What I find funny is the GOP tactic that the spending cuts to the defense budget will cut jobs and thus are bad. But the spending cuts to education programs, head start, meal programs for impoverished students somehow won't cut jobs, and are needed to grow the economy. It makes no sense at all.
heck no, we should be cutting far more the sequester cuts aren't even cuts, just decreases in the rate of growth, it's a pathetic amount
So then you're b****ing about Obama agreeing with you, given that's exactly what his quote was referring to.
nah I'm b****ing about Obama not agreeing with himself, the same cuts he insisted on in 2011 he now says will be devastating
He didn't insist on them - ever. He offered them as an alternative to defaulting in 2010, with the intent they would be replaced with smarter cuts. Since then, he has offered other alternatives and suggested Congress offer better alternatives if they didn't like his. The only thing he has insisted on with regard to these cuts is that he'd prefer these cuts to no cuts at all - something you agree with. Not sure if you are being willfully misleading, or the sources you use provide you these out-of-context snippets so you don't actually know what happened. Either way, you're simply wrong.
Here's an interesting read from the Detroit Free Press: (and a freaky image!) Military's top brass warn automatic spending cuts will undercut national security WASHINGTON -- The billions in defense budget cuts set to begin Friday will have a swift and severe impact on military readiness, and Congress needs to take fast action to stop them, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday in an eleventh-hour bid to keep the reductions from going into effect. Testifying before the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, the five uniformed leaders of the military branches described how national security would be put at risk if they are forced to make deep decreases in spending for personnel, training and equipment modernization programs. Their appearance marked the fourth time in the last three weeks that top Pentagon leaders have testified before a congressional oversight committee about how the country's fiscal outlook affects the armed forces. Their warnings of a looming readiness crisis haven't changed, but the pending deadline has made them more urgent. "If we do not have the resources to train and equip the force, our young men and women will pay the price, potentially with their lives," said Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff. Despite the dire predictions, many of the cuts to hit the Defense Department and other federal agencies would come in later years and could be partially offset by cuts in programs that are wasteful or behind schedule. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., criticized Defense Department officials earlier this month for "adding drama" to the budget debate by publicly highlighting the cuts to the readiness accounts. Hunter, a former Marine who served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. The automatic cuts, known as a sequester, are scheduled to begin Friday and are the result of Congress' failure to trim the deficit by $1.2 trillion over a decade. The Pentagon faces a $46-billion budget reduction through the end of September, and additional cuts would come in future years, as long as the sequester remains in effect. The military also has to absorb a $487-billion reduction in defense spending over the next 10 years mandated by the Budget Control Act passed in 2011. The military's fiscal challenges are further complicated by the lack of a budget for the current fiscal year, according to defense officials. Congress hasn't approved one. Instead, lawmakers have been passing bills called continuing resolutions, which keep spending levels at last year's rates. That means the Pentagon is operating on less money than planned, compounding the financial problem facing the armed forces. The main problem with the sequester is not the size of the cuts to the defense budget, but rather the across-the-board way they are administered, according to Todd Harrison of the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. The military has very little flexibility under the law to make smart spending reductions, he said. "High-priority, successful programs must be cut by the same percentage as wasteful, redundant and low-priority programs," Harrison said. Yet even with the sequester, the Pentagon will still maintain an annual budget, adjusted for inflation, of more than $500 billion a year for the rest of the decade. That's a modest reduction when compared with the previous drawdowns in defense spending that came after the wars in Korea and Vietnam and the Cold War, Harrison said. Gen. James Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, told the defense subcommittee that America's allies and enemies are watching to determine whether the country remains able to meet its commitments overseas. "Sequestration viewed solely as a budget issue would be a grave mistake," he said. http://www.freep.com/article/201302...spending-cuts-will-undercut-national-security
Military spending and violence will be the downfall of this world. People spend entire lives working and paying taxes for this crap. Evolve... Its a tricky word.
Best post in the thread. It says it all. It's crazy how dishonestly the right is arguing on this issue.
Should that be surprising given how they have argued other issues recently? At this point it is a given the sequester cuts are going to happen. Even if a bill was magically passed and signed today many departments have already geared up to enact the cuts.
I think that would be all departments. The amount of time, money, and effort already put in towards stopping contracts, personnel moves, and other stuff is already reaching absurd proportions and the amount to start some of those necessary things back up once DC issues are settled will be even more.
The problem I have with argument of this type is this: Why do you have the wasteful, redundant programs in the first place?
This is true. One scientist I spoke with yesterday has received word that her new grant award has been cut to 40% what it was last month when she won it. Instead of two years of funding, she gets one year of funding at a reduced rate. So a couple of grad. students and a postdoc will be without pay or work. I'm not saying cry them a river, but it's real enough. (And very stupid.)
I'll tell you what's also real - the fact we must reduce borrowing now because deficit is falling and borrowing costs are as low as they can possibly get because AMERICA! Sequester justified!
That's a good point. I've been following the military and military spending since the Vietnam era, and it has always been like this. I place little blame on the President for "the wasteful, redundant programs." Why? Because it would take a radical change in how the Pentagon operates, and he simply doesn't have the support in Congress to overhaul the Pentagon's mode of operation when it comes to spending money. Why? Because whenever a new piece of military equipment is decided upon, like the F-35, the spending on the thing is spread out over dozens of congressional districts and numerous states. These projects take on a momentum of their own. Few House and Senate members (although it is "easier" for members of the Senate) from either party will come out against a project that would take hundreds, even thousands of high paying jobs out of their districts and their states. It was a very bold move by President Obama to cancel the F-22. I was against it at the time, preferring to cancel the F-35. I still wish they had taken that route, but that's another conversation. Unsurprisingly, the F-35 is wildly over budget and not performing as well as it was supposed to, at least not yet. So the Pentagon needs a radical overhaul. What it doesn't need, however, is for that overhaul to be done with a meat cleaver, which is what sequester amounts to. To do it that way is simply stupid, and the Republican majority in the House, heavily influenced by the "tea party" wing, seems willing to do just that.
Mad King Barry <iframe src="http://videos.mediaite.com/embed/player/?content=5BG9HK3HTTD41KQY&layout=&content_type=content_item&playlist_cid=&media_type=video&read_more=1&widget_type_cid=svp" width="550" height="421" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" allowtransparency="true"></iframe>
I actually agree with Woodward about the carrier. Of course, I also think Woodward's ego is the size of Canada, which is neither here nor there, I suppose.
Pork. Congresspeople want things done in their districts and states, and so over time, these things build up. The Pentagon is routinely asked to build things they don't want or need. Cutting all that crap won't fix the entire problem, but those are the things that should be cut first.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>You know who else wanted to release prisoners during a crisis? <a href="http://t.co/RFhh0pfC2j" title="http://twitter.com/SonnyBunch/status/306888034266267648/photo/1">pic.twitter.com/RFhh0pfC2j</a></p>— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) <a href="https://twitter.com/SonnyBunch/status/306888034266267648" data-datetime="2013-02-27T22:06:23+00:00">February 27, 2013</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
