure out new tech to keep America on the forefront of innovation if we don’t invest now. It pisses a lot of people off (rightfully so) that no matter what ails them they drag themselves to work while some slacker stays home doing nothing. I say please look at facts before you take it out on the guy who inherited a s#it storm and is trying to turn it around. The Medicare medicaid budget is so small considering. Fact we had a surplus under Clinton, fact we now are in debt because of the following administrations. Entitlements were not a problem then and are not a problem now. The average ceo makes 1000x more than the average employee GE made over a billion yet paid NO taxes, does no one see a problem with that? The real problem is Americans don’t even have a real say in their government anymore yet we can armchair quarteback at the kids who have the balls to stand up and exorcise their right to free speech and are doing something about it. Oh and the job creators can get a tax break after they start doing their jobs and start creating them until then, 30% tax like the rest of us. Fund a smart military, invest in the children, put the slackers to work, healthcare for the ill so they can get back to work. No matter how you slice the government will spend money, they are supossed to not make money create a surplus that get eaten up by the connected few fat cats . Imagine we would’ve privatized Social Security then the bankers wouldve gotten it all. That’s who we should be mad at. Oh one last tid bit, the government lends money to banks at 3% , the banks then put the money in a savings that is 6% in our government, don’t You wish you could do that? So our government is paying the banks to borrow money from them! Thank your lobbyists funded by corporations for that.

By: IRATESCEPTIC

IRATESCEPTIC — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:36:24 +0000

All of you should remember that the mightiest military force that the world has ever seen has been defeated in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iraq by dissidents who had no sophisticated aircraft, smart bombs and guided missiles, drones, tanks, warships, nuclear-powered submarines or aircraft carriers. Ask yourself, “Has 45% of our national budget has been well spent?” Can you honestly reply, “Yes!”

By: Nullcorp

Nullcorp — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:49:02 +0000

From NPR:

“Why does it cost so much? To power an air conditioner at a remote outpost in land-locked Afghanistan, a gallon of fuel has to be shipped into Karachi, Pakistan, then driven 800 miles over 18 days to Afghanistan on roads that are sometimes little more than improved goat trails.”

By: mill543

mill543 — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:11:16 +0000

So mr. hastings thinks continuing down the path of reducing the size of the millitary drastically will make it look less ominous, make future presidents less confident in using it as an invading force (because of course all republican presidents are trigger happy invaders) and therefore we will save a “lot of lives.” hmmm. reduce the size of the forces that protect us. typical socialist dem. always thinking no one will everrr attack us… (because everyone knows THAT never happens) always thinking the army is only used for invasions. always nieve. always shortsighted. the military spends no more than all the BS socialist entitlement programs. you want to know what the difference is? the military is worth it. it matters. giving a fat 60 year old wendys drive thru eater a bunch of pills and free health insurance isnt. people like you will let this country die from being perceived as weak and attacked repeatedly. people like you are too cowardly to see this war on terror through. people like you will risk attack on our homeland to save a buck to give it to acorn. articles like this spread the kind of cowardice message that will be the end of our nation. America will have to spend the money to defend itself in every way neccessary or it will fall. barack hussein obama, our child president is not defending this nation and is crippling it, making it look soft, weak, and going around the world apologizing for it. and people like you put that child in office. you should be ashamed of yourself. he party’s with thugs like jay-z and then goes over to the pentagon and cuts some money from the defense budget, cripples the country even more and then feels good about it. I dont know about you but I didnt spend 25 years in a church that preeched “GD the USA.” I dont know about you but my father was installing marxist republics in africa. all you naieve liberals socialists will be the END of us all. may god have mercy on us.

By: wildbiker

wildbiker — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:31:44 +0000

A couple of observations. The focus on money spent on air conditioning with the implied wastefullness is intentionally sloppy journalism with the agenda of justification of Obama’s cuts. How much of that was for computer rooms, munitions logistics equipment cooling, etc? Versus personnel quarters? Next, the implication that the ‘bad generals’ (are all generals bad in Mr. Hastings’ eyes?) took advantage of an untested and ‘uncomfortable’ Obama to push their agenda (isn’t he supposed to be ‘the smartest guy in the room? how did this happen?) fits right in with Hastings’ view of the imagined adversarial relationship between a commander-in-chief and the general staff. Or does that only come into play with Obama? Or liberal / progressives? Or Democratic presidents? This is pretty transparent propaganda.

By: Gemorace

Gemorace — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:30:31 +0000

There are some expenses that just don’t make any sense. Why keep pouring money on Pakistan or Egypt? Keeping that kind of friends is risky and no matter how much ‘help’ you give them (or not) you will be end as the enemy anyway once this become convenient in their domestic figths. So tune your help to a few bucks that shows your generosity with the population, knowing that no matter how much you give, they will never be a truly reliable ally.