Senate Votes Pay Rises for Postmasters despite Protest on ‘Rewarding Wasteful’ – 11
%5 to 20% pay increases for postmasters. “In arguing against the pay boost, Senator [Clyde M.] Reed [R-KS] said he was opposed to “rewarding negligent public officials for rendering wasteful service.”
As an example of negligence and waste, Sen. Reed referenced overtime spending by the Postal Service, which had increased from about $10.4 million in 1942 to $67.6 million in 1944.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
After the war, Adm. Nimitz said it was "God's mercy" that the fleet was in port at the time of the attack. He believed that had Kimmel known of the impending attack he would have sallied the fleet out to attack the Japanese fleet, but the slow U.S. battleships would not have gotten within range of the Japanese carriers before they would have been attacked. The result, he believed, would have been a lot of ships sunk in deep water, instead of the shallow waters of Pearl where most of the sunk ships were eventually re-floated. Maybe he was just being nice to an old salt who was vilified for causing the Pearl disaster, but it's an interesting viewpoint.