Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This is directly tied to the "Every Child Is A Winner" and "Every Player Get's A Trophy" mentality that pervades and persists in America. We in America have a terrible time telling someone "NO" and as a result financial windfalls also pervade and persist, whether it be the useless individual who refuses to work and collects never-ending welfare to military personnel who believe every good deed should be rewarded with a promotion.
It's time to for a callous, cold-hearted bastard to take control of the levers in the United States of America.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ovcatto
We have a terrible time saying no to those with influence and power.
The thing that I despise the most when I was in the service was having achieved the rank of E-5 as an air rescue medic that I had to serve the officers in their mess. Jesus we only had 175 personel on a base where damn near every enlisted person was a highly trained technician why was that officer had to have one of us serve them dinner style. It is one thing for the officers to have a separate dinning area but they couldn't stand in line like everybody else?
I don't begrudge the fact that generals and admirals need to have staff or security details but to be treated like pampered princes just seems to contradict the spartan life style that should be associated with the military.
Both of these are very key to what needs to change in this country. For too long the conservative suburban culture of "I am always right" had done nothing for our country other than make it more and more difficult to work together if we all think we are always right. Also our credit card era of the 80s and 90s needs to change back to living within one's means and saying "no" to things we can't afford rather than put in on a credit card for tomorrow's problem.
Also for those at the top of the pay scale, it is time for them to realize that they too are not always right and often times those working under them have better answers than they do which comes with decent human respect for one another rather than treating those below you as servants that do nothing but want money from you. This mentality goes for those in the middle class who look down on anyone below them as well.
This kind of mentality has never been healthy for our country and it is our consumerism society that fuels it.
Raise the progressive tax levels and close corporate loopholes/freeloading. That will balance the budget. Has Congress presented the president with their budget yet?
Has the Senate voted on a budget in the last 4 years? How can they present anything to him when the Senate won't vote on one? I don't think that Harry Reid knows what a budget is or why we are supposed to have one.
We could save $300 billion over 10 years by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. I wonder Republicans didn't include that ability in the Medicare expansion?
This is directly tied to the "Every Child Is A Winner" and "Every Player Get's A Trophy" mentality that pervades and persists in America. We in America have a terrible time telling someone "NO" and as a result financial windfalls also pervade and persist, whether it be the useless individual who refuses to work and collects never-ending welfare to military personnel who believe every good deed should be rewarded with a promotion.
It's time to for a callous, cold-hearted bastard to take control of the levers in the United States of America.
Nothing wrong with intelligent benevolent dictatorship..But such people are rare. I don't see one on the horizon. Yes you do need someone who is not governed by emotion..or attempts to rule through emotion. Here in Canada they fired a teacher for giving the mark of zero to students who did not bother writing an exam...Finally someone came to their senses and re-instated the teacher.
True good deeds are not deserving of reward. Much like religious nuts and atheists who assume that God grants favor to the good....God does not involve himself in trivial matters such as REWARD...God is a cold and cruel master...a realist...might be time for realism to rule instead of warm and fuzzy fancy.
But how about another? A spartan life style associated with public servants, especially those in high elected and appointed offices of the federal government? Why do they deserve what they have? Why does Nancy Pelosi get to fly home on military executive jets?
I'm all for that as well.
As for the Pelosi brouhaha, we throughly exhausted that argument since it was decision by the House Sergeant at Arms based upon his security concerns.
Fiddling while Rome burns. Why is it that when liberals suggest "cuts", it amounts to so small amounts of money that it would have no impact at all?
On another thread that I started I was criticized for not writing a 500 word introduction. I don't, first of all because no one is paying for my time and most importantly because folks can't read for comprehensively read even a short sentence as in your case here where I started the thread with these short words.
*ARMY. In 1945, the number of Army generals per active Army division was 14- In
1986, at the height of the Cold War, the army had 24 generals per division. Now, as we
face no major threat, there are 30 generals per division-
* NAVY. At the end of WWII there were 130 Navy ships per admiral. In 1986, at the
height of the Cold War, there were 2.2 ships per admiral. Now, as we face no major
threat, there is an average of only 1-6 ships per admiral
* MARINES. In 1945 there were 469,925 Marines commanded by 81 generals; by March
1997, 79 generals commanded a mere 173,011 Marines.
* AIR FORCE. In 1945 there were 244 aircraft per general in the Air Force. In 1986, at
the height of the Cold War, there were 28 aircraft per general. Now, as we face no major
threat, there are only 23 aircraft per general.
That's 963 generals and admirals, which includes their private jets and helicopters, staff, cooks, and orderlies,
And that doesn't include the perks, like the 234 golf course maintained by the U.S. military including the $26 million Sungnam course in South Korea.
While many here accused the Administration of recalling General Ward "to cover up for Benghazi" the truth was that Gen Ward was ripping off tax payers to the tune $82,000 for trips for his family to Bermuda and billing the State Department for Hotel and travel costs.
So while once again the focus is on those with the least, the big boys escape without any scrutiny.
I say cut the military and cut it in a serious fashion because it has little to do with defense.
The salary costs alone for those 963 is ~$140,000,000/yr. But that's not where it's worst. It's even worse when you look at how many officers there are and how much they get paid. An O-2 with just 3 years of service gets paid ~$52,000/yr, tell me any private sector job that pays that well with only 3 years of experience. If you are an O-5 with just 12 years experience you're making over $100,000/yr.
Military personnel needs to be cut and the salaries need to go down at least 10%, if not more. We would save BILLIONS if we did that.
Not even thinking about the Enlisted guys, our officers cost us about $16,000,000,000/yr in Salary alone, not including benefits, retirement, medical, housing allowance, subsidies of items on base, etc.
Here's the 2010 list of officers by rank and the total estimated pay of those officers:
Rank Number of Officers Total Estimated Pay
O-9 150 $25,052,148.00
O-8 310 $43,920,477.60
O-7 482 $59,277,960.24
O-6 12,160 $1,152,433,843.20
O-5 28,773 $2,563,777,882.80
O-4 45,295 $3,847,746,837.00
O-3 74,997 $5,615,712,362.52
O-2 25,523 $1,404,636,865.68
O-1 27,128 $1,178,127,805.44
TOTAL 214,818 $15,890,686,182.48
Why do we need 214,818 officers? Can't we get by with half that many?
And what do we need with 234 golf courses? Buy a Wii with "Tiger Woods" for every unit instead and save millions there...
Any person claiming to care about the "size of our government" has no credibility if they don't feel as though this is excessive. The Defense budget needs to shrink and massively so.
Has the Senate voted on a budget in the last 4 years? How can they present anything to him when the Senate won't vote on one? I don't think that Harry Reid knows what a budget is or why we are supposed to have one.
Yes it has voted on several budgets over the past four years, the success rate of those budgets are much lower though, if that was the statement you were meaning to make.
Fiddling while Rome burns. Why is it that when liberals suggest "cuts", it amounts to so small amounts of money that it would have no impact at all?
Keep in mind that we have $1.2 trillion in annual deficits. Now make some cuts to put a realistic dent in that sum.
Defense budget is $700,000,000,000. Cutting even just 10% from it would be a significant cut.
Certainly a lot larger than the "Stop funding for PBS" or "Stop funding Planned Parenthood" nonsense the RWNJs bring up here all the time.
I can personally eliminate the deficit with very little effort:
Cut defense budget to be merely 2x the next largest in the world (China at $143,000,000,000), that's ~$400,000,000,000 in savings.
End the Drug War, that's $50,000,000,000 in savings.
Legalize and Tax all drugs and Marijuana, that's a minimum of $100,000,000,000 in tax revenue plus thousands of new jobs which not only pay taxes but also allow citizens to spend money here to increase overall economic activity.
End ALL subsidies for Oil companies, that's another $50,000,000,000 in savings.
If we do all that and also raise the age for Social Security and Medicare to 70 and eliminate all deductions over $1,000,000 while also raising the Capital Gains tax rate from 15% to 17.5%, we will run a surplus.
We could save $300 billion over 10 years by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices. I wonder Republicans didn't include that ability in the Medicare expansion?
Wow, spending the $1.6 trillion over what we have to spend and taking out $30 billion per year will certainly really work. You do see that there is a huge difference in the $1.6 trillion and $30 billion per year, don't you?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
