This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Congress sucks

  • Carters’s Army, or maybe BOHICA?

    J. D. offers up some history and perspective at his place.

    I Remember Carter’s Army

    I remember President Carter’s Army. I remember Carter’s gasoline lines. I remember Carter’s interest rates. I remember his turn your thermostat down and wear a sweater energy policy speeches. I remember him really showing the Russians how tough we were by boycotting the Moscow Olympics. I remember his policy of restraint while Americans were held hostage and abused by Iranian terrorists. I remember his cheerleading for the “moderate” religious man to replace the “despotic” Shah of Iran. I remember his amnesty and upgraded discharges for military deserters and draft dodgers, most of whom got a better welcome home than our Vietnam combat veterans did.

    But his closing paragraph encapsulates the meaning of BOHICA quite nicely…

    Let me see if I can sum it up. Reduce defense spending by nearly one trillion dollars. Usher in “moderate” Middle Eastern governments. Abandon missile defense, abandon space, abandon development of future combat systems and use the military as a tool to normalize homosexuality. Mr. Carter’s Army is looking pretty good about now.

    Not much to add. We can’t be certain yet whether this piece is prophetic or  just a warning, but…

  • Tom Coburn’s plan to screw military retirees

    Washington Post reports that Senator Tom Coburn is coming for our Tricar. I read the article yesterday, but I was so pissed, I had to wait until this morning to write about it. I tried to call Coburn’s office to verify these statements, but the call went straight to the vmail which is apparently full.

    Here’s what the Post quoted;

    Former defense secretary Robert M. Gates proposed raising Tricare Prime enrollment fees for single retirees from $230 a year to $260 a year and fees for retiree families from $460 a year to $520 a year. Coburn wants the fees to be much higher and more in line with private-sector health plans.

    Another comparison he makes is to other federal government workers whose plans are not as cheap. A medical doctor, Coburn told reporters last Monday: “Nobody in the country, as a single person working 20 years for the government, should be able to get health care for $250 a year. Nobody was ever promised that, and nobody should be able to do that.”

    You’re right, Coburn, nobody was promised healthcare for $250/year. We were promised free health care. For life. In exchange for our health and our youth. That’s why I stayed in the Army when I was being paid $256/month. that’s why I reenlisted for the Army when I was promoted to Sergeant and got a whopping $22/month raise for my family of four. It was the free health care that kept me in – knowing my wife and I were covered for life.

    [H]e wants to increase the enrollment fee for single retirees to “approximately $2,000 per year and $3,500 for a family.” At the same time he would limit out-of-pocket expenses at $7,500 for those retirees with families. He thinks these changes could save $11.5 billion a year.

    His Tricare for life would require retirees to pay up to $550 for half the initial cost not covered by Medicare and then up to $3,025, after which all costs would be paid by Tricare. This change could save $4.3 billion a year.

    How can the government get away with changing the contract they made with us 40 years ago after we paid off our portion of the contract? I don’t see anyone proposing the same increases in Medicaid – people who have never paid a penny, or a minute of their lives, for their health care expenses.

    I understand that the government is in debt and I understand that they need to save money, but why is the focus on the folks who have no real voice and have no way to retaliate? Why isn’t Coburn looking at the savings of shutting down or drawing down the redundant functions of the Commerce Depart or the Education Department?

    Whenever anyone is looking for savings in government spending, it’s always retirees, military or otherwise, who get hit. Clinton’s “balanced budget” was on the backs of military retirees’ healthcare and DoD’s manpower and training costs. Carter slashed military funding and didn’t “come to Jesus” until his last month in office. We’ve already been hit with co Cost of Living increases for two years in a row in our military pensions and Social Security. Our income taxes on those monies went up and now they want to take even more by hiking our health care costs? Where do we go to justice?

    And where are the Democrats? They’re always quick to jump on anyone who goes after the benfits of welfare queens and drug dealers. So where is their support for the troops that I hear about so often?

    Coburn’s number is 202-224-5754 if you can get through.

  • WaPo: Is allowing Bush tax cuts to expire a tax hike?

    The Washington Post asked Grover Norquist that question, in an obvious attempt to trap him…and it worked. Norquist answered that “no” it wouldn’t violate the promise that most Republicans made to the public. Let me tell the Post that Norquist doesn’t speak for me or my vote.

    Of course, letting the tax cuts expire is decidedly not Mr. Norquist’s preference. Indeed, as a matter of policy, he is passionately opposed to a single dime in new tax revenue. But the fact that Mr. Norquist interprets his own pledge to permit such conduct suggests that Republican lawmakers who have been browbeaten into abjuring any tax increase, at any time, for any reason, may not be as boxed in as they believe. The official Republican line has been that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, even for those earning more than $250,000, would be a job-killing tax increase. The fact that the godfather of the pledge does not interpret the lapse as an increase is significant.

    I’m not adverse to an increase in tax revenues – I’m opposed to an increase in taxes to achieve an increase in revenues. revenues increased during the period of the Bush tax cuts (by the way, ten years after the tax cuts were effective, can we stop calling them tax cuts and start calling them the tax rates). I don’t know what political game Norquist is playing here, but if the tax rates rise above what they are today…well, that’s a tax hike. And if it’s caused by action or inaction by Congress, I’m holding them responsible in the 2012 election.

    The Post continues a few more times accusing Republicans of being opposed to an increase in tax revenues – and that’s not the case at all. Republicans don’t oppose increased revenues, that’s just ignorant and intentionally misinforming the public – apparently the bread and butter of the Post. Tax increases aren’t the only way to increase revenue as the post wants you to believe.

    In fact, the best way to increase tax revenues is to put Americans back to work – and raising taxes on their potential employers won’t do that.

  • The “Gang of Six” is coming for defense money – and retirees

    Yeah, that plan that the “Gang of Six” (or Seven) Senators who are proposing an alternate to the spending bill which passed the House yesterday are relying heavily on cuts to Defense and restructuring payments to military and Social Security retirees. in the National Journal is a report that Buck McKeon, Chairman of the House Armed Service Committee isn’t very happy with their proposals;

    Seizing on an analysis of the bipartisan Senate group’s plan released on Tuesday by the House Budget Committee, McKeon said the proposal would cut $886 billion in security spending over the next 10 years.

    A summary of the gang’s proposal circulated on Tuesday contained little detail on defense or other security cuts. But the gang has said its plan is consistent with suggestions made by the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission, which recommended trimming security accounts by $886 billion over the next decade.

    Defense is easy to cut, it takes no real skill to cut the pay, benefits and war fighting material for a minority of Americans, as opposed to slashing eligibility for SSI or welfare…or slashing operations costs for Congress.

    And they’re coming for your retirement checks, both military and Social Security;

    In his memo, McKeon said the proposal would require changes to military retirement and other benefits – a difficult issue on Capitol Hill, where many lawmakers are reluctant to scale back compensation and benefits for current and retired service personnel.

    “It is our belief that this proposal raises serious implications for defense and would not allow us to perform our constitutional responsibility to provide for the safety and security of our country or keep faith with men and women in uniform,” McKeon wrote.

    And in the Marine Corps Times, they report that that the Cost-of-Living-Allowance (COLA) that you haven’t got the last two years, well, it’s been too much, so the Gang of Six (or Seven) wants to cut that, too;

    A bipartisan group of a half-dozen senators Tuesday presented a deficit-reduction proposal that would mean smaller annual cost-of-living adjustments for federal and military retirees.

    The so-called Gang of Six said the government should switch to the so-called chained Consumer Price Index to set all inflationary adjustments, including COLAs, for federal and military pensions and Social Security payments.

    I suppose it’s because we’ve always just sat back and taken it in the ass whenever they want to save money on the political cheap. It’s never cost them anything, so why not take a whack at the old fucks again – those of us who’ve already paid off our part of the contract.

  • What’s Sheila saying?

    ROS sent us this video last week, and I’ve been trying to figure out what Sheila Jackson-Lee is trying to say in this video. Maybe you guys can help me out;

    It must be horribly constrictive to not be able to say what you mean without sounding cliche.

  • Rewriting history while it happens

    I’ve really tried to ignore this debate over the impending debt ceiling fix because it just pisses me off to no end. I know that no matter it turns out, we’re screwed. ROS has been sending me links steadily over the last few days and makes it hard to ignore. She sends this one from the Daily Press about the President’s press conference today (I turned the TV off when he came on);

    The White House has insisted that any deal include some mechanism for raising more revenue in order to significantly pay down the deficit, but congressional Republicans have balked at the prospect of tweaking the tax code for deficit reduction. That remains the largest stumbling block in negotiations.

    The GOP would instead prefer deep spending cuts past the $2.4 trillion amount by which the administration seeks to raise the debt ceiling. The House hopes to pass a plan next week that includes the cuts, along with a provision for a balanced-budget amendment.

    We’ve already established that raising taxes isn’t going to help settle the problem, but the Democrats can’t help themselves from calling for tax hikes. I think it’s in their extra-chromosome DNA. Nice touch, though, calling it “tweaking the tax code”. Maybe we can tweak ourselves out of this mess, huh?

    But, this is the line that got me;

    “This is not some abstract issue,” Obama said. “Congress has run up the credit card. We now have an obligation to pay our bills.”

    As if he had nothing to do with running up the credit card. Yeah, technically, it’s true that it’s largely Congress’ fault, but it was Obama’s glorious agenda that the Democrat Congress enacted – mostly without a single Republican vote in the House. Remember how the Washington Post used to remind of us of that fact after every budget-busting vote in Congress? I wonder why they don’t mention it these days?

    What “we” actually had an obligation to do was not enact some of this useless shit we’ve been saddled with over the last two years. There have been myriad examples of why we shouldn’t have written blank checks to employment schemes and turtle tunnels, but I guess Democrats don’t learn from history – history like how the Bush tax cuts actually increased tax revenues and lowered unemployment during his tenure. Just like it worked during the Reagan years.

  • China complains that US is spending too much on military

    The Associated Press reports that Chen Bingd, Chinese chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, told Admiral Mullen, his opposite number in the US that for the sake of the US taxpayers, the US should cut military spending;

    “I know the U.S. is still recovering from the financial crisis,” Chen said. “Under such circumstances, it is still spending a lot of money on its military and isn’t that placing too much pressure on the taxpayers?”

    “If the U.S. could reduce its military spending a bit and spend more on improving the livelihood of the American people … wouldn’t that be a better scenario?” he said.

    It sounds a little bit like he’s running for office in a certain district in California doesn’t it? I wonder if the fact that their own policy is echoed by our most dangerous enemy will have any effect on defense cut proposals coming from Congress.

    China’s military budget of $95 billion this year is the world’s second-highest after Washington’s planned $650 billion in defense spending.

    Chen said China remains more than two decades behind the U.S. in terms of military technology and Beijing still needs to upgrade by adding new hardware such as aircraft carriers.

    Well, if Congress wants to afford China an opportunity to catch up, they’re on the right track.

  • …and the band played on

    I REALLY hate to find myself on the side of Jerold “The Waddler” Nadler, but in the age of military budget cuts, I think the military bands come in last place for funding in my book (from Stars & Stripes);

    Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, sponsor of the amendment to the $649 billion defense bill, said the cut to the band budget wouldn’t save taxpayers any money nor would it reduce the Pentagon budget. He called the bands “an integral part of the patriotism that keeps our soldiers’ hearts beating fast.”

    Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., questioned the wisdom of protecting the band budget when other programs, including food stamps and aid, faced deep reductions.

    In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve never played a musical instrument past the fifth grade, I don’t know anyone who has ever been in a military band and I have been known to hate being on the parade field while the band was playing. That being said, I think Republican John Carter is FOS. Not only reducing spending on military bands will save taxpayers money, the bands don’t make my heart beat faster, except at the thought of standing in the heat or the rain while some general blathers on about nothing.

    I’m pretty sure we’d all rather do without bands than without health care or bullets for training or war.