Let me ask you something, and I want you to give me an honest answer.
If I took 20% of your income by tomorrow, would you have a problem with that? If the Government announced that Social Security recipients were to suddenly have their checks reduced by 20%, do you think they would be satisfied by telling them they still have a check?
We can do whatever semantic dances you want to regarding whether those checks are "deserved" or "already paid for" - the bottom line is when you cut income by that deep an amount that quickly, it is almost financially unsustainable for some families.
I have posted this here before but I will repeat the story. I know a single mother who is a low paid GS worker. She has a child with severe medical issues. She works hard - she does not take Food Stamps or hand outs. She pays her Federal, State, and property taxes.
She works, and for a Constitutional, worthy agency (Dept of Defense).
She, and thousands of others is going to be cut off at the knees.
This is not moral, it is not right.
When I posted that, I got a lot of Freeper hate posts and hate mail. Everyone has a hard luck story that they think is worse, or....the hatred for anyone getting a Federal paycheck runs so deep that the wombats come out of the woodwork.
People like that cannot make the moral distinction between someone working to better themselves and the fine institution of the US military, and an obese TSA agent feeling up your wife in Atlanta airport.
I cannot help people like that. If they do not have any discernment, I cannot give it to them through keyboard osmosis.
“If I took 20% of your income by tomorrow, would you have a problem with that? If the Government announced that Social Security recipients were to suddenly have their checks reduced by 20%, do you think they would be satisfied by telling them they still have a check?’
Of course I would have a problem, but as all of your income comes from my pocket, and I nether require nor desire your services I think the scam is that your still getting 80%.
That being said were it up to me I would much prefer to get rid of other programs and personals whom i find far more costly and undesirable to me. Starting with the ATF, DEA, FBI, Department of Education, ect..
The Federal army may be a threat to my rights but only in the long term, in the short term theses other Federal agency’s are a very much more imedead threat to the rights & liberties of every living american.
Droping them from the pay roll would return to us much, much more than a mere salary.
The Dept of Defense is not necessarily a Constitutional agency -- in fact, it could be easily argued that it is not: the Constitution only allows for the Army and Navy (Marines are a sub-department of the Navy), which means that the Air Force is extra-constitutional. Thus the DoD cannot be said to be wholly constitutional.
It could be argued that the Department of Transportation is more Constitutional: this is because the Congress is supposed to make commerce between the States regular, which is much of what the DOT does (though it could be pruned very much, but that is like most government agencies in general); the Post Office is another agency, being explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, which is more Constitutional than the DoD.