Comments on: Vice Chair Cartwright Tells Services to Wake Up to Reality of Smaller Budgets

By: SMSgt Mac

SMSgt Mac — Sun, 16 May 2010 23:39:21 +0000

I believe the NEA reference is was what is commonly known an an ‘illustrative example’. (at least that’s the way I took it)

I’ll add another: ‘Obamacare’. Do the math on that.. then do the cost-benefit analysis and DO get back to us.

By: DualityOfMan

DualityOfMan — Sun, 16 May 2010 18:57:43 +0000

We give $25 billion in foreign aid. The defense budget is almost $700 billion.

Check your numbers next time.

By: DualityOfMan

DualityOfMan — Sun, 16 May 2010 18:54:32 +0000

Rumsfeld was a terrible SecDef. He mismanaged the Iraq War and was more interested in enriching defense contractors than actually protecting the US.

By: DualityOfMan

DualityOfMan — Sun, 16 May 2010 18:50:06 +0000

NEA: less than $140 million
Defense: about $600 billion, with
Yep, the defense budget is more than 4,000x the NEA budget.
The NEA budget is less than the cost of one F-22.
Stop whining.

By: Bert

Bert — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:42:02 +0000

What we can afford:

- Health care entitlements
–Social Security
–Medicare
–Medicaid
–The NEA
–Foreign aid
–Buildings named after Congressmen
–Expensive liquor for State.
–Airports named after Congressmen
–Housing entitlements
–Unemployment welfare

What we can’t afford:

–Fighters for the military
–Ships for the military

Yesiree, Washington sure has its priorities straight.

By: Bert

Bert — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:37:35 +0000

We can’t afford the military we need, but we can afford never-ending entitlement programs and countless pork barrel spending projects.

Let’s fund the National Endowment for the Arts but not the Pentagon.

Thanks, Obama. Good to see your priorities are in order.

By: DualityOfMan

DualityOfMan — Sun, 16 May 2010 02:26:12 +0000

No, of course I’m not serious about cutting the VA.

I am serious about military spending being pork. From domestic bases to procurement, congressional districts seem to matter more than military usefulness.

By: APATRIOT

APATRIOT — Sat, 15 May 2010 09:26:17 +0000

Really? Are you serious? I will admit certain projects are not necessary and conducted to protect congressional seats, but We always need to take care of our veterans. Thre are 3 groups of people we need to take care of, the elderly, the children, and the veterans. Anyone else needs to get up and take care of themselves.

By: michael a ma

michael a ma — Sat, 15 May 2010 09:09:23 +0000

The biggest mistake by the Bush Administration was accepting Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation and appoiting Robert Gates as his replacement as the man has no heart and wants to destroy the US military as Gates’ title should be Secretary of No as since Obama taken office, Gates has push for the cancellation of just about every Defense program and it’s work; as in a matter of 2–3 years, it’ll be highly unlikely that the US will be able to fight a war or be able to adequately defend ourselves as Gates and Obama has been able to do in 18 months what the Russians weren’t able to do for 50 years.

By: SMSgt Mac

SMSgt Mac — Sat, 15 May 2010 03:25:25 +0000

This is written in jesting good humor, one retiree to another. I only mention it because an outsider might think it merely snarky. You retired when I was a freshly hatched SSgt, but I think you might want to check the ol' memory stick. When you retired, Carter wasn't funding defense enough to buy spare parts: the origins of the term 'Hollow Force'. Reagan's so-called defense 'buildup' was more of a 'fill in the blanks' and 'fix the broke' . If you had stuck around ten more years in uniform after Reagan's resotration of the force and after facing down the Rooskies for another decade, I'm pretty sure the value of bringing an end to the Cold War in our lifetime would have made you feel better about spending all that money. It does for me.