Posted on 02/15/2013 5:04:04 PM PST by neverdem
The looming budget sequestration imposes almost $50 billion in cuts on the Defense budget this year. It’s a terrible idea — and I’m for it.
This hatchet job trims not just fat, but muscle and bone, too. It’s going to be ugly. But as I’ve watched the Defense Department pull shameful stunts and listened to congressional blather attempting to block sequestration, this defense hawk has become one irate taxpayer.
The last straw came earlier this month when our Navy ostentatiously cancelled the deployment of the supercarrier USS Harry S Truman to the Persian Gulf, crying poverty. That’s like Donald Trump claiming he can’t afford a cab.
The Navy could have cut back other, less-sensitive deployments or acquisition programs. But the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chose to embarrass the White House and pressure Congress. He should have been fired.
Did the admiral even think of the message he sent to Iran?
Dear admirals and generals: It’s your job to protect our country, not just your budgets.
As for Congress, its members agreed to this sequestration. The terms weren’t secret. Now panicked members act as if they’ve been innocent dupes.
Won’t wash. You voted for it. Now suck up the consequences.
To get a sense of the scare tactics rampant on the Hill, consider “What Sequestration Really Means,” from the House Armed Services Committee. It has all the integrity of a drunken teenager in a backseat with a cheerleader.
The paper makes four bogus claims about what “reductions at this level would mean”:
The smallest ground force since before World War II. We’re going to have that anyway, because our troops’ real friends on the Hill would fit in an aircraft lavatory. Congressmen love photo ops with soldiers, but when it comes budget time they’ll always sacrifice grunts to...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I totally agree
End the occupation! Bring the troops home - from Korea, Japan, Germany, Africa, etc. Secure our borders, build our missile defense, and stop screwing around. The Navy is our most powerful asset abroad. It’s not a global force for good. It exists to kill people and break things. Make sure it can do that.
We don’t need all the bases we have to support a blue water navy.
A $50billion dollar cut on a $720 billion budget, there is no way there isn’t AT LEAST 3-4x that much waste in every govt department, including defense.
This budget sequestration came about because House & Senate members of both parties, plus our idiot president didn’t have the guts to address out of control federal and spending during earlier negotiations on the debt limit and budgets. Sequestration was dreamed up as a mandatory spending cut if they didn’t agree to more directed or selected cuts now.
The day of mandatory cuts will arrive soon, so better these clumsy cuts than no cuts. I am sad that military personnel numbers cuts will happen as we have asked our men & women at the sharp end of the spear to endure too many rotations to battle zones recently. Repeated rotations over tax their emotions due to cumulative battle fatigue and are hard on the families left without a father or mother, either for months or, worse, by deaths. This situation will worsen with personnel cuts.
I know we should not do military operations abroad unless it’s a national necessity, but a super power has many vital national interests and we are still that world power.
I agree with you. I’m not convinced by the cuts shared by the media. I have yet to see anyone say what DOD spending was last year, and what it will be this year. Numbers are irrelevant without that context. Cuts are proclaimed in the context of baseline spending, and in the context of 10 year budgets which mean nothing to us normies.
Thank you for posting this.
“Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chose to embarrass the White House...”
Nah...this is exactly what the White Hut directed the admiral to do...come up with the lamest, most ill-conceived cuts; cuts that most Americans would never want to support. The blowback will make it easier for Zero and 0bamunists to get the sequester quashed in the House.
you are correct Sir; the Admiral did not make that decision, it was handed to him by somebody in the White House.
Nonsense.
Peters has a history of ignorance when it comes to discussing the mission, requirements, and operations of the Navy and Air Force. And he’s not very honest with his “facts” either.
Comparing the F-86D to the F-22 proves his ignorance. Only 187 F-22s exist. 2500 plus F-86Ds were built. The F-86 had guns and could drop a few bombs. Pilots had to get an eyeball on the enemy - radar.
The F-22 pilot has to engage enemies whose weapons can kill him from far over the horizon. He has to keep sterile a large swatch of sky and best opponents who may outnumber him 10 to 1. Etc., etc., etc.
Perhaps Peters would also like to put his Army grunts back in the 50s - no body armor, no GPS, no night vision goggles, no personnel communications devices, and, when everything goes to hell and the Taliban are inside the wire 200 strong, no modern F -22s overhead with pinpoint weapons to save their ass.
Correction - NO radar.
Just playing devil’s advocate. If radar makes so much a difference, why spend millions (billions?) on a “stealth” aircraft? Sounds like the pilot with the best target acquisition radar and armament with commensurate legs can rule the skies. I read somewhere the USAF still plans/requests from the other services suppression of air defense missions for stealth aircraft operations. Do not know if this is even true yet raises a few questions in my mind.
Regards.
WE got the stealth - they don’t.
And it costs mucho bucks. But Peters would have us in aluminum reflectors.
I think you missed my point. Peters may be an uninformed fool who may want our pilots flying tin cans yet that does not answer my questions. If air superiority via better aircraft boils down to who has the best longest looking targeting radar systems with commensurate air-to-air missiles on board AND our stealth aircraft still require suppression of air defenses to operate, then why spend all that money on them? Sounds to me like the technology is vulnerable and may not be worth the expense. We need to remain ahead technologically yet weapons procurement sometimes appear to be corporate job programs/cash cows, particularly in the military aircraft business. Things to ponder.
Regards.
Dear Without Equal
“If air superiority via better aircraft boils down to who has the best longest looking targeting radar systems with commensurate air-to-air missiles on board AND our stealth aircraft still require suppression of air defenses to operate, then why spend all that money on”
I don’t have the slightest idea of what you are talking about with this mutually contradictory sentence.
The warrior wants the longest range sensor capability possible (radar, but also infrared, data link and other feeds) and yet he wants the other guy to be blind or at least foggy to your presence, whether in the air or on the ground (stealth). The perfect air combat is when the other guy died never knowing he was targeted.
Enough from people in the media and the democrat party about technology and costs and things they don’t have a clue about - like combat aviation.
And enough about corporate jobs programs and cash cows in the military aircraft business. You don’t have a clue about the risk a company faces when they undertake these programs. In many cases, they are betting the farm, and when they lose, they are out of business. How many aircraft do you see today being built by Grumman, or North American, or Vought, or Convair, or General Dynamics?
That $600 toilet seat? It was a special seat with cover for a portable toilet that had to seal in all the fluids and corrosive human wastes when that airplane it was installed in went zero-G or cranked into a 60 degree bank. The $200 hammer? It’s because the contractor is forced to buy a specialized brass head to prevent sparks off a GSA schedule from an approved contractor, with a minimum order of a dozen or a gross. The $2000 three-inch bolt? It holds all the load of the wing when the aircraft is pulling 9-Gs so it needs to be specially alloyed with ultrasound and xray analysis and hours of lab tests for age, corrosion, and fatigue. Wanna bet your life on the 50 cent equivalent at Home Depot?
Too many people, including a lot here on FR, are quite ignorant as to what defense spending and combat aviation imposes and requires. They rant about the costs of F-22s and F-35s which are sorely in need when the balloon goes up. Of course, their kids won’t be the ones flying them - they’ll be at the mall with their IPhones.
And your Chinese stealth aircraft? They are but two prototypes, and no one yet knows their stealth qualities. But they will be building them in large numbers, and they will be up against a mere handful of F-22s, because America needed the money for Solyndra and AIG and healthcare for illegal aliens.
I’ve alreadey pondered.
Another item to consider is that he may be a future executive at a defense contractor. I’d like to see the entire government on zero baseline budgeting. Why are we spending on this and how does it improve combat effectiveness?
My experience with government is that waste is profuse and persistent.
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