It is one of the most insane recommendations I have yet heard regarding a way of reducing out current deficit and it comes to us by way of the outgoing Defense Secretary, Robert Gates. I can honestly say that I've never really liked this guy, going all the way back to when George Bush nominated him to replace Donald Rumsfeld. He was, and continues to be, nothing more than a lifelong bureaucrat with all the charisma of a wet dish rag and just never come across, at least to me, as being one who could be trusted with such a job. And now in what was reported as being Secretary Gates' last major policy speech as he prepares to most likely hit the lecture circuit, our stellar outgoing Pentagon chief made the recommendation that the government would finally have to now "re-examine military compensation," and consider altering the retirement system in order to bring down costs, and address spiraling health-care costs. Now there's an absolutely brilliant idea. Trimming Pentagon spending, Gates said, "will entail going places that have been avoided by politicians in the past." So let me see if I have this right. Here we are at a time when we have 535 members of Congress and a "community agitator" president and a moron for a vice president, who are all grossly overpaid and severely underworked, and what we're thinking about doing here is to go about cutting military pay and benefits. What we should be thinking about is cutting the pay of those same 537 malingerers. Which is really pretty ridiculous when you stop to consider the amount of work that those in Congress actually do and how little they actually produce when compared to all that our service members are asked to do and with less and less. But instead of cutting the pay of those overpaid bureaucrats what we're going to, instead, we're apparently now contemplating cutting the pay of those who are already under paid because of they're choosing to serve in our military. You know, the same folks who are out there defending us against the many murdering Islamic thugs who busy themselves by trying to kill us. Does this idea make sense to anybody? Apparently it makes perfect sense to guys like outgoing Secretary Gates. Secretary Gates said on Tuesday that cuts to the nation's defense budget will force lawmakers to consider reducing military pay and benefits, raising an issue that could prove politically sensitive in a time of war, or so The Wall Street Journal reports. I tell you, things are just going nuts. "Hope and Change," ya just gotta love it.
It strikes as being more than just little strange that the first place that we always go looking for cuts is the same place liberals always begin their for search for savings, National Defense. And it's kinda ironic really because that's the one area that is actually a job belonging to the Federal Government. It's like, constitutionally mandated. You know, defending the country! So it was then that our stellar outgoing Pentagon chief issued a warning that cutting the budget "will entail going places that have been avoided by politicians in the past." Which I guess is easy for him to say, he headed out the door. Gates has said the looming cuts are likely to generate a steep decline in military spending and could force the U.S. to abandon some missions, minimize the armed forces and possibly limit America's role in the world. Not exactly what I would think is needed at the present time. But hey, what do I know? Gates says a steep decline in military spending may force the Pentagon to abandon some missions, minimize the armed forces and possibly limit America's role in the world. Spoken like a true Obama man. Mr. Gates' previous efforts to trim compensation costs failed, like when he last tried to raise health-care premiums or co-pays for military retirees, and lawmakers were loath to raise expenses for military families during wartime. But in today's deficit fighting environment there is a growing pressure on those afore mentioned grossly overpaid lawmakers to deliver some big reductions in our rapidly ballooning federal deficit. And that may have persuaded defense planners that Congress may now be willing to take a new look at military compensation. In his speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Mr. Gates signaled that he believed reducing compensation wouldn't necessarily hurt recruiting, noting that with the exception of Army recruiting during the worst of the Iraq war, "all the services have consistently exceeded their recruiting and retention goals." I'm curious to just what he might be basing that assumption on. I spent 24 years in the Navy and if I hadn't found a job after retirement I'd be living below the poverty line. Yet they still want to cut retirement benefits. And just how many thousands of families of active duty members now find themselves living on food stamps? And somehow we think it's just a jim-dandy idea to cut the pay and benefits of those folks?
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