Tag: Budget Cuts

Downsizing?

I have always disliked that term……

Let’s go back to pre-Cold War….in those days military service was not the “hero” worship it is today……the peacetime military was small, skeletal force whose nain function was to train the civilian population to be used militarily if the need were to arise.

We are getting more and more involved in the situations around the globe…..and we have only a limited amount of troops to carry out the policies of our admins…..and it appears that those troops will lessened even further……we appear to be trying to return to the days of the skeletal force……

In 1940, the head count for active-duty soldiers in the US Army was 269,023, a low that hasn’t been reached since, the Army Times reports. But due to budget cutbacks, a drawdown plan announced last summer to whittle manpower by 40,000 troops has left the Army with its lowest post-World War II count yet: 479,172 soldiers, which is 154 fewer than those on active duty during the previous post-WWII low hit in 1999.

“These are not cuts the Army wants to make, these are cuts required by [the] budget environment in which we operate,” the Army’s vice chief of staff said in July when the plan was first announced, Fox News reports. Per the Defense Manpower Data Center, there are also just over 548,000 soldiers in reserve, bringing the total number of Army troops to 1,027,196. The ultimate goal: to hit a total force number of 980,000 by the end of September 2018.

Back in the day we had the draft to make up the difference in case of dire need…..but the Congress may finally eliminate that fall back position…..

This year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) looks set to decide the question of whether women aged 18-26 will have to register for the military draft in the United States, with a vote likely next week on Rep. Pete Sessions’ (R – TX) legislation attempting to block language that would require women to register.

The debate has happened off and on for decades and came up again with calls from the Army and Marine chiefs of staff calling for women to be brought into the Selective Service system in the name of “equality.” The Selective Service Act requires all men 18-26 to register, though none have been conscripted since 1973.

This led to some bipartisan efforts to satisfy the desire for equality in the more straightforward way, ending the Selective Service outright, though ultimately this didn’t happen and the committee put language into the NDAA forcing women to register. Sessions’ bill would remove that language.

Questions about who is or isn’t eligible for conscription have long been treated as purely academic, and officials have downplayed the money wasted on the unused Selective Service system. Secretary of State John Kerry, however, recently spoke out in support of bringing back the draft, saying he has “deep reservations” about America’s all-volunteer military.

Let’s say we drop the draft….what then when the country needs recruits fast?  Or will we start limiting our international entanglements?  (Raucous laughter…like that will EVER happen)

Have Vets Been Screwed Enough?

Apparently the answer is a resounding NO!  I mean it is bad enough to take young men and send them off to war….and even worse sin is to bring the wounded home and then have to deal with a country that cares little for their care…..to the point that charities have to pop up to get the severely wounded the help they need…..the country is way too busy to think seriously about the vets….sorry…they are important enough to be trotted out during campaigns as some sort of prop and then lied to their faces….I hope this country is PROUD of the way it treats veterans.

Like I said they have NOT been screwed enough……Politico is reporting……

Congress and the Pentagon agree that it’s time to tighten the defense belt, including tackling spiraling personnel costs. The question is how and when to do it.

The recent small cuts in pension cost-of-living increases for working-age military retirees have laid bare the divisions on how to appropriately rein in the military’s personnel costs.

Pentagon officials, however, emphasized that reforming the military’s compensation system is unavoidable.

“Secretary [Chuck] Hagel, the Joint Chiefs and the service secretaries agree that we cannot afford to sustain the rate of growth in military compensation that we’ve experienced over the last decade,” said acting Deputy Defense Secretary Christine Fox.

And Vice Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Sandy Winnefeld told the committee the Pentagon “can and probably should gradually place compensation on a more sustainable trajectory.”

Under the recent two-year budget agreement, military retirees under the age of 62 would see their pensions increase at a slower pace, with their cost-of-living adjustments pegged to the rate of inflation minus 1 percentage point. Once they turned 62, they would go back to receiving adjustments pegged to the full rate of inflation.

The pension cuts, set to take effect Dec. 1, 2015, initially extended to all working-age military retirees. But the $1.1 trillion spending bill that cleared Congress earlier this month gave a pass to disabled veterans and surviving families, a move the Pentagon supports.

Pentagon officials, to her knowledge, were not consulted on the details of the budget agreement brokered by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Fox said. But the department “fully supported” the provision in the omnibus spending bill that restored the cuts for disabled veterans.

Another slap to the face of vets……if the Congress wants to cut anything let these self-righteous morons start with their pay and their benefits….at least the vets did what was asked of them….the Congress is ordered by money not the people…..

The treatment of vets is shameful and as a vet …..DISGUSTING!

What The Hell Is ‘Chained CPI’?

Two days left before the sequestration kicks in…two days left of endless accusations….two days left of the tragedy that is our Congress……..the drama continues and with every drama we have had our buzz words….remember ‘death panels’?  Or maybe fiscal cliff?  And the ever popular…..’Obamacare”………and now we have a new one….’chained CPI’………but what the Hell are these people talking about?

The National Journal has a good explanation……..

“Chained CPI,” writes Quinton, “is an idea that almost everyone supports in theory but hardly anyone is willing to risk in practice.”

Chained CPI is a measure of inflation created by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that has been touted as a more accurate way to factor rises in the cost-of-living into, among other things, social security benefits and the tax code. Chained CPI doesn’t rise as quickly as the measure of inflation that the government uses now, so if the government switched to chained CPI to calculate social security benefits, benefits would increase more slowly over time. Similarly, if chained CPI was applied to the tax code, tax brackets would change at a slower rate, moving tax-payers into higher brackets faster.

Chained CPI rises slower than the measure of inflation that the government currently uses by making different assumptions about how people spend money. Chained CPI hinges on the idea that when the price of one good rises, people are more likely to buy a similar, cheaper good. Or, as a former staffer for President Obama’s fiscal commission told NPR, when the price of apples goes up, maybe you’ll buy oranges or bananas instead. The current measure of inflation assumes that you’ll just keep on buying apples, raising your cost-of-living faster.

What chained CPI does here is “chain” together groups of goods. This change could save $200-300 billion over the next decade by slowing the growth in cost-of-living adjustments, trimming social security benefits and increasing taxes.

So, why the controversy? Many Democrats have scoffed at the social security benefit hit that comes with chained CPI — especially to older seniors who rely most on the social security income. Also, it isn’t always as simple as chaining apples and oranges, especially when broader necessities like medical care and heating come into play. There are also of course ways of making chained CPI less severe to the social security benefits of needy seniors. Sophie Quinton points out that the Simpson-Bowles plan, among others, features such protections.

There you have it….now when the mouths start rattling on and on……..you will hgave an idea on what the Hell the blowhards are talking about…..and with luck uyour ears will not bleed.

Here Comes The Sequester

Soon we will be embroiled in the haunting demon, sequestration…..the media will be full of this story of that and the toads in Congress will sprinter to the microphones and cameras to get in their daily talking points……and in the end it will be just another colossal waste of time…….with that said….do you know what the sequester is all about?  Not what O’Reilley or Rivera or that Asian bat shit cray chick thinks it means…….what is it?

Matt Ylesias tries to simplify it for those that have a tough time trying to grasp just what the toads are talking about……from his Salon.com post……..

  • What sequester is: A set of broad, across-the-board spending cuts. While Social Security, Medicaid, and a few select anti-poverty programs are spared, almost everything else is getting a hefty chunk taken out—16.3% for military programs, and 9.2% for discretionary ones.
  • Why it’s happening: The sequester was an intentionally awful set of cuts designed to force Congress to create an alternative, sensible debt reduction plan. It didn’t.
  • Why the cuts are dumb: “A time of high unemployment and ultra-low interest rates is a strange time to be cutting spending,” Yglesias observes. The cuts also expressly forbid trying to focus the cuts on unimportant or ineffective programs. “Things are just cut willy-nilly.”
  • What harm they’ll do: A lot. One Goldman Sachs analyst predicts a full percentage point hit to GDP, and the Bipartisan Policy Center calculates that they could result in 1 million fewer jobs next year.
  • But at least it fixes the deficit, right?: “Not really,” Yglesias argues. “The deficit right now isn’t a problem.” The worry is that an aging population and rising health care costs will eventually be disastrous, and the sequester doesn’t touch entitlements.
  • Why Congress won’t just call it off: Republicans are demanding that defense cuts be replaced with more social cuts. Democrats will only call off the cuts if they get tax increases. Neither platform will fly, at all, with the other party. “Congress tried to bluff itself and now it’s prepared to call its own bluff,” Yglesias says.

Now there is just about everything that one would need to know to follow the acts that will come with the issue……it is all so much crap on a cracker……..

So sit back and enjoy the drama, the comedy and the absurdities to follow…….

Cuts Have Consequences

It is election time and we have both parties screaming about cuts and which part of the government needs to be cut and why…..the GOP wants to cut everything but the military, regardless who is screwed by those cuts and the Dems want to cut the military and do not care about the consequences of massive cuts…..the truth of the matter is that we, as a country, will be cutting and cutting deeply…..the only question is who will pay the ultimate price of those cuts?

And now the Speaker of the House has fired the first shot on the national debt thing and promised that it will be another messy year of racing to mics to throw out the talking points….everyone will get their chance at the mic and the one liners and the people slowly suffer and unfortunately they do it in silence…….

But cuts, any cuts, will have consequences as pointed out on the website of Dirty Hippie……

A government budget cut is like a huge tax increase on regular people because it increases what each of us pays for the things government does — or forces us to go without. This is because cuts in government spending don’t actually cut the costor the need for those things, they just shift those costs onto the larger economy. But because these shifts attack the economy-of-scale, transparency, integrity and public-good management that government provides, they almost always increase the costs and harms to the larger economy.

  • As government health care is cut (or not provided in the first place) each of us must take on those costs on our own, and as demonstrated, pay up to seven times what the same care would/could have cost.
  • As infrastructure maintenance and modernization is cut, our economy becomes less competitive, unemployment increases and our wages and spending power fall.
  • As spending on education is cut, our costs of educating ourselves and our kids increase. College costs soar. And the overall education level of our people will decrease, making our country less competitive in the world.
  • As environmental regulation and enforcement is cut the costs of the resulting health problems and cleanups increase and our quality-of-life will decrease.
  • As enforcement of labor laws is cut, our wages and protections fall.
  • As etc. is cut, the costs of etc. are shifted to the larger economy, and the total costs of accomplishing etc. actually increase.

As budgets are cut, the costs are increased and shifted to the larger economy.

After the election we will find out who will pay the price for the decisions made in Congress over the last 40 years ……will it be the people or will it be the sector that has gotten all the benefits in those 40 years?  My money is on the people……and the government will not even use Vaseline to make it less painful.

Thus Spake Supercommittee

Yesterday the members of the Supercommittee announced that they could not find the guts to come to a filibuster proof solution to the deficit…..all the games….all the partisanship…..and all the total bullsh*t!

WE all have waited with baited breath……will we or will we not have a deal?

And the answer is in……(drum roll and trumpets sound)……..the supercommittee was a pathetic FAILURE!  They spake not!  A DISMAL WASTE OF TIME AND RESOURCES!

These idiots ( I am sorry to call them idiots but if the shoe fits……) could have just used the Simpson-Bowles Plan…….

The plan starts with a series of “guiding principles,” most of which are exemplary. But, as this analysis explains, the specifics of the plan violate some of the co-chairs’ core principles — namely, the principle “Don’t Disrupt a Fragile Economic Recovery” and the principle to “Protect the Truly Disadvantaged.” In addition, at least one principle is deeply misguided and could do serious harm to the nation in the future — the call to hold revenues and spending to no more than 21 percent of GDP, despite the challenges the nation faces in the decades ahead. [1]

“Don’t Disrupt a Fragile Economy”

The proposal to start implementing budget cuts in fiscal year 2012 — a short 10½ months from now — runs a substantial risk of impeding the economic recovery. In its most recent economic forecast, the Congressional Budget Office projects that unemployment will still average 8.4 percent in fiscal year 2012 and that the gap between actual GDP and its potential level will not be closed until the end of 2014. A growing number of private economic forecasters are expressing deepening concern over the economy’s lack of steam and its potential to experience growth too anemic to lower unemployment significantly over the next few years. It would be far better to delay implementation of significant deficit-reduction policies at least until fiscal year 2013, when there should be less chance of stifling the recovery and locking the economy into a long period of sub-par performance.

“Protect the Truly Disadvantaged”

While the plan aims to avoid violating the co-chairs’ principle “to protect the truly disadvantaged” by not proposing widespread cuts in means-tested programs, it nevertheless threatens benefits and services for millions of Americans who have very modest incomes and would experience significant hardship.

For instance, while the proposed changes in Social Security would produce benefit increases for many among the poorest fifth of Social Security beneficiaries — a praiseworthy accomplishment — the changes would cut benefits for those in the next-to-the-bottom fifth and the middle fifth of beneficiaries. Social Security Administration data show that in 2008, the median income for elderly Social Security beneficiaries (including any income they get from other sources, as well as their spouses’ income) was only $14,100 for those in the next-to-the-bottom fifth and $20,600 for those in the middle fifth.

Indeed, the plan would cut Social Security benefits for a medium earner (one whose earnings are in the middle of the wage distribution) by 15 percent below the currently scheduled amount in 2050 and 22 percent by 2080. Yet a lifelong medium earner who retires at age 65 in 2010 receives a benefit of just $1,397 a month, or $16,764 a year — which is only about 55 percent above the poverty line — and generally does not have significant income from other sources.

The plan’s cuts in Medicaid and Medicare would pose further problems for millions of people of modest means. The plan calls for increasing the amounts that elderly and disabled Medicare beneficiaries must pay for health care services (presumably through higher co-payments) under both Medicare and the Medigap policies that supplement Medicare coverage. The plan lacks details on how these changes would work, and they might well be reasonable parts of a balanced deficit-reduction plan — if they were not being extracted from the same modest-income seniors and people with disabilities whose Social Security benefits were being cut at the same time. As Drew Altman, the highly respected president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, recently explained, many of these modest-income Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries

have low incomes and already pay a significant share of their incomes for health care today. It will be difficult if not impossible to ask the majority of beneficiaries to pay more or make do with less. This has been the missing element in the entitlement/deficit reduction debate: Warren Buffet is not the typical Medicare beneficiary. Instead the prototype is an older woman with multiple chronic illnesses living on an income of less than $25,000 who spends more than 15 percent of her income on health care. It is the people on these programs and the realities of their lives that have been left out of the discussion.[2]

Another health-care element of the plan poses still greater risks for the nation’s most vulnerable people by threatening severe cuts over time in Medicaid, Medicare, and the subsidies to help modest-income people purchase coverage in the new insurance exchanges that the health reform law will establish. The plan proposes to contain growth after 2020 in federal health expenditures for these programs and the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance to no more than 1 percent more per year than the rate of growth in GDP.

Tough, but rational, targets for slowing health care cost growth virtually always are based on per- beneficiary costs, not aggregate costs. For example, the target for Medicare cost growth that the Independent Payment Advisory Board established by the health reform law must hit is GDP plus 1 percent per beneficiary.[3] The difference here is crucial. The Bowles-Simpson target is for total health program costs, rather than costs per beneficiary, to rise no faster than GDP+1; that would likely lead to draconian results. It would mean that as the share of the population that is elderly increases, cuts of increasing severity likely would have to be made in Medicaid and Medicare to fit total federal health-care expenditures within an entirely unrealistic constraint. Over time, the effects on vulnerable Americans could be grim.

Or some form of this…sign their names to it and look like they have earned their salary for the year…..but NOOOOOO….that would be too much like right…….

This exercise in futility reminds me a a shirt I have seen…..”Never underestimate the stupidity of a large crowd”!……….

Speaking of “recreational drugs”!…….may I see a show of hands of those who thought this idea was a good one?

Enough said!