Tag Archives: Defense Budget

2012/08/28

New Poll / 80 Percent of Swing State Voters Want Action on Sequestration before Elections

Harris Interactive Poll of likely voters in Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Missouri finds high levels of awareness and concern about sequestration cuts

Arlington, VA /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ ~ Four out of five likely voters in critical battleground states want our leaders in Washington, DC to find an alternative to “sequestration” budget cuts before the November elections take place, according to a Harris Interactive online poll released today on behalf of the Aerospace Industries Association.

“We’ve always known that sequestration is bad policy. Now we know it’s bad politics as well,” said AIA President and CEO Marion C. Blakey. “This survey shows that opposition to these reckless cuts runs from north to south, from old to young, and from left to right ~ 80 percent opposition means the call to put an end to sequestration is bipartisan without doubt. And swing state voters now stand alongside a swelling chorus of Americans, from military planners to small business owners to Congress’ own budget analysts, all saying the same thing: we need action on sequestration, and we need it now.”

AIA commissioned the poll as part of the Second to None campaign, an advocacy initiative to bring awareness of the risks to our economy, national security and technological competitiveness from ill-considered cuts to aerospace and defense budgets.

“This survey reveals that the American voting public is waking up to the danger of sequestration to our economic and national security,” said International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers International President R. Thomas Buffenbarger. “Now is the time for politicians to put aside the Beltway politics that have failed America and come up with a balanced solution that protects our ability to respond to a national security threat. This crisis demands immediate action. We must not wait until after the November elections.”

The poll, conducted by Harris Interactive from August 9-15, surveyed 4,042 U.S likely voters age 18 years or older across five states likely to determine control of the White House and United States Senate next year ~ Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Missouri. The poll found that concern over sequestration cuts across age, party, race and regional lines. Seventy-seven percent (77%) of likely voters in these states said they were aware of this issue prior to taking the poll, a remarkable degree of penetration for such a topic.

The study interviewed U.S. residents who are registered voters and likely to vote in the November 2012 election (self-described as absolutely/very certain they will vote). Specifically, the sample sizes by state are: Florida n=810; Missouri n=807; Virginia n=808; Ohio n=809; and Pennsylvania n=808. Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region, and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.

Aerospace Industries Association

1000 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1700, Arlington, VA 22209 (703) 358-1000 www.aia-aerospace.org

Founded in 1919 shortly after the birth of flight, the Aerospace Industries Association is the most authoritative and influential trade association representing the nation’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of civil, military and business aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aircraft systems, space systems, aircraft engines, missiles, homeland and cybersecurity systems, materiel and related components, equipment services and information technology.

SOURCE Aerospace Industries Association

Visit http://www.USAJobZoo.com or http://USADefenseIndustryJobs.com for all of your job search needs. Both are IntelligenceCareers.com websites.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

2012/08/28

FYI Tidbits // 108,000 DoD civilians would lose jobs under sequestration~ Report

he Defense Department would be forced to cut 108,000 civilian employees (13.7%) from its 791,000-person work force by 13.7 percent in fiscal 2013 to achieve its share of the reductions ~~ $56.5 billion or 10.3 percent of mandatory defense sequestration cuts. Defense contractors would see more gradual cuts as existing contracts run out and are not renewed.

READ THE FULL REPORT

Read more/learn more: http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20120827/DEPARTMENTS01/308270003/108-000-DoD-civilians-would-lose-jobs-under-sequestration-Report

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , ,

2012/05/24

President Obama – the most Frugal Government Spender in 60 years?

Politifact.com recently examined an extraordinary claim that President Obama has had the lowest spending record of any recent president.

Can that be right?

Politifact says that such a claim is ‘mostly true’.

I encourage you to read the Politifact numbers analysis for yourself: read it here.

======

The Politifact story is a good read for many reasons.

One good reason being that much of what people believe that they know is often without basis.

It is always good to have around a calculator and some real numbers. Politifact tries to provide the numbers and calculations for you.

Secondly, another good reason to read the article is that if you argue to replace something with something ‘better’ then better should be better. Better should have a metric that we can calculate.

I am not always so happy with President Obama but as compared with whom? Certainly not I know how to create jobs Romney, whose state dropped from #37 in jobs growth to #47 during his term as governor.

If you wish to argue that Romney had to deal with a Democratic legislature then so be it. However, please accept that since 2010 President Obama has had to work with a Republican House; yes, Democrats demurred from proposing their own budget so that the Republican budgets could be judged on its own merits (and also true that Democrat are not so hot at using calculators either so it saved them a lot of time and effort.)

Thirdly, the last good reason to read the Politifact article is that we have many tough choices ahead and not a lot of folks want to do critical thinking.

2013 will be a very tough year. The CBO has effectively said that whatever course we take we will cause us to fall back into official recession during 2013. The CBO analysis says that 2013 represents a fiscal cliff that we are about to run off.

For those that say we need austerity and no new increase in the debt limit, you can’t get there from here. You certainly cannot get to there (balanced budgets, decreased national debt, and economic growth) by protecting current levels of defense spending or increasing it.

Just to maintain current spending levels will require an increase in our national debt level. Soon. Even if you were to cancel out almost all social spending you still could not cover defense spending without borrowing more money. Quixotic to me that that the ‘more defense spending’ crowd is quite often the same choir as the ‘no new debt’ crowd and the ‘no new taxes’ crowd. Those same folks recently proposed in the House draft budget an 8% increase in defense spending.

For those that want to pay down the national debt, there appears to be three groups with a view and a following.

—- Group #1 wants to let all tax cuts expire (except for folks that vote for them). The CBO says that letting the tax cuts expire would indeed dramatically decrease our national debt … and do so in as little as the first 12 months. BUT that would also suck so much money out of the economy that it would probably dry up consumer spending and … great ungood would happen.  As for those that would let the tax cuts expire, except for those that vote for them — grab a calculator. How is that a balanced plan. Some, primarily Democrats, are arguing to protect tax cuts for the first $1 million of income and to protect the social security pay day tax cut.

—– Group #2: Keep the tax cuts, create more tax cuts or breaks + increase defense spending. This will supposedly cause the economy to grow. This is a revisit of rhetorical Reaganomics: just ain’t happening. Buy a calculator. Hire a consulting firm. Your numbers are on drugs. I am a fan of President Reagan (no one is perfect) but his administration didn’t grow the economy so much from tax breaks as growing the economy from a  massive infusion of government cash that left massive debt in its spending wake.

—– Group #3: Target ALL government programs for decreased spending over time (mandate an agency-neutral percentage-based budget cut each year for 10 years), pay as you go congressional budget spending — even if that requires some tax increase (but sunset the tax increase), flatten taxes and remove most exceptions, limit the dollar or percentage value of exemptions, don’t rob from the rich but don’t penalize the working poor either.

So about this article, it offers some good points for thought and debate. One interpretation can also be that much of the fiscal rancor against Obama is hot air. Yes, President Obama has failed to use the leadership power of his office to describe and to outline a path towards fiscal stablity for our country. Yet neither has President Obama been the tax and spend ogre that many have made him out to be.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

2011/05/29

House Republicans — No Earmarks! Long Live Earmarks! Meet the ‘Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund’

DefenseNews notes “U.S. House Panel Creates Fund to Finance Projects“.

What were formerly earmarks are now defense enhancements that almost any House member can take advantage of to keep the folks happy back home, to buy votes and to reward supporters.

At least a billion dollars has been put into this fund. Hey, isn’t that about the amount of the banned earmarks?!

The ‘Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund’ was created by the House Armed Services Committee on May 11th 2011, whose leadership is under a strict no-earmarks ban mandated by House Republican leadership. The ban forbids members from directing money toward specific projects in their districts. However, under the ban, House members may put forward district-neutral policy proposals but they have to identify offsets within the budget for each of these spending increases.

You wanted Congress to change the way it does business and it has. It banned earmarks and then renamed earmarks as defense enhancements. Who can hate defense enhancements?

1 Comment

Filed under Defense Budget, Lies and Tall Tales, Lobbyist

Tagged as , ,

2009/11/30

Sen. Lugar (R-IN) proposes setting aside health care debate to pay for war. Afghanistan surge cost: $1,000,000 per soldier; DoD budget not enough.

Dog Catcher’s thoughts: It is a bit strange that we are just now debating the war’s cost after 8 years of being in Afghanistan. Not only is it expensive but this is the highest year on record for casualties. Our troops are tired and it is also the highest year on record for military suicides.

The Bush Administration named its doctrine  the Long War (DoD PowerPoint explaining the doctrine), and expectations were that we would be fighting it 10 years, 15 years or perhaps even indefinitely. Someone should have done a cost estimate. Someone should have leveled with the American people that the mission may never be accomplished, but that once you start a shooting war it isn’t over until someone loses or someone quits.

If I were a Democrat or America First kind of person: I would say no to delaying the health care debate. No to delaying the things that we never find time to discuss or get around to deciding on domestic issues.  For the first time in 100 years we are actually close to having a health care vote in Congress. Theodore Roosevelt started the health care debate in 1909 and now in 2009 we want to delay due to national security costs? I would not trust Republicans to ever get around to revisiting the health care debate. Not some. Not at all. I would propose that we discuss national security costs instead.

If I were a Republican or national security before all else person:  I would make the argument that America is essentially bankrupt and unfortunately we are not in a position to just walk away. And the status quo is not working either. So we need to get serious about pay-as-we-go; not only for the war but for everything. In Afghanistan we need to either totally change our game plan or step up our current game plan, which unfortunately will be expensive: about $1 million per every soldier we send to surge in Afghanistan.

As for Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) idea that we should get the rest of the world in on paying for the war: great idea but each of the nations in Afghanistan is already paying their own way. And European taxpayers are already paying for a “NATO” war that many of them find hard to understand. Won’t happen. But there is always the chance that we could make a case for it: the Pentagon reports that foreign countries paid for 97% of 1990′s Gulf War.

Hmmm? What would you do?

Fox News reports:

President Obama on Tuesday is expected to outline his plan to send around 30,000-35,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan over the next 12-18 months. The prime time speech comes as the Senate begins debate this week on expanding coverage of health insurance to 30 million Americans for six years at a cost of $848 billion.

The cost of the war surge is being estimated at $1 million per soldier for one year on the ground — or $30 billion to $35 billion additional dollars next year based on the president’s expected announcement.

Opponents of the war say America can’t afford that cost.

“What’s happening now is not only a $12 trillion national debt, we’re in the midst of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The middle class is collapsing. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. “So I’ve got a real problem about expanding this war where the rest of the world is sitting around and saying, ‘Isn’t it a nice thing that the taxpayers of the United States and the U.S. military are doing the work that the rest of the world should be doing?’”

Read Complete Story: Fox News Online

Leave a Comment

Filed under Afghanistan, Defense Budget, Democratic Party, Economics, Health Care, International, National Debt, Politics, War

Tagged as , , , , , ,