Bloomberg.com recently reported:
‘The Defense Department may have to force soldiers, Marines or other members of the military out of the services for the first time since the aftermath of the Cold War to achieve the spending reductions in its budget proposal.
The Pentagon plans to cut 67,100 soldiers from active and reserve Army units and the Army National Guard in the five years starting Oct. 1, as well as 15,200 from the active and reserve ranks of the Marine Corps as part of an effort to save $487 billion over a decade, according to the budget sent to Congress today. The Navy and Air Force would lose fewer people — 8,600 and 1,700 respectively — because of their role in a strategic shift toward the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.’
It is a national travesty that those brave heroes who are willing to serve their country and even die for their country might now actually be forced out of the military. But this is the Obama Left at work…
Meanwhile here is an excerpt from thedaily.com about wasteful spending of the kind that is leaving our military underfunded:
‘America’s most distinguished leaders get their hair cut at the Senate barbershop, but taxpayers are the ones really getting clipped. The (taxpayer-financed) barbershop ran almost $300,000 in the red last year but received an infusion from Senate coffers that is keeping it in business, the Senate sergeant at arms, Terrance Gainer, told The Daily.
….To support his argument, (former US senator Peter) Fitzgerald contrasts the salaries and benefits of the Senate’s stylists to what is offered by (private-sector) Capitol Barber, three blocks away. Capitol’s four barbers and stylists made $22,000 to $30,000 last year with no benefits, manager Lynn Dang said. At the Senate barbershop, formally called Senate Hair Care Services, the top four barbers and stylists made more than twice that — $54,761; $70,349; $73,658; and $81,641 — plus they have a generous 401(k) plan, health care and paid vacation. In all, the government contributed $230,000 in benefits for the barbershop, said Eve Goldsher, a spokeswoman for the Senate Appropriations Committee.’
So as our military is gutted our overpaid unionized government workers like federal barbers get exorbitant wage, benefit and pension packages.
Oh, but that’s just a few people! say the Democrats in their usual charade.
No, friends, multiply the barbers by tens of millions of people getting government checks – including government workers, people collecting federal payouts and those on the federal dole – and you have the reason for our fiscal crisis.
Is it any surprise that our nation is falling deeper and deeper into debt?
At the same time, when was the last time you heard about any cuts in government handout programs for ‘the poor’, many millions of whom are scamming the system and have been for decades? How about one single probe into massive fraud in the $100 billion Social Security disability program, which is rife with abuse?
Nothing. Zero. Zip. While a unionized barber in the US Senate makes anywhere from $55,000 to $82,000 a year without batting an eye. And that is just a part of their compensation. These barbers get huge benefit, health insurance and pension packages like all of the 2.2 million federal workers who are living off of the taxpayer.
And then add that to the generous payouts to 70 million others who get some sort of check from the federal government with no questions asked.
Yet we are supposed to say: “Wonderful! Good for the barbers! They should make good wages!”
With which we conservatives agree. Because we believe that all workers should make good money – working in the private sector that is. But as more and more wealth is sucked out of the private economy by taxes to pay federal workers and federal bills and handouts, private sector workers are making less and less while at the same time they are paying more and more in taxes.
As the military is being shrunk down and our defenses gutted.
This is all socialism, friends, a massive shift of wealth away from the productive, tax-paying private sector and the crucial military to a pampered handout class and to a federal government worker class that has actually increased in size as the Obama Depression has plundered the private sector of millions of jobs and trillions in wealth.
America really needs to eliminate hundreds of thousands of federal government workers and privatize many of those remaining jobs. Their exorbitant labor costs are gutting our economy.
And the federal government must make major cuts in every single other check issued.
Meanwhile in Massachusetts two towns are vying for $2.3 million in federal aid. And again this seems like a minor story. But it is happening all over the nation, town by town, and it again points to the roots of the fiscal crisis.
The towns are seeking the federal aid for a completely unnecessary bike trail in a region that is in rapid economic decline because of its liberal policies that have chased business away with steep taxes and invasive regulations.
But the very liberal population in Massachusetts is happy to accept millions from a federal government that is spending debt money that it does not have. For a stupid bike trail. Because to socialists like overpaid barbers and other overpaid and unnecessary government workers and freeloaders who have been living on the dole for decades, the federal government seems to have endless piles of money. Because the federal government can print all the money that it needs.
But rational people know that that $2.3 million will be paid for down the road in taxes by future generations, while this generation lives high off the government hog. As our military is cut.
This is all totally unacceptable.
Meanwhile, in another example of ridiculous government spending, the Dohn Community High School near Cincinnati, Ohio has launched a $40,000 program to reward students who… come to school.
Yes, this is our government education system at work again. Students will get Visa gift cards for going to school every day, for being punctual and for staying out of trouble.
You know, things that kids did naturally before the socialists ruined America with their Anything Goes culture and decimated the family structure with a dog-pack mentality in which millions of kids have no idea who their fathers are or how to behave responsibly.
Indeed, this is our irrational and out-of-control government at work.
Appalling. Utterly appalling.