Pay off a percentage of the college loans AFTER their 4-5 year service commitment is completed.
Certain sacred cows just seem to disappoint. Just like the Kennedy’s and the Royal family. Time to respond and cut them down a notch.
Colin Powell was a 90 day wonder. Al Haig was promoted over 240 other generals. How does one show they’re better than the next in those organizations? MacArthur made big mistakes.
Yeah, but at least their football teams are good again.
If we want to radically change the federal budget, and in particular how much of it is now required just to pay the interest on that debt, spending cuts can and will help, but not enough unless we outright reduce the amount of the existing debt and that will not be done unless federal assets, in paticular a lot of federal land, is sold off. All other measure will only slow the rise of the debt, not outright reduce it - because the size of the debt is just that large.
If a person had proportionately the same income to debt problem the federal government has, it would be a no brainer, they’d sell whatever assets they could to outright lower the debt.
We also have state maritime academies in NY, MA, ME, CA, and MI. The California Maritime Academy has seen a drop in enrollment from 1000 to 700 and has just merged with Cal Poli.
The state academies also have NROTC programs and can provide marine engineers and deck officers to both the Navy and Coast Guard. The maritime academy in Maine also has an excellent program in International Business and Logistics that can train supply corps officers for all the branches of the military.
Full disclosure: I taught in the IBL program at MMA from 1997 to 2020.
I am retired from the Air Force. I can see a lot of savings if we do some things that are almost politically impossible.
1. Roll the US Marine Corps into the US Army. All ground forces should be in the US Army.
2. All airplanes should be in the USAF.
3. All ships should be in the US Navy.
4. Generals/Admirals in major commands only. Deputies/immediate replacements can be O-8s (one star). All the rest should be O-6s (Colonel/Captain).
5. Move all bases/forts/stations to rural areas when possible. Sell the expensive suburb real estate and roll the profits back into the DOD budget.
6. Bring back a national service requirement. Either 1 year training in a military, non-technical skill—if you want technical training you can commit for 3 more years—or national service working in an urban area cleaning up, a forest doing fire control or a hospital as an orderly. CCC level corps for whatever the country needs. Perhaps border guard.
None of this will ever be done because of reasons—some good, some bad, some political, traditional or other.
I thought the academies were for leaders?
In that case, the UK’s classic PPE is indeed probably most valuable.
Engineers are doer-bees.
The Air Force and Navy already started doing this, this year for the F-35. They have done it in the past for other type ratings too.
The Army rotary flight requirements are unique. AF rotary wing pilots train at Fort Rucker.
Ditch the Air Force Academy, and the Coast Guard Academy. They serves little purpose. The better pilots and officers come from civilian schools anyway. If short on officers, the other two academies can cover it.
As a graduate of the service academy adjacent to which the author lives, I can state that the majority of graduates receive degrees in engineering & science, including electrical, aerospace, mechanical engineering & systems engineering, mathematics, computer science, physics. The number of “bull” majors is relatively small and has been shrinking for years.
What is that first sentence trying to say?
It seems like there are plenty of ways to save gooberment money without tearing down Icons which is the equivalent of the left's tearing down statues and renaming military bases.
I disagree with consolidating them all into one. I think they should probably be downsized as far as not continuing to add or shore up outmoded buildings on campuses, and I like the idea of sending cadets to other academies for units of study rather than overduplication at each academy. I agree with refocusing on engineering, and absolutely deplore women in combat and officer ranks over men. Just. No.
I am not in favor of fewer locations. Each of the academies needs to have some particular areas of expertise and accompanying R&D at their respective locations.
But because the nature of war has changed, we need smaller, yet many installations, in many locations.