There Is Plenty To Cut At the Pentagon

Hugh Pickens writes "William D. Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, writes that although we have been bombarded with tales of woe about the potentially devastating impacts of cutting the Pentagon budget 8% under the sequester, examples of egregious waste and misplaced spending priorities at the Pentagon abound. One need look no further than the department's largest weapons program, the F-35 combat aircraft, which has just been grounded again after a routine inspection revealed a crack on a turbine blade in the jet engine of an F-35 test aircraft in California. Even before it has moved into full-scale production, the plane has already increased in price by 75%, and it has so far failed to meet basic performance standards. By the Pentagon's own admission, building and operating three versions of the F-35 — one for the Air Force, one for the Navy and one for the Marines — will cost more than $1.4 trillion over its lifetime, making it the most expensive weapons program ever undertaken. And in an era in which aerial combat is of diminishing importance and upgraded versions of current generation U.S. aircraft can more than do the job, it is not at all clear that we need to purchase more than 2,400 of these planes. Cutting the two most expensive versions of the F-35 will save over $60 billion in the next decade."

Comments

I say cut the F-35

[jonwil]

As an Aussie who saw the Howard government jump on board with Bush on this overpriced boondoggle (without even considering if other aircraft, American, European or otherwise were suitable for our needs at a cheaper price), cutting it completly and forcing Australia to evaluate ALL the options for aircraft suitable for our defense needs would be a good thing.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[aurispector]

Although the F-35 is the poster child for poor procurement processes, the simple fact of the matter is that entitlement spending dwarfs defense spending.

Finding waste in government spending is easy. It's present everywhere, all the time. For every egregious example of waste in military spending you are guaranteed to find a proportional amount in any other program.

The only effective way to control it is through competition in a free market. The more a given market comes under government control, the less competition and freedom exists and the more wasteful it becomes. It's human nature.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Greed is human nature. You must work on Wall Street.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

The major entitlement spending is for Medicare and Social Security. People are entitled to Medicare and Social Security because they paid for them all their lives.

Do you propose that the government not pay people the benefits they paid for as part of a contract?

That would be like buying health insurance from a private company, and having them decide not to pay you when you get sick and need it, because that would be a good way for them to save money.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[MrKaos]

As an Aussie who saw the Howard government jump on board with Bush on this overpriced boondoggle (without even considering if other aircraft, American, European or otherwise were suitable for our needs at a cheaper price), cutting it completly and forcing Australia to evaluate ALL the options for aircraft suitable for our defense needs would be a good thing.

That and other outdated equipment from U.S manufacturers and politicians interfering with Australian military equipment to bypass the standard procurement processes. Ships, tanks, the F-18, which is a fine aircraft, just tactically unsuitable to Australian conditions are amongst the blunders made.

The F-35, also tactically unsuitable, was the latest in a long line of blunders.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Nidi62]

the simple fact of the matter is that entitlement spending dwarfs defense spending.

The problem is that defense spending has BECOME entitlement spending. It is welfare for the defense contractors, who have no incentive to remain within budget or timelines. We can cut defense spending without having to cut a single program in production or development: all we have to do is make sure that companies are held to the promises they make when the bid for a contract. And, if they intentionally underbid or underestimated the program well, then they need to eat the cost of that overrun, just like a company would in any other industry. This isn't cutting spending, it is simply cutting costs. We still get everything we need, we just don't pay out the ass for it.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[arse maker]

Finding waste anywhere is easy. Its not unique to government
There is no free market for the military. It makes no money. Unless you go back to the system of war and looting.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Anonymous Coward]

The challenge you face with the insurance company analogy is the insurance company can go bankrupt. The Federal government just prints more money. We have to face reality, a vast majority of people get considerably more out of Social Security and Medicare then they put in.

This is simply not sustainable. This includes my parents too.

At this moment the we are borrowing .46 cents of every dollar we are spending. That is simply not sustainable. Hard choices are in our future and I think we should face reality now while we still have some control over our destiny.

I do not want to wake up one morning and discover the world has decided that a US dollar is just a piece of paper with dead white guys face on it and nothing more.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[fafaforza]

"Entitlement" is almost a four letter word, but you know what? I'd rather have US citizens be able to feed themselves, than our money going to toys that never get used. We will have training exercises and missions costing millions per minute, in flight refelling for God knows what reason when the US has bases and aircraft carriers everywhere. And all this in an age when 19 guys with box cutters struck a direct blow to us and we're relying more on RC planes to dish out our justice. Who are we going to fight with these planes?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is exactly what insurance companies do when a real catastrophe happens. Like Katrina.

Insurances and healthcare should be public and paid by taxes because from a profit perspective they have much more profit when they don't do their job and this alone is an incentive for private companies to not do what they are paid for.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[CrashandDie]

Isn't that exactly what the US has been doing, in a way?

They just did in a way that the energy going out at one doesn't obviously look like it's fueling the money coming in at the other end.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[KiloByte]

Yes, but you can put that greed to your advantage: "the one who delivers the best product for its price gets to profit". All it takes is eliminating or vastly reducing corruption. Considering that the US is the only country in the world that outright legalised corruption ("campaign donations"), this would be pretty hard.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[espiesp]

I'd hate for this to sound like I believe in the trickle down effect... But, in large, defense spending is spent in the USA to US defense contractors who pay US citizens very well to do the very unnecessary shit they do. People so often say, "The Government wastes money on defense spending, why don't they just give it to me?" Well, if you worked for a defense contractor they WOULD BE!

My point is, a lot of 'wasteful government spending' is just another form of Welfare for the United States. If you support welfare you should also support excessive gov spending (so long as that money stays in the USA of course).

Me? I'd rather not have government in my shit at all, but as a self employment tax paying citizen, I can't fully support them cutting Social Security and Medicare completely unless I get a refund on my 'premiums'.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[O('_')O_Bush]

I agree that Medicare should remain, but I disagree with the role of Social Security. SS is designed as a safety net, but in popular use, has been pushed into the role of a retirement income supplement.

I would prefer it stay as a safety net (kick in when little money or value is left because you lived longer than you expected to, say, 10 years after retirement). Some system to reduce its cost. Though, even SS isn't so bad, since, in theory, it is already paid for.

If we had bumped taxes and cut spending when the economy was good (pre2008, in which Bush did the opposite to boost his popularity) and then cut taxes and boosted spending when the collapse happened, we wouldn't be having these discussions.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[jamstar7]

The company with the deepest pockets to litigate its opponents into bankruptcy and bribe legislatures into passing laws only in its favor is the company that gets its products to market. Or, at least, that's the way it's been going for the last what, 50 years or so?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[JBMcB]

Do you propose that the government not pay people the benefits they paid for as part of a contract?

There is no contract, there's just a law saying the government takes your money and will give it back later. That law can (and has) been changed.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

So after the government has taken all this money, you would change the law to say that the government won't give it back to me?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ilicas]

since the government has already spent the money, i'd rather acknowledge this, and have you go bankrupt than have the government go bankrupt (or start devaluing currency so that it can pay its debts).

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Troll-in-Training]

Yeah, you were proved wrong the past five years, after a "free-market" economy fell flat on its face, and WE got the bill. Please, just shut up with that asinine argument that history has, again and again, proven WRONG.

Calling the current economic conditions in the United states a "Free Market" is utterly absurd. In a free market the government doesn't place artificial barriers to entry in the form of corupt regulations, it doesn't mandate that companies make sub optimal buisness decisions then bail them out when they go under, It doesn't pick winners and losers by placing punitive fees and taxes on activities it doesn't like and redistribute those funds to activities it does like.

While some regulations are absolutely necessary to maintain a free market and restrain the worst abuses of capitalism, what we have now is not a free market economy. The current conditions are closer to crony capitialism and a centrally planned economy than a true free market, and crony capitalism and central planning is what doesn't work.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[jonwil]

ok, so exactly what aircraft SHOULD the RAAF be flying then?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[fafaforza]

Yeah, state of the art military that doesn't do much of anything, and we're all driving on pot hole riddled roads, we have 40 kids to a classroom, our bridges are falling down, and there's never any money for anything in our budget. This is the thinking that keeps senators from cutting any spending. Because of the immediate negative effect on their constituents. That money could be used elsewhere, and people would retain employment.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[hrvatska]

Some insurance companies can go bankrupt. Others, like AIG, apparently cannot. And probably, if any of the other large insurance companies that provide millions of seniors with retirement income through annuities was about to go bankrupt, the federal government and the Fed would likely figure out a way to keep it afloat and continue paying on its obligations. If you think Social Security has problems, it is nothing compared to the coming problems faced by China's pension system. It has worse demographics and the retirement age is much lower (55 for women, 60 for men) than in the U.S. And, it's not just China and the US. Japan, Europe in general, Brazil, and Russia face the same dilemma. I don't think every major country's currency is going to become worthless and I don't think they are going throw all their elderly out on the street, either. There are fixes for both Social Security and Medicare, but political gridlock in Washington prevents any meaningful change.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[rtb61]

So instead of spending that money on defence why not spend it on NASA and infrastructure spending instead. You are simply shifting that welfare to different contractors, so one industry reduces capacity shifts focus to space and a bunch of other high employment industries ramp up. Things like a national broadband network, which can be leased back to industry based upon competitive charges to the end user. Rebuilding of all roadways and bridges. National high speed rail network. All those things leave permanent value versus the military industrial complex which is a black hole of waste at it's best and at it's worst a global dealer of pointless pain and suffering creating enemies rather than eliminating them.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

I've seen economists say that you can't buy an annuity on the free market that would give you as good a return as Social Security.

It's one of those things that the government can do more efficiently than private enterprise.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[NEDHead]

SS has never been a 'paid for' plan. It was always predicated on more and more current workers paying for the retiree benefits. Sometimes a surplus to be sure, but never 'fully funded' for an individual by that individual's contributions. People living longer after retirement ( indeed, too many actually reaching 65 in the first place) and a slowing in the employed population growth rate have totally vacated the initial concept.

Not an argument pro or con, just a suggestion that you get over the idea that you are paying into your retirement account as you work. FICA is a tax to pay current obligations, no more, no less.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Charliemopps]

Yes, but lets cut where we can cut. I think you and I would agree on a lot but I've come to the conclusion that there are plenty of things that most of us would agree, even if begrudgingly, that we can stop spending on. We have troops in over 150 countries... how about only 50? We spend more than twice as much on our military than the REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED. We spend over five times as much as the next biggest spender China.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/9b6b4ac6234a38d7f61757290055617d.png

Our military expenditures aren't just huge, they are to the point of being borderline insane. We have enough nukes to kill every human on earth 100 times over, there's no possibility of any country invading us for at least the next several hundred years. Let's just stop. Fuck the middle east, Fuck Isreal, Russia is not going to invade Europe, lets send some humanitarian aid to Africa but otherwise let that continent deal with its own affairs.

We've basically accomplished nothing with our police actions since the Korean war. Now even the Koreans want us out and we wont leave. Enough's enough, lets just stop and spend our money on something that doesn't kill people for a change.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ceoyoyo]

Sorry, that's not always true. An excellent counter example is the US health care system versus virtually all (perhaps all) of the other modern western semi-public systems.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

Social Security isn't bankrupt.

To quote Paul Krugman:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16krugman.html

But neither of these potential problems is a clear and present danger. Social Security has been running surpluses for the last quarter-century, banking those surpluses in a special account, the so-called trust fund. The program won’t have to turn to Congress for help or cut benefits until or unless the trust fund is exhausted, which the program’s actuaries don’t expect to happen until 2037 — and there’s a significant chance, according to their estimates, that that day will never come. ...

What’s really going on here? Conservatives hate Social Security for ideological reasons: its success undermines their claim that government is always the problem, never the solution. But they receive crucial support from Washington insiders, for whom a declared willingness to cut Social Security has long served as a badge of fiscal seriousness, never mind the arithmetic.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[meta-monkey]

You seem to be under the misconception that when you paid SS taxes, those dollars were being set aside for you to be "returned" to you later. No, they were given to current retirees.

A more accurate statement would be, "so after old people have taken all this money from me, you would change the law to say that I can't take money from workers when I'm old?"

Re:I say cut the F-35

[anagama]

Cut 'em all, and let god sort it out.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[hjf]

Defense spending is public spending in disguise.

The US has been eating their own dog food (anti-communism) for the last 50 years. They have been SO brainwashed against communism that even thinking of building a power plant or public road is now seen as the big red menace.

Spending in defense, on the other hand, is not only patriotic, it's also money that goes to private companies which is a very capitalistic way of spending your money. So technically they are being keynesian without being too communist.

The problem is, people are used to that reasoning. And they think the government shouldn't "spend" money. Everything private is better and more efficient. The government is slow and wasteful.

Yet, a private company doesn't have neither the interest or funds to take on a huge work like the US highway system. The US is what it is now because of the highways. A private company wouldn't have built a road to nowhere, but government does. Even if it seems like a bad idea, 20 years later it proved to be one of the best strategic moves ever. A private company would just build a straight line between NY and california because that would be the most profitable.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[PopeRatzo]

Although the F-35 is the poster child for poor procurement processes, the simple fact of the matter is that entitlement spending dwarfs defense spending.

What you call "entitlement spending" is actual money in actual peoples' pockets. Money in the economy. Health care for elderly and poor.

The F-35 is money down a shit-hole. Money that military contractors use to stack up on the end of their dicks so they can feel powerful. Money that goes to lobbyists and then to congressmen with said military contractors in their districts which the congressmen then stack up on the end of their dicks so they can feel powerful.

Don't you dare compare "entitlement spending" with the F-35. I would rather see money going to people who need it, or at least can use it, than see it so it can destroy a bunch of brown people (assuming they ever use an F-35 in an actual mission) or get crashed into some third world mountain.

The only effective way to control it is through competition in a free market.

There ain't no such thing as a "free market". There ain't never been no such thing as a free market. They do not exist in nature. The sooner you grow up and realize that the sooner we can stop this silly 'round and 'round and talk about solutions.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Virtucon]

These programs, while laudable are not fiscally sustainable. There's been many studies and frankly it was based on a pyramid scheme whereby people who weren't eligible were paying into the system for those collecting the benefits. With more people retiring and living longer, both great things the tab gets larger and larger. This isn't necessarily bad but what doesn't get addressed is the fact that we have huge bureaucracies in place to manage and administer the programs that come along with that. There's also very little incentive to reduce costs where medical costs are concerned and that's the biggest variable the taxpayers are faced with. The ACA did nothing to reduce costs and imposed a system whereby everybody needs insurance or pay a penalty without really addressing the underlying problems of that variable cost in terms of double digit increases in healthcare expenses. According to this: http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/FIN-286687/Healthcare-Cost-Growth-Slows-but-Easily-Outpaces-Inflation insurance companies and medicare payments were up 5% vs. 2% inflation based on the most recent data. That's 3% over inflation for everybody. Does anybody stop to ask why our per-capita spending on healthcare has skyrocketed and we spend more than other countries with better longevity? http://facts.kff.org/chart.aspx?ch=359 If you look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy we are #40... So we spend the most and we crappy results from it. Our government in terms of legislation, bureaucracy and policy has created a system whereby we all feel we "have the best healthcare in the world" but it's overpriced and overrated. It's a giant placebo. Unfortunately I don't see any of the members of congress, the administration or any of the health insurance companies or the medical profession fixing this because they've been given a license to rape us all in terms of our costs and now with ACA they have a federally mandated right to steal from you.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[sumdumass]

Your supposition is flawed. It relies on the idea that government would actually have the ability to save money not needed to cover expenses. It does not except at certain state and local levels if those areas are specifically set up to do so. By law, congress has to spend every last dollar taken in. Now this spending can be on some new program, increases to existing programs, or servicing the debt but it completely lacks the ability to create a rainy day fund or anything of the sort which would have decreased any of the discussions we are having today.

If you cut spending and create a surplus, something has to be done with the surplus which was the start of the discussion when Bush lowered taxes for as you put it "popularity" purposes.

Significant changes in process needs to happen before what you suggest is possible. The system in place is entrenched and likely will not be changed any time in the future. If we run a surplus, the only thing that will happen is pork spending gets larger as well as our other spending. Think about it, the Government accounting office, the group that watches the watchers, was wasting money left and right for years and no one thought it was out of order or suspicious until someone posted a video on youtube about them mocking the process.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Electricity Likes Me]

SS was predicated on productivity and thus tax revenues increasing year to year, which is not an unreasonable assumption since that's the overriding goal of the entire federal government's economic apparatus.

Of course, it doesn't work if you let the wealth stratify and migrate off-shore, since you can't tax the rich nearly as much - proportionally - as you can everyone else (i.e. people who earn wages and salaries, not dividends).

It also doesn't work if the fund is constantly borrowed from for endeavours which do not increase productivity or provide a positive return (wars, tax cuts etc.)

Re:I say cut the F-35

[geoskd]

Although the F-35 is the poster child for poor procurement processes, the simple fact of the matter is that entitlement spending dwarfs defense spending.

True, but entitlement spending is not a pure drain on society. It has a definite value to all of society. Defense spending at this level is just absurd and should be halted immediately. This kind of weapon is of no real use in anti-terror, or drug related warfare. The only real enemy these could be used against would be Chinese, and they have already made it abundantly clear they intend the nature of the war between the US and China will be virtual and economic, not combat. This is a Trillion dollar solution to a problem that doesn't exist, and hasn't for 20 years. If this, and a few other programs like it were to be cut, we wouldn't have a budget deficit anymore. 20% of our federal budget is "defense" spending. Cut this in half, and we no longer have any budget problems, even with keeping the Bush era tax cuts.

Those who advocate cutting entitlement spending and would leave this kind of spending in place do not understand the fundamentals of economics, nor do they have even the foggiest idea of what the hidden costs of not funding social programs are. We need to do whatever it takes to reinforce our economy as quickly as possible, because this will be our only effective defense against the Chinese threat in the next 30 years.

-=Geoskd

Re:I say cut the F-35

[hjf]

The US has been demanding Argentina (and pretty much all of latin america) to sign a FTA with them. Now germany wants the same thing.

The problem? The US has trade barriers: they don't allow Argentina to sell LEMONS to the US. Germany is a little more subtle: they subsidize the fuck out of their farmers.
Argentina's main export are grains and we're trying to develop an industry. It wouldn't be wise for us to sign an FTA with either. Germany only wants to flood Argentina with their manufactured goods and they don't mind buying manufactured goods from us... which we don't have! But we do have plenty of grains, that they aren't interested in buying.

Chile is the only exception: they have NO industry, pretty much everything there is imported. Their exports are huge (copper and lithium are abundant there, and they have excellent mining). Colombia, i think, has an FTA with the US too. But that's only because they sold their soul to the US to help them combat the FARC (which means: the US forced colombia to accept their help, which has proved useless during the past 20 years).

Free market and free trade is just bullshit. It can never be free when the big guy is setting the rules.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Electricity Likes Me]

Also eliminating laws which require contracts to go to the lowest bidder. Removing discretion in procurement is as bad as having no oversight at all - it means the people making the decisions have no leeway when they see a bid they know can't quite work out, even if it would be very hard to prove why conclusively.

There was an example of this a while ago, where a bid to provide ammunition to the US army was made fraudulently, was incredibly low, and wound up killing a bunch of people when the guy who put it in's factory that was repackaging old Chinese bullets to the US army blew up in the middle of the town, killing 30 or so workers.

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/firing-blanks-afghanistan

Re:I say cut the F-35

[mc6809e]

I've seen economists say that you can't buy an annuity on the free market that would give you as good a return as Social Security.

It's one of those things that the government can do more efficiently than private enterprise.

It has nothing to do with government efficiency, except in the sense that the government can more efficiently put young workers in jail if they don't give up enough money so the government can continue to make social security payments to retirees.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[vurian]

Post-Soviet was pretty much free-market. Where individual waiters would lease individual tables in a restaurant to serve, or the output of particular cooks. Sit down at the wrong table in Odessa and you could only order dessert. Free market at its best, no regulations at all, just individuals trying to make the most money. Fell flat on its face, breaking its teeth, with the result that there are a bunch of super-rich oligarchs. There is no such thing as a successful free market economy. Heck, just like there has never been a real communist state following Marx precepts, there has never been a real free market economy following Ayn Rand's delusions. A free market is a delusion, and saying that it would be a solution to anything marks you as deluded.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Electricity Likes Me]

Except for NASA, infrastructure spending is almost always positive returns. It generally creates local jobs - and can usually provide long term stability depending on the size of the project - and the flow on effects of road, rail and internet access can be directly correlated to economic activity. I really struggle to see how "functional road and rail" is a pet project. It's a staple of civilization. Places without functional road and rail are 3rd world countries.

Speaking of NASA: it's not like fundamental R&D is a bad idea either. Again, it creates jobs and attracts talent - it means your universities and high-tech industries are engaged in cutting-edge work and develop and retain institutional knowledge and make other projects cheaper. The US is going to really suffer over the next two decades because it's allowed pretty much all it's major physics projects to be superceded by Europe. There's no replacement for the Tevatron at Fermilab and the consequence of that is that the US may lose the ability to even build particle accelerators in the next few years as all the people who know how you do that move on to other things or to facilities which do. The US is also cutting fusion funding with the exception of ITER - and may cut that - which is a huge strategic mistake for fairly obvious reasons.

This isn't stuff you can just write down and forget about - if you want to be at the forefront (which, when you do depend on a technologically advanced military, is kind of important) - then you need to have people active and working on those types of advanced projects - you need students in the same laboratories as the professors.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Electricity Likes Me]

Fine?

Your statement reads like an angry 5 year old.

Please explain where a truly "free-market" society anywhere on Terra has "fell flat on its face".

Please explain where a truly free-market society has ever existed, then perhaps consider why no one ever quite seems to "get there".

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

Paul Krugman has explained this, which he calls one of the "cockroach ideas" that keeps coming back no matter how many times you flush them down the toilet:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/about-the-social-security-trust-fund/

Social Security is a government program supported by a dedicated tax, like highway maintenance. Now you can say that assigning a particular tax to a particular program is merely a fiction, but in fact such assignments have both legal and political force. If Ronald Reagan had said, back in the 1980s, “Let’s increase a regressive tax that falls mainly on the working class, while cutting taxes that fall mainly on much richer people,” he would have faced a political firestorm. But because the increase in the regressive payroll tax was recommended by the Greenspan Commission to support Social Security, it was politically in a different box – you might even call it a lockbox – from Reagan’s tax cuts.

The date at which the trust fund will run out, according to Social Security Administration projections, has receded steadily into the future: 10 years ago it was 2029, now it’s 2042.

But the privatizers won’t take yes for an answer when it comes to the sustainability of Social Security. Their answer to the pretty good numbers is to say that the trust fund is meaningless, because it’s invested in U.S. government bonds.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[geoskd]

SS has never been a 'paid for' plan. It was always predicated on more and more current workers paying for the retiree benefits. Sometimes a surplus to be sure, but never 'fully funded' for an individual by that individual's contributions.

For 50 years, far more has been collected than was needed to pay current obligations. This was done so that the coming of the baby boomers wouldn't cause a financial crisis. Since the 80's, That process has been undercut by congress "loaning" then money to itself in the form of special bonds, and then using the proceeds to offset spending (such as excessive defense spending, welfare, and reducing taxes on the wealthiest 1% of Americans). As a result, we have effectively given the money to the defense contractors, the extremely poor, and the 1% (same as the defense contractors). We borrowed against the future social security income to do it. The end result is that we have exactly the social security funding crisis that was envisioned, but the solution that was put in place has been systematically destroyed and we have the crisis anyway. The only good way to fix it now is to cut defense spending down to the core, put taxes on the 1% back to 75%+ where it belongs, or go and get our money back at the point of a gun. The choice is yours.

-=Geoskd

Re:I say cut the F-35

[bzipitidoo]

It's very inefficient welfare. Not much money reaches the workers. Most of it goes to the stockholders and upper management.

You talk like you think a job for a defense contractor is easy and cushy. You could not be more wrong. I've been one, and I know. Defense contractors are by no means exempt from the high pressure of the commercial world. In many ways, it's worse, because the government can be a very suspicious and hostile customer who is always afraid the contractor really is ripping them off. They don't want to face the heat from a hostile public who is suspicious of government, so they bear down on "slimy" contractors all the harder. So in addition to all the other fun of the high stress modern workplace, you have to put up with onerous reporting and tracking requirements, and intrusive requirements about how the work shall be done because they're not just the customer, they're also the government and their need to know your business is more important than any disruption they cause with their sillier requirements. Constant threats to have the contract canceled are another thrill. They also love pitting contractors against each other. Not only is the government constantly wondering whether you've gone lame and they ought to put you down today, your competitors are egging them on to see you so and do it. You feel like one of the dogs in a dog fight.

Further, many of the supervisors are current or former military officers, and this colors their view of management. They treat you like you're a soldier who must take orders without question or complaint, no matter how stupid those orders may be. Many of them think like the stereotypical officer from hell, which is that the best way to motivate people is to hold guns to their heads, screaming that there's nothing worse than a crybaby wimp quitter. The worst are not the government employees, they are the managers at the defense contractor who came from the military. Often there's a reason these guys are no longer in the military, and that's that they are too hard ass even for them which has, despite popular expectations of their culture, realized that being a total hard ass is not productive. The military really has figured out that soldiers are not mere cannon fodder. But lowly civilian employees and contractors who haven't faced combat are second and third class. If they decide the job isn't getting done, no matter in cases where it's not even clear what the job is because they themselves can't clearly articulate what they want, they're likely to view it as a personal failure on the part of the employees rather than take a step back and consider whether their demands or requirements are unreasonable. The employees weren't trying hard enough. Fire them all, and let's be callous about it because they were never soldiers. Soldiers lose their lives! These guys only lose their jobs, they have nothing to snivel about.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[geoskd]

Do you propose that the government not pay people the benefits they paid for as part of a contract?

There is no contract, there's just a law saying the government takes your money and will give it back later. That law can (and has) been changed.

You will find the courts have something to say about that. I believe that if push comes to shove, it will go to SCOTUS, and SCOTUS will make precedent by deciding that the U.S. government entered into an implied contract, and that the taxpayers upheld their end of the deal, so the government *must* uphold their end of the bargain. Anything less than that will likely foment revolution, and that wouldn't be good for anyone. My mother is in this boat. She is counting on social security (and the help of relatives) for her retirement because of a combination of poor life choices and bad luck. Without social security, she will have to rely 100% on relatives, and we will be very pissed off if we have to pay because the US government welched on its debts.

-=Geoskd

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

Does anybody stop to ask why our per-capita spending on healthcare has skyrocketed and we spend more than other countries with better longevity?

Lots of people have asked that question. If you read Slashdot, you'll see that most people here know that almost every other developed country in the world has a government-financed system of health care, and they spend half or less of what we spend on health care with about the same outcomes. (Switzerland, the country that has the system most like ours with private insurance, is the country with the second highest health care costs after us.)

If you look around the developed world, to see what works and what doesn't work, you'll see that government-financed health care, including socialized medicine, works better than ours, and no country has come up with a free-market health care system that works.

Obama had the chance to implement a single-payer system, or a single-payer option, and after $8 million in campaign contributions from the health care industry, he chose Romneycare instead. We could have saved a lot of money.

Unfortunately I don't see any of the members of congress, the administration or any of the health insurance companies or the medical profession fixing this because they've been given a license to rape us all in terms of our costs and now with ACA they have a federally mandated right to steal from you.

Don't blame me. I voted for Jill Stein.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Gabrill]

The government attempts to tightly control inflation, and availability of money in general. Tell me how a private company is going to beat that.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[sunderland56]

the simple fact of the matter is that entitlement spending dwarfs defense spending.

[citation needed]

The wikpedia page says the 2011 defense budget was $929 billion, out of a total $3,598 billion - or 26%. It's pretty hard to "dwarf" a budget item that large.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[geoskd]

Social Security isn't bankrupt.

To quote Paul Krugman:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/opinion/16krugman.html

But neither of these potential problems is a clear and present danger. Social Security has been running surpluses for the last quarter-century, banking those surpluses in a special account, the so-called trust fund. The program won’t have to turn to Congress for help or cut benefits until or unless the trust fund is exhausted, which the program’s actuaries don’t expect to happen until 2037 — and there’s a significant chance, according to their estimates, that that day will never come. ...

What’s really going on here?

Whats really going on here is that trust fund you mentioned has no cash in it. It is entirely funded by "special" government bonds to social security. The result is that the cash is gone, and the government owes itself the money back. The crisis isn't that social security will go bankrupt, the crisis is that social security loaned the money to the US government as a whole, and it looks like the US government might not be willing to pay back those bonds. The US government wants to pretend those bonds wont really need to be repaid so that they can renege on the payment of the bonds. The thinking is this, if Social security is changed so that it does not pay out as much benefit to each individual, then there truly has been a surplus over the last half century. That being the case, then congress would not have to repay those bonds (because social security wouldn't need all of the money to pay its obligations). By not having to repay all of those bonds, congress could wipe that expense off the budget and as such would have more money to waste on craptastic jet fighters and tax breaks for people and companies making more money than Cuba. Its a giant game of smoke and mirrors, and its complicated enough that very few people have yet realized that the money is already gone. The rich stole it from us in the form of tax breaks for the very wealthy.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

The greatest falsehood of our political debate is that the government can't do things more efficiently than private enterprise.

I've compared industries where the government was working side by side with private enterprises, and it was straightforward to compare the results. For example, in the electric industry, there are private, federal, state and locally-owned power generation plants. Everybody in the industry agrees on the standards to judge them -- basically the percentage of downtime and cost per kilowatt-hour. The federally-run power plants, like the Tennessee Valley Authority, were consistently at the top of the list. Some of the private plants were at the top, some of them were at the bottom. The government did a good job.

If you don't believe the government can do anything efficiently, then go out and look at the data, and see if it supports your hypothesis. When I look at the data, it doesn't.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[D'Sphitz]

...the simple fact of the matter is that entitlement spending dwarfs defense spending.

The term "entitlement spending" is bullshit, intended to insinuate that it's referring to welfare and food stamps to get the foxnews dimwits all worked up into a froth when they hear how more money goes to dangerous minority drug addicts in the ghetto than we spend on defense. Of course, over half of that is social security, a tax that was forcibly taken from people's paychecks their whole lives, and now if they live to 100 they may get half of it back. That is not an entitlement, it's a really shitty savings plan that the people have already paid for, yet they go on and on about how social security is costing us too much and it's unsustainable. It's not costing anything because the people have already paid for it. That our inept government pissed it all away on wars and prisons doesn't change the fact that it's been paid for.

Almost all the rest of the "entitlements" go to Medicare and Medicaid, because it's not very civilized to let our elderly and disabled citizens die in the streets. These entitlements allow people who have worked and paid taxes their whole lives to get healthcare and obtain their obscenely expensive medication that would otherwise bankrupt most people in months, because our marvelous health care system, the best in the world they say, would have them all die in the streets before dipping into obscene profits to care for aging and ailing seniors end of life care. Those must be the "death panels" I've heard about.

The real "entitlements" as most people think of them, welfare, foodstamps, and throw in unemployment if you want, are a fraction of "entitlement spending", my brief research (a visit to google) says 8%, it took awhile to even find a chart that even specifically listed them rather than simply "other spending".

Re:I say cut the F-35

[geoskd]

My point is, a lot of 'wasteful government spending' is just another form of Welfare for the United States. If you support welfare you should also support excessive gov spending (so long as that money stays in the USA of course).

My issue isn't with the defense welfare economy you described, my issue is with the millionaire and billionaire stock holders who make 40% profit margins off that same activity. If were gonna go with welfare, lets just do it already, and stop paying the middleman for the privilege...

-=Geoskd

Re:I say cut the F-35

[budgenator]

I'm sure that KBR wouldn't mind picking up some domestic road and bridge work.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

Do you have a friend you trust who is an accountant or an economist? Show him Krugman's column. Ask him to explain it to you.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[geoskd]

We are running a $1.6Trillion deficit per year right now and have been during the current administration. If you cut defense out completely we would have a $900 billion deficit PER YEAR!

Ummm, no, We are currently running about $1.0 Trillion, and that number will drop a bit as the economy recovers and tax revenue increases. Take 400 Billion out of the defense budget, and fix the tax loopholes that allow companies like Google and Microsoft to pay less than 5% taxes, and you will have closed almost the entire deficit. Moreover, as the economy recovers more, the remaining deficit will turn into a surplus that we can use to pay down some of the massive debt we racked up in the last decade. If you really want to go for the perfect game, jump the taxes on anyone making over $5 Mil back to 75%, and we won't have any more budget problems.

-=Geoskd

Re:I say cut the F-35

[bbelt16ag]

take a hatchet to every plane and every person who did this.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Runaway1956]

"a vast majority of people get considerably more out of Social Security and Medicare then they put in."

Citations needed.

I remember a few things from the news, down through the years. I remember congress dipping into Social Security for money. And again. And again.

Social Security is something of a pyramid scheme, yes. It isn't truly sustainable. But, despite that, Social Security had surplus money, time and again. And, every time, Congress put their fingers into the surplus, and skimmed it off.

Is it REALLY true, that the vast majority of Americans take out more than they pay in? Or, is it more likely that the vast majority of Americans don't LIVE long enough to collect what they have paid in? Maybe, just maybe, Social Security is going broke only because Congress can't control themselves, and they have spent our Social Security already!

Re:I say cut the F-35

[goldstein]

Pension plans offered by employers are disappearing or being scaled back. At the same time, the primary response of the financial industry is to devise ever more complex financial products that are designed to sound better than they are. We are not far from a situation where a prerequisite for retirement will be to win a lottery or be a financial planner - it is really naive to think that the average man in the street is able to adequately plan for his retirement without being backstopped by social security or something similar.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Runaway1956]

Actually - the wealthy never have been taxed proportionately for Social Security. Currently, FICA tax is only charged on the first $113,000 of earnings - matched by your employer, of course. The lower echelons of "wealthy" people pay almost as much as common workers, proportionately. Moderately wealthy people pay less, and really wealthy people pay even less, proportionally.

Of course, there are arguments to be made that SOME wealthy people pay a lot more than any of us lowly wage workers. The billionaire who employs a few hundred people directly, rather than through a corporation, will have to match all of the FICA taxes paid by his employees.

But, I don't think a lot of filthy rich people employ that many people directly. It's cheaper to set up a front company to hire the underlings.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[KiloByte]

Yes, bribing legislatures this way is a textbook definition of corruption.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[houghi]

The problem is that most of the data is not available till it is too late. Or worse, only the data for the government part is available.
So when we see X Gazillion is spend on a dead end project, people will shudder. You will seldom hear about this from private companies.

So comparing is very hard. Also people think they have more invested in it, because it is their money, while they do not care to pay for the failed investment with a company when buying their product with a slightly higher price.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Greyfox]

What are you worried about? You will never in your life make a million dollars a year. I can say that with complete certainty. I can also say with reasonable certainty that you'll never break 250K and I'd honestly be surprised if you ever break 100K. But do you listen to your mother? Nooooo.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ShanghaiBill]

You will find the courts have something to say about that. I believe that if push comes to shove, it will go to SCOTUS, and SCOTUS will make precedent by deciding that the U.S. government entered into an implied contract

SCOTUS has already ruled on this issue in Flemming vs Nestor and the result was the opposite: There is no contract, and you have no "right" to receive benefits.

 

Re:I say cut the F-35

[jkflying]

So you make over $5mil?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[1369IC]

" Though, even SS isn't so bad, since, in theory, it is already paid for."
Your largess is stunning.
On another note, social security becomes a de facto retirement plan because the economy needs people to spend pretty much all their damn money to fuel the ever-upward corporate spiral. Then government raids the social security pot to pay for the other side of the ever-upward spiral. The problem is we can't settle for a sustainable reality. If you owned a company employing 10, 20 or 30 thousand people turning $500 million in profits with a solid outlook for that to continue -- but not grow -- for the next 50 years, Wall Street would ignore you. It's all about potential for growth, not actual performance. Then they tie executive pay to stock performance and boom! Stupidity is mandatory.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[mikewas]

Yes, but the money contributed was invested, so it "grew".

When you put money into a savings account or CD don't you expect to get more money back than you put in? You also have the same expectation for your IRA & 401K account, and for your retirement plan if you are fortunate enough to still have a traditional retirement plan where you work.

It is the same with Social Security. Why is this such a difficult concept for people to understand about Social Security? The major difference is that it is run by the government, it is required to invest in government securities, and when it needs cash (to pay retirees) it cashes in those government securities. These are the same notes that you can buy directly, that banks & other governments buy & sell.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[1369IC]

I work for a DoD R&D organization, and this is very true. We create a lot and we do it well and relatively cheaply.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[aurispector]

And what pressures exist to prevent fraud and waste? The TVA has had it's share of abuses over the years. Government programs and agencies simply go begging to the taxpayer if they don't meet their budgets. It happens over and over and the the taxpayer gets stuck with the bill.

The biggest problem with government programs is that they generally require an act of congress (and all the politics this implies) in order to change something that's wrong. In a free and competitive market, the consumer at least has a choice as to where they spend their money. If one product is too expensive or is undesirable for some other reason one can simply buy a competitors product, or not buy at all.

With government run programs you generally have no choices at all and if you decide not to pay, police will eventually come to arrest and jail you for non payment of taxes. How is this an improvement?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[dkleinsc]

Another way of describing the problem: The loans from Social Security to the general treasury had the real goal of shifting the tax burden from the somewhat progressive income taxes to the completely regressive payroll taxes.

There's been a solution to any problems with Social Security available for some time: raise or eliminate the cap of income subject to the Social Security tax. As it stands, Lloyd Blankfein pays the same amount into Social Security as your average middle manager pays in. Not the same percentage, the same amount. And that's ridiculous.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[mikewas]

Social Security has a number of different elements. The preamble to the social Security Act of 1935:

An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes.

The first phrase defines benefits for "general welfare", that means for everybody! Everything after the first "and" describes the safety net provisions.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ilicas]

this is like saying that you'll have no trouble paying rent because you haven't over-spent your rent budget, just all the other budgets. what it comes down to is that the federal government has not plausible plan for meeting all of its financial obligations in the long run, at least no ways that don't involve dirty words like 'inflation'

Re:I say cut the F-35

[1369IC]

I know it might seem trifling, but we are still engaged in active combat operations halfway around the world. If we still had a draft I think you'd be acutely aware of that.
And if you look into technology that transitions from Defense into the civilian economy, you'll find quite a bit. Right now we have defense employees working on quantum teleportation, neural computing chips, all kinds of power and energy technologies and so on. Companies come in, or start up, and do good business making products and services off things the government paid for. ENIAC was an Army program to figure out artillery azimuths. GPS, the internet, etc. It still goes on all the time.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[BitZtream]

Some insurance companies can go bankrupt. Others, like AIG, apparently cannot.

And that alone is reason enough to start a revolution. That is so incredibly unconstitutional its not even a little bit amusing.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[BitZtream]

.

Your supposition is flawed. It relies on the idea that government would actually have the ability to save money not needed to cover expenses. It does not except at certain state and local levels if those areas are specifically set up to do so. By law, congress has to spend every last dollar taken in. Now this spending can be on some new program, increases to existing programs, or servicing the debt but it completely lacks the ability to create a rainy day fund or anything of the sort which would have decreased any of the discussions we are having today.

You do realize that the only group of people on the planet that is legally allowed to make that change is in fact the very people you are refering to.

If they actually wanted to have a rainy day fund ... they could enact a new program for that purpose.

Don't even begin to pretend that they 'cant' do something. There is no group of people in America that is more capable of legally changing the system. They ARE the system.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[slick7]

And that alone is reason enough to start a revolution.

You can't start what has already begun. You don't throw stones until you have more than you need. By stones I mean evidence of wrong doing by those who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. The NWO appears to be crumbling and they're deserting the ship (of state) like rats or are trying to do so.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

You're giving me a theoretical argument. I'm telling you what I saw when I looked at the facts. If facts don't correspond to theory, I go with the facts.

I suggest you look at the facts, by comparing, without cherry-picking, similar government and private functions, to see which does better.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[dj245]

If you think Social Security has problems, it is nothing compared to the coming problems faced by China's pension system. It has worse demographics and the retirement age is much lower (55 for women, 60 for men) than in the U.S.

China's economy might be built on a house of cards, mostly in the form of housing, buildings, and infrastructure. I am not worried about their retirement plan collapsing their economy though. The personal savings rate in China is above 50%. The US's is around 6.5%, which is higher than it has been in almost 20 years. And the US savings rate is defined as "% of disposable income"- not gross income or net income. I don't know how China's is defined exactly but it doesn't matter- People in China are generally preparing for retirement, problematic life events, etc.

Plus their basic pension plan pays about $108 dollars a year per person.

Even if there are 500 million people in China on the plan (a staggering number, but possibly possible), it costs "only" $54 billion a year. In contrast, the US spent $615 billion in 2008 on SS and has about 20% of the population receiving such benefits. Even when you consider GDP differences (which are narrowing fast), this isn't an unreasonable burden on China.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Maxo-Texas]

Oh, you mean like private insurance companies do already.
Gotcha.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Caffinated]

I remember a few things from the news, down through the years. I remember congress dipping into Social Security for money. And again. And again.

Social Security is something of a pyramid scheme, yes. It isn't truly sustainable. But, despite that, Social Security had surplus money, time and again. And, every time, Congress put their fingers into the surplus, and skimmed it off.

Congress hasn't done anything to the social security surpluses. Like just about any fund that prizes security over raw returns, the SS trust fund invests it's surpluses in treasury bonds. (largely) the same sort that you can buy. The money didn't go away, it wasn't skimmed, it's invested to grow until it's needed. The payroll tax was increased in 1986 specifically to build up the trust fund as it was recognized that the baby boom generation demographic bulge was going to cause issues. The commission that recommended the changes didn't take one thing into account, which is why there's a (relatively small) long term deficit; income inequality growth. Since there's a cap on the amount of income that's subject to the payroll tax (~$110k IIRC), increasing inequality leads to less income to the fund. If the cap were removed (or increased to account for the increase in inequality), there'd be no issue with SS funding.

Is it REALLY true, that the vast majority of Americans take out more than they pay in? Or, is it more likely that the vast majority of Americans don't LIVE long enough to collect what they have paid in? Maybe, just maybe, Social Security is going broke only because Congress can't control themselves, and they have spent our Social Security already!

Again, the SS trust fund is a real thing, with real assets. It's like saying that if you bought a treasury bond for your grandkid that congress spent his money. It's a silly assertion.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Solandri]

For 50 years, far more has been collected than was needed to pay current obligations.

The catch is that "current obligations" is simply what's paid out today, not money needed to pay those who paid into it. The money you pay into Social Security isn't put into some savings account where it grows with interest waiting for you to retire. It's paid out almost immediately to current retirees (solvency varies from 1 year to about 15 years depending on program changes). That's why the baby boomers retiring is such a shock to the system - it drastically altered the ratio of SS payers to payees. If it had been structured like a real pension, the baby boomers would just be getting back money they paid in and there would be no shock to the system from the payer/payee ratio changing. But that's not how it works.

Medicare works the same way - current workers paying current retirees. This is why it's very dangerous to think of these programs as getting back money you paid in, or as "solvent and paid for" just because they've been running in the black on the accounting books thus far . They're not run like a regular retirement or pension fund. To compare their health like you would a pension fund, you have to project out about 30-40 years ahead to take into account the current batch of payers turning into payees. And the CBO has been warning for over a decade that these (primarily Medicare) are the biggest threats to the budget when you project out that far.

While I'm sure there's lots of waste in Defense spending which could be cut, it is not growing. It's more or less been holding steady. Even with the uptick from the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Defense spending is still below 1980s levels. The bottom line is that you cannot balance a budget by cutting things which aren't growing, and ignoring the things which are growing. Eventually you're going to run out of things to cut, while the things you're ignoring will continue to grow (which btw is projected to happen around 2070, when SS + Medicare/Medicaid spending are projected to exceed all tax receipts). You have to look at the costs that are growing and do something to get their growth under control. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to implement those cost controls.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Maxo-Texas]

Yea, I did some research on this and china and france's baby booms were bigger and went on longer than the U.S.

You know... from 2001-2009, social security recipients increased from 28m to 33m.

In 2010 to 2011 alone, the number increased from 33m to 38m.

Now- that's WAY over the birth rates back in 1945-1950 would have predicted.

I think when the supreme court eviscerated age discrimination protection, they set up a lot more people to be forced on social security before age 66/67.

If you can't find a job due to age discrimination-- then you have to take social security early.

Also- as the leading edge boomers are dying, a lot of back edge boomers are being freed to retire. I.e., the 50 year old boomers who have saved up $200k and paid off their houses suddenly find themselves with $500k and no debt when their parents die. You no longer need a full time income at that point and can retire. You can't take social security yet.

One other thing-- if you expect to die by 82, it's wiser to take your social security earlier anyway. Your total benefits will be higher AND your inheritance passed on to your kids will be higher. Only if you expect to live past 82 does it make sense to delay taking it for the 8% increases.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[TFAFalcon]

So SS works just like an investment? You put in X and get X + Y back.
Why should this be cut when the people had no choice but to invest, while the people loaning money to the government of their own free will are guaranteed to get their money back with interest.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Maxo-Texas]

I can say from experience... you collect more dollars.

It's easy to verify. Go to Social Security Site and sign up.
Observe your contributed amounts.

Then, download the PIA calculator and observe your benefit. The numbers are not close.

However- the real problem is not poor people (who collect really low benefits) but the wealthy people who

a) live 5 years longer on average.
b) collect the maximum benefit.

A lot of social security does make sense when you consider inflation however.

A dollar collected in 1990 was worth more than a dollar in benefits 30 years later.

For comparison-- since 1970- houses have gone up over 1000%. And so have bread, gasoline, sugar, and just about every other commodity.

So presumably... workers in 2030 will be making $21 an hour for minimum wage and the $26000 benefit SS benefits will be below poverty level.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

Exactly.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Solandri]

"a vast majority of people get considerably more out of Social Security and Medicare then they put in."

Citations needed.

Both SS and Medicare began paying out immediately when the programs began, to people who never paid a dime in. It wasn't until about 1982 that new retirees had paid Social Security all their lives (SS began in 1937, figure 45 working years til retirement). Before then, all retirees had only paid into SS for none or part of their working careers. Same thing with Medicare. It wasn't until about 2010 that new beneficiares had paid into Medicare all their lives. So everyone who began collecting from those programs prior to those dates got considerably more out them than they put in.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[BitZtream]

At $5 million a year, you have approximately 4,980,000 more you NEED to survive well in the US. Survive. You can actually do it on far less if you have to, but we'll say a nice high 20k to make it easy on you (plenty of people, myself included, have done it on less than half that.

I can not say this with any more sincerity.

If you think there's something wrong with taxing people who make 5 million a year at 75% then I hope you die in the most horrible and agonizing way. You don't deserve to live you selfish fuck. Better still would be to stick you in an environment where you can't spend more than say $8,000/year and let you learn just how fucking ridiculous your greedy selfish statements are.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[TCPhotography]

Our military expenditures aren't just huge, they are to the point of being borderline insane. We have enough nukes to kill every human on earth 100 times over, there's no possibility of any country invading us for at least the next several hundred years

I'm all for gutting the Army and the marines but the US, as a trading nation, needs to keeps the sea lanes of communication open. That means a large navy, which we are getting away from. And the US does not have the nuclear arsenal to kill everyone on Earth a hundred times over unless everyone stood in nice neat groups, which they don't.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[CrimsonAvenger]

It is the same with Social Security. Why is this such a difficult concept for people to understand about Social Security? The major difference is that it is run by the government, it is required to invest in government securities, and when it needs cash (to pay retirees) it cashes in those government securities.

Read the fine print sometime. Those government securities they're required to "invest" in are ZERO-INTEREST intragovernmental T-Bills (essentially, IOU's).

Note that even if they were interest-bearing, effectively the government is taking money out of it's left hip-pocket, spending it, then replacing it with an IOU to itself.

Consider how well YOUR finances would work if you did that - would it actually give you more money to take money out of your wallet, spend it, and replace it with an IOU which you will redeem from yourself as soon as you need money again?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Riddler Sensei]

And there it is, folks. The real agenda. Spend until you're so far under water that you can't breathe, then jack income tax up to 75%.

And there it is, folks. The real agenda. Spend until you're so far under water that you can't breathe, then refuse to pay for it under some bullshit libertarian/conservative guise.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[CrimsonAvenger]

Again, the SS trust fund is a real thing, with real assets. It's like saying that if you bought a treasury bond for your grandkid that congress spent his money. It's a silly assertion.

There is a fundamental difference between buying a T-Bill for your grandkid from a third party (the government) and the government buying a T-Bill from itself.

You cannot owe yourself money in any meaningful way, which is what the SS Trust Fund consists of - money the government owes to itself....

Re:I say cut the F-35

[sjames]

On the other hand, entitlement spending actually uses Americans' money to help Americans. I really have no desire to part with any money for the blowing up brown people fund.

We could stand to trim entitlements for large multinationals and banks.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[CrimsonAvenger]

Moreover, as the economy recovers more, the remaining deficit will turn into a surplus that we can use to pay down some of the massive debt we racked up in the last decade.

We haven't paid down the massive debt since the 1950's...in spite of what Clinton tried to suggest about "balancing the budget".

Pretty easy to check, really. The Feds maintain a website that shows national debt by year - and the last time the number got smaller when Eisenhower was President. It went UP every year that Clinton was President, in spite of "balancing the budget"....

Re:I say cut the F-35

[chill]

Saying govt contacts must go to the lowest bidder is a myth. Every one I have dealt with has been "best value" and we have a certain amount of discretion.

Evaluating bids is a two part process. The technical evaluation and the cost evaluation. The technical eval is more than just "does it meet the minimum specs". I've sat on Technical Evaluation Boards that awarded contracts to huge bidders because the quality was superior. The awards withstood protest.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[meta-monkey]

But there is no trust fund, and the lockbox is full of IOUs. And it shouldn't be "I" Owe Yous, it's "You" Owe Yous.

We hear this crap about "America's promise to its seniors!" but I don't seem to recall making any promises. I'm in my early 30s, and I was in grade school, unable to vote when the boomers were spending all the money.

It's like they said, "Hmm, we've got this $200 here. Let's put that in the bank to save for later!" "Good idea, that's great. So, yup, got that saved. But ya know...I sure would like some of these social programs enacted. Let's write a check for $200 for that." "Great idea, great idea! And ya know, we sure could use some military spending. Gotta beat the Russians and all. Let's take out a loan against that $200 we saved." "Oh yes, of course! Capital idea there." An then now they're shocked, shocked I tell you, to come back to the bank to withdraw their $200, and it's not there! "But, but, but...we deposited $200! We want it back!" Well, yes, you did deposit $200. And then you spent it. And then you borrowed against it and spent that, too, and now there's nothing left.

The baby boomers have looted the empire.

Their parents built the greatest economic powerhouse the world has ever seen. They great up in the depression, then went off to fight a terrible war against tyranny and oppression. When they came home they fought to free their countrymen via the civil rights upheavals of the 1950s (that wasn't the boomers in their early teens marching in the streets). All the while they built the industrial base that dominated the global economy.

But if their parents were the Greatest Generation, the boomers were the Worst Generation. They were the ones voting, they were the ones in control of the government in the 80s and 90s. They made all the promises, spent all the money, racked up all the debt. Their parents built an industrial base, and when the boomers took over management, they shipped all the jobs to China. Now their kids (us) are left with coffee shop jobs to show for our four-year degrees.

They looted the empire their parents built and left a desiccated husk for their kids. Now they sit with their hands out, demanding their reward for a job well done.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[CrimsonAvenger]

The wikpedia page says the 2011 defense budget was $929 billion, out of a total $3,598 billion - or 26%. It's pretty hard to "dwarf" a budget item that large.

From your link:

Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid expenditures are funded by more permanent Congressional appropriations and so are considered mandatory spending.

And

Mandatory spending accounted for 57.4% of total federal outlays in FY2012

Hmm, looks like the entitlements are rather more than twice as much in total as the military spending.

Note, by the by, again from your source, that "military spending" was inflated by including DHS and VA into it. The actual military budget was only about 80% of that.

Which would make the entitlements closer to three times the military budget.

Hmm, more than twice as much entitlements up to nearly three times as much entitlements, depending on how you count "military spending"...

Yep, looks like the guy you were responding to was right, doesn't it?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[khallow]

The major entitlement spending is for Medicare and Social Security. People are entitled to Medicare and Social Security because they paid for them all their lives.

We don't need to go any further. They are not so entitled. Keep in mind that the entitlement is larger than the amount put in and the amount put in was never invested in the first place by the politicians who those "people" above appointed to oversee this process.

Fundamentally, we're being asked to honor a con job. Too bad we don't have to. Unadjusted inflation will take care of the problem.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[khallow]

The greatest falsehood of our political debate is that the government can't do things more efficiently than private enterprise.

It'd help your argument, if the falsehood was actually false.

I've compared industries where the government was working side by side with private enterprises, and it was straightforward to compare the results. For example, in the electric industry, there are private, federal, state and locally-owned power generation plants. Everybody in the industry agrees on the standards to judge them -- basically the percentage of downtime and cost per kilowatt-hour. The federally-run power plants, like the Tennessee Valley Authority, were consistently at the top of the list. Some of the private plants were at the top, some of them were at the bottom. The government did a good job.

And if the TVA were playing on an even field, it'd be at the bottom of those lists. If I didn't have to follow a bunch of costly federal laws and had some large, cozy monopoly markets, I bet I'd be at the top of that list as well.

If you don't believe the government can do anything efficiently, then go out and look at the data, and see if it supports your hypothesis. When I look at the data, it doesn't.

One merely needs to look at your example to see that you aren't looking.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[SplashMyBandit]

The major entitlement spending is for Medicare and Social Security. People are entitled to Medicare and Social Security because they paid for them all their lives.

What people get out of these "entitlements" is far, far more than what they put in. It is a giant Ponzi scheme. The money for this Ponzi scheme coming from borrowing that not only your children will have to pay but also your grandchildren. It's also even worse than a Ponzi scheme because a Ponzi scheme is voluntary whereas Medicare and Social Security have the implied threat of violence or loss of liberty by the full weight of the State to force you into paying for the "Ponzi" scheme.

Now don't get me wrong, social programs are necessary. It is even possible for social programs to deliver more to participants than they put in - provided the tax/contribution base is growing (eg. demographic or economic growth). However, what has happened is that the so called "entitlements" (really bribes made by politicians to get your vote) have continued to rise at a far greater rate than the contributors can cover. Borrowing has been used to cover the gap but that can't continue indefinitely. The Libertarian politicians are rubbing their hands with glee because they have been right all along; the Democrats have been living in a dream world where they can promise "entitlements" but the economy simply can't sustain it indefinitely. The proposed Democratic solution is to tax "fat cats" to extract more money, but that simply won't work because it is based on a misconception of who is currently paying for the system. In the US the top 3% of taxpayers pay the vast bulk of the tax revenue. Squeezing them harder won't get much more money and won't grow the economy either. The Republican solution is to try grow the economy. That's a better idea (despite the general Republican craziness on social liberties). The Libertarians have a much much more realistic view of the economy (they tend to be more fact based rather than ideologically based, unlike the Dems or Republicans).

So, if you are thinking in terms of "entitlements" then you may not understand that these voter bribes are what is bringing the US economy down. The "unfunded liabilities" of promised entitlements completely dwarfs things like defence spending. In fact, US defence spending has swollen massively in absolute terms (as peaceniks like to point out) but in relative terms it has diminished significantly because the entire US economy had grown at a much faster rate than defence spending until the 2008 crash. Most of the defence spending doesn't go on equipment (like the F-35, which is advanced and complex so has various teething troubles that its opponents like to point out). Most defence spending goes on salaries and veteran entitlements. Cut those and you will have several hundred thousand more unemployed - you'll still be paying those people (in welfare) but they won't be doing anything useful for your (disaster relief, peacekeeping, peacemaking, hunting terrorists, construction for the community etc).

As JFK famously said, "A rising tide lifts all boats". The way to solve the problem is not to squeeze the rich (this reduces the tax haul and strangles the economy) but it is instead to promote policies that grow the parts of the economy that generate revenue (growing the government to reduce unemployment, as has been done by recent Administrations, won't work). While some cutting of "corporate welfare" in defence might work it is not the solution to the problems of the US. The only solution is to borrow less by cutting the colossal entitlements (and hence the unfunded liabilities). Without the people choosing this option the US will never get out of the more.

So the F-35 programme should be left alone. While the US may not need them now the lifespan of these machines is at least 40 years (eg. judging by the service life of the F-16 it replaces). You do not know what may be around the corner for the US - but it is not hard to guess: China may exerci

Re:I say cut the F-35

[SplashMyBandit]

all we have to do is make sure that companies are held to the promises they make when the bid for a contract.

That is entirely possible provided another condition is also met: the defence branches must also not keep increasing their specifications while assuming the unit cost remains a fixed price. Do that and your suggestion will work well. The customer needs to be controlled at least as much as the suppliers !

Re:I say cut the F-35

[SplashMyBandit]

Please see this video that goes over the numbers for you with regard to increasing taxes on the affluent/rich:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQ

Re:I say cut the F-35

[SplashMyBandit]

The person who earns $5 million a year is already paying *massively* more in absolute terms than they will ever get back from government and *massively* more than any other citizen. Many of them earned their money by producing things that other people wanted, they didn't steal their money or ask for handouts, they made or did something useful. Apart from individuals that avoid tax altogether (which I vehemently disagree with) most of these people pay far more tax than us. Isn't a flat tax rate more egalitarian. Don't you believe in the principle that everyone should contribute according to their means at the same proportional rate, as this is most fair? You will agree, unless one harbours some kind of "class-bias" against the successful (the majority of who worked honestly to reap their reward).

If you think there's something wrong with taxing people who make 5 million a year at 75% then I hope you die in the most horrible and agonizing way.

Hyperbole. Don't wish evil on others for any reason - it makes you evil. The "something wrong" with increasing the tax rate to 75% is because economics and history both show that increasing the tax rate to that degree both *decrease* total tax rate and slow growth of the economy. A growing and vibrant economy is the real solution to the fiscal problems of the US. Rather than continuing to spend, and make spending promises on so-called "entitlements", at an unsustainable rate the solution is for the US citizens to stop accepting vote bribes from their politicians, stop the class warfare ("bleed the rich"), realise many citizens are actually completely spoiled like petulant children (with respect to the citizens of the rest of the world) and accept two things: they need to shrink the expenses of their government (which has become bloated and very expensive to run), and to accept that that their own programmes and entitlements need to be cut - starting from the largest programmes first (which is not the F-35s, in fact).

Re:I say cut the F-35

[TFAFalcon]

A lot of those 'obligations' are voluntary. They are equal to (in your example) buying a new iphone and computer each time a new one is released - just because you can.
So why keep demanding that your landlord cut the rent instead of just getting a new phone every few years and having plenty of cash left over.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[TFAFalcon]

Does the government have to honor debts? If it does, then the SS has enough bonds to keep going for quite a while. If it doesn't, then the deficit and nation debt are just illusions - then don't have to be repaid.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[TFAFalcon]

Does that include interest?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Anonymous Coward]

Those government securities they're required to "invest" in are ZERO-INTEREST intragovernmental T-Bills (essentially, IOU's). Note that even if they were interest-bearing,

Errr, in the last reporting period the SSTF received over $120 BILLION in interest payments on those "ZERO-INTEREST T-bills". Since interest+payroll-tax was higher than payments, about half the interest payment went straight back into the investment fund, which stands at around $3 TRILLION and still growing. This is in spite of high unemployment reducing the number of people paying payroll tax, payroll tax reduction/holiday/stimulus, and the increase in payments due to retirees dropping under the income threshold, all due to the Great Recession. Anyone could almost think the fuckers knew what they were doing.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[BlindRobin]

yer a eejit

Re: I say cut the F-35

[JonBoy47]

When one buys a Treasury Bond, the proceeds to the sale go right into the Treasury. After which point the government spends it on whatever. When the bond is later cashed in, the proceeds com from the treasury. Yeah...

Re:I say cut the F-35

[dbIII]

who is always afraid the contractor really is ripping them off

After trying to buy Cell based servers from a company that mostly sells to defence I can see exactly why. It was a two week process with daily calls that almost appeared to be a combination of homosexual seduction and weighing the wallet of the company I work for - and that was just after I asked them for a quote on a single unit of a specific model and expected to just get a simple reply by email. After two weeks of slimy sales calls I finally got a quote, and it was the sort of price that could never be justified to accountants unless we had a black ops team on hand that could make them dissappear if they objected.
Of course it's unrepresentative but I can see why they worry about being ripped off or purchasing officers being bribed.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[dbIII]

Australia signed one and it was not only almost entirely one way (eg. no wheat, wool, beef, steel or sugar to be sold to the USA until something like 2030 - so a step backwards!), but we also got a stack of stupid US IP laws to go with it. Even software companies have hit time consuming legal barriers if they want to sell things to the USA despite the agreement supposedly being in place to allow such trade. A single person US shell that "outsources" everything to Australia is apparently a way around such a problem that the agreement was supposed to remove.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[MickLinux]

I seem to remember researching that in 1992, and I found a STATISTICS OF INCOME article that noted that a large minority of those who die witheless than the value of a house, died before collecting social security, largely by not having access to their money when they desperately needed it.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[MickLinux]

... and left a des(sic)ated husk...
There, fixed that for you.

Spelling aside, there is a lot of truth to the post.

But that doesn't mean that a lot of the baby boomers weren't depending on it; and surely there were many, a large minority perhaps, that didn't participate. Oh, there's a mess. A big mess. At time's like this, I am reminded of Gandolf's response to Frodo's statement, "it's a pity Bilbo didn't kill him then."

pity? It was pity that stayed his hand... Surely if any deserved death, it was Gollum. But many die that deserve life.Can you give it back to them? Then don't be too quick to deal out death to those who deserve it, for his life may have a purpose not even understood by the Wise.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[dbIII]

Something the defence experts like and not some Sea Sprite, obsolete with no replacement torpedoes that don't fit our subs or a tank with too short a range to be useful as chosen by politicians at dinner parties with US officials. Like those the F-35 was a political choice to make powerful people happy and not chosen on technical merits.
While all of those expensive fuckups were chosen by the previous government it could just be that time has exposed them for what they are and members of the current government may have been persuaded to make similar choices that just haven't been shown as failures yet. For one thing we're still on the list for the F-35 despite leaks that there has been plenty of advice against it.
We owe our troops more than giving them equipment based on what some grubby politician on the take is pushing onto our politicians that act like starstruck spaniels every time they go over there.

Re: I say cut the F-35

[JonBoy47]

The issue with the $85 billion cut ( sequestration) is that it represents a 10% cut in spending for the current fiscal year. Which started in October. No govt. agencies implemented sequestration cuts in advance of sequestration so the 10% cuts for the year will be absorbed in the final six months of the fiscal year, which doubles the effect. Also (and this was by design to make the prospect that much less palatable) the cuts are across the board. Agencies are not at liberty to decide what programs to make the cuts in.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[sumdumass]

Have you paid attention to that group of people over the last 100 years? Ever since 1935, one set of them has been apposed to limiting the size of government and in favor of spending every last dime it takes in while more recently, the other groups has bit its nose off to spite its face in an attempt to say I'm gonna get mine too.

While technically they can create a rainy day fund or the equivalent then proceed to fund it, the reality is you might be more lucky getting all the rich people to divide every dollar they possess over 5 million dollars equally between the population and hand it out with no strings attached. Yes, that too can happen. But until it does, I'll just say it won't happen.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[MickLinux]

By all means then, increase the tax on the poor, so that we gan repay those bonds of debt to the rich.

Or how about this? Forget the income tax, which taxes the laborer to pay for the protection of the property of the owner (itself an injustice). Make it an assets tax, exponential according to assets posessed (and thus protection recieved), and pay back the debt completely over thirty years, on a reverse-balloon plan: biggest payments up front.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[MickLinux]

The person who makes $5M a year isn't paying back what he earned, by and large. He is paying back what others have earned and he has taken for himself.

Don't wish evil on others? I don't. But I don't consider it evil to see that the wealthy and powerful have dug a pit for the poor, and to pray to God (save us from that pit). Not to the government -- not that I see a increasing tax rate on the wealthy as immoral. I just find it improbable. Wealth represents power. And does someone here think that the powerless will use power to successfully take power from the powerful?

But God is more powerful than that, and He can and does intervene. I will wait on him.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Artifakt]

The thing is, you can't actually know the things you have just claimed. There are hidden 'black box' projects throughout the budget. All of them originate on the Defense/Homeland Security/Spy side of the budget, but many of them are hidden in civilian department programs. There are known and now openly admitted cases, such as the CIA, for just one example, hiding spending in the National Endowment for the Arts. There just aren't any civil 'black box' programs hidden in the military or security budgets in turn. So long as this is the case, all anyone without Top Secret classification and active need to know can be sure of is the real civilian budget is smaller than what they are told, and the real military/security budget is larger, and this goes for waste at the very least proportionately, since the sytem can't possibly be doing more to conceal waste on the civil side than the fanatical near- total concealment of the 'black box' projects. So, either you're just unthinkingly parroting the current Corporate side Republican party line, or you got modded insightful for violating an above Top Secret clearance. I wouldn't recommed being that desperate for mod points, myself.

Re: I say cut the F-35

[JonBoy47]

I imagine the Australian MoD did weigh other options. Problem is there are none, really. The Russians in have gotten their shit together, and sell Su-30 and Su-35 Flankers to damn near anyone with the cash. They're also aggressively developing PAK-FA which is specifically designed to counter the F-22 Raptor. Rosoboronexport is aggressively marketing both planes to every shithole banana republic with the cash. If tou go to war against these 10 years fris not something you want to go toe to toe with in a 4th generation Western fighter like an F18 or a Eurofighter Typhoon. The PAK-FA even less so. The real problem was that someone had the bright idea to replace the F-16, F/A-18, A-10 AND AV-8B Harrier with a single airframe, and do stealth at the same time.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Woldscum]

The major entitlement spending is for Medicare and Social Security. People are entitled to Medicare and Social Security because they paid for them all their lives.

Do you propose that the government not pay people the benefits they paid for as part of a contract?

That would be like buying health insurance from a private company, and having them decide not to pay you when you get sick and need it, because that would be a good way for them to save money.

You are not prepaying for YOUR FUTURE befits. You are paying for the people getting benefits NOW. Your money does not go into your special "Lock Box". You are paying for your grand parents and parents. Your kids and grand kids will pay for you. It really is a ponzi scheme.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[SplashMyBandit]

By all means then, increase the tax on the poor, so that we gan repay those bonds of debt to the rich.

No one is suggesting an increase in tax on the poor. In the US, most of the "lower half" of income earners pay no actual or no effective tax. This is 47% according to statistics, AFAIK. I'm not sure how you read "increase a tax on the poor and decrease for the rich" from my statement. What I said was that the problem was in excessive government spending and promised spending. Increasing taxes on the rich not only will not cover the excessive spending, it will cause additional problems as profits decrease, workers are laid off and overall economic activity flows from the productive sector into the non-productive sector.

Or how about this? Forget the income tax, which taxes the laborer to pay for the protection of the property of the owner (itself an injustice). Make it an assets tax, exponential according to assets posessed (and thus protection recieved), and pay back the debt completely over thirty years, on a reverse-balloon plan: biggest payments up front.

Actually, I'm a fan of both a flat income tax and capital gains tax (except on the dwelling where you live). That way *everyone* contributes and *everyone* contributes in equal proportion to the about they generate. No discrimination against the poor not the rich. Such a system would also close many of the loopholes that can be used by the unscrupulous. The tax gathered would go up and *everyone* would have "skin in the game" (at the moment many poor do not contribute financially to society, I personally believe that everyone should contribute to the commonwealth that the tax system represents).

It appears you agree with punishing the rich for the "sin" they committed in working hard and becoming rich. It appears you believe that it is impossible for the poor in the US to become rich, and hence the inequality of the US society must be rectified. Your proposal does seem disproportionate given the observed social mobility of those prepared to learn and work hard. The system isn't perfect but waging class war against the rich won't make the rich disappear, it just changes who controls the wealth - it also won't solve the fiscal problems of the US.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[MickLinux]

Okay, first, I am 100% against the income tax, flat, graduated , or otherwise: the laborer is worth his wage. So much for me thinking that hard work is a sin.

But I cannot help but notice that the greatest predictor of wealth--individual or corporate-- is not hard work, but how they have positioned themselves to receive from the government, or from others by government decree.

As such, I consider no accumulated wealth in our society to be earned. None of it. In our society, the laborer who earns the wealth is paid enough to get the job done, to live for a time, and to die when no longer useful: he is a slave, and should be the owner. Meanwhile, the actual owners pay unjustly, and earn precious little of what they take.

But I find it extremely evil to not only take the earnings of the laborer, and give it to the bum on wall street, in the CEO office, or in the government job, but also to predicate it on thepromise that you will take more later.

And now, when the poor have been squeezed to the point that they are dying -- my kids' godfather is in cardiac failure as we speak,unable to pay for medical care; two months ago a black man was peeled up from the pavement by our concrete plant where he had jumped (the depression has been worse on poor blacks than any)...

And then to put the blame on the poor?

And then to determine that they need to be squeezed further?

I do not accuse you of this, but this is typical of the Republican establishment for whom I shall never again vote.

It is unspeakably evil, and I can only pray "God, please save us from the pit they have dug for us, their neighbors", and, "Come, Lord Jesus!"

I have no confidence in our political leaders for justice, at all. Or our business leaders. I hve 40 years of experience in that.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[swalve]

That $3 trillion fund, when looked at from another angle, is $3 trillion of national debt.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[SplashMyBandit]

The person who makes $5M a year isn't paying back what he earned, by and large. He is paying back what others have earned and he has taken for himself.

This is false. Without entrepreneurs to generate wealth there *are no workers*. The entrepreneurs generate a great deal of wealth for society as a whole and they happen to take a small slice of the generated wealth. Sometimes this adds up to $5M a year, sometimes it is a negative amount (since they carry the risk, unlike the workers). Yes, the mega-corps work differently, where CEOs obtain compensation by essentially robbing shareholders (though stock options and other scams). However, the number of megacorps is small compared to all the other businesses that generate the vast bulk of wealth.

History has shown that without the capitalist incentive of profit you end up with a system of "The workers pretend to work and the bosses pretend to pay them". The last century has shown the utter failure of the model you propose - waging war against capitalists/entrepreneurs (incidentally, most who are not rich to start with) simply brings misery to all, closely followed by loss of liberty and eventually economic collapse. Just like thermodynamics, where there must be an energy difference for work to be done, the economic systems require a capital difference in order for work to get done in a modern economic system (and any utopian who believes in going back to "the old ways" ought to visit Africa to see what their utopia is when put into practice).

But God is more powerful than that, and He can and does intervene. I will wait on him.

Cool, as long as you don't hold your breath while you wait. God is an interesting concept that unfortunately there is *zero* reputable scientific evidence for. The supposed evidence for God is self-contradictory works clearly written by men who had no additional "divine" knowledge more advanced than the period they were writing in eg. surely someone receiving messages from divine agents could point out useful truths such as the bacterial and viral causes of infection (that would have saved *billions* of lives over the millenia) rather than superstitious nonsense about demons (which, if they existed, apparently can be permanently banished by antiseptic alcohol swaps, antibiotics, etc). Here is an interesting visualization of the contradictions within the Bible:
http://www.project-reason.org/gallery3/image/105/
and here's a analysis of the Bible showing contradictions, falsehoods, counter-scientific statements and general nonsense in the Bible, Qur'an and Book of Mormon (all works of ignorant and superstitious men who didn't understand nature, and subsequently used by men to control other men and women):
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/index.htm
Once you understand that there is no god and that it is just us human animals, the other animals, and nature all battling each other then many mysteries are solved. Humans had morality before religion because it benefits us and we've evolved for it to gratify us too (an evolutionary survival trait). We don't need religion to be moral and look after each other and the animals under our dominion. We don't need superstitions that go against what we do understand about the universe. It's all ok. We have our one, precious life and have to make the most of it and help others to make the most of theirs too. We are free and no supernatural bogeyman is gonna get us - we don't need the threat of eternal punishment to be good and moral people. So relax, enjoy the time you have, and wish well for others :)

Re:I say cut the F-35

[elashish14]

Greed doesn't drive you to build better products - it drives you to make more money. And the two can often have minimal correlation. That's why you see companies form monopolies which make billions off crappy products because greed didn't drive them to make better products, it just drove them to dominate the marketplace and stamp out all competitors. I'm looking straight at you, Microsoft. Or alternatively, to make the barriers so high that no one has a shot in hell of making it into the ring.

The free market is a total failure. The common pathology is for wealth to accumulate into few parties, then for these few parties to collude and raise prices (oil industry, internet service providers), or better yet, merge together (think telecommunications). So in short, greed doesn't work.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

Everybody I know who is collecting Social Security is getting everything they're supposed to get.

I suggest you read that Paul Krugman column I linked to. If that doesn't convince you, I can't help.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[MickLinux]

Actually, the prophecy of St. Malachy may well be coming to a close; I am happy to hold my breath in anticipation. And I might be inclined to believe in a watchmaker god (but never in no God) if I had not seen and felt his hand. I mighthave some stuff in my journal about that. He is an active God.

And his activity is nowhere more apparent to me than in this: that He empowers us, through His Holy Spirit and His Son to be more than the animals you read about, in the Egyptian protest rapes, or the Indian rapes, or in the behavior of our own leadership. He empowers us to be able to be ordered, instead of disordered, if we will seek Him.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[SplashMyBandit]

I have no confidence in our political leaders for justice, at all. Or our business leaders. I hve 40 years of experience in that.

We can agree there - there is a failure of leadership. There is a failure of the political elites, no matter what their economic views are. We need better leadership. We also need to take responsibility as voters to not only elect better leadership but also accept that we cannot get benefits for nothing; a large part of the problem are voter interests that makes demands the politicians must cave in to. Not all voter demands are financially sustainable.

With regard to no income tax. We have to work to contribute to the common good - all of us - with few exceptions (eg. those unfortunate enough to be handicapped by birth or accident). For most of us the way we can contribute to the common good is through our labour, hence income tax is the best metric for what we can contribute.

And now, when the poor have been squeezed to the point that they are dying -- my kids' godfather is in cardiac failure as we speak,unable to pay for medical care

Much of the problem in the US is due to the litigious nature of society. Doctors and specialists must pay outrageous insurance covers, which forces costs up. The threat of lawsuit means many unnecessary tests must be done or else there will be malpractice claims - which forces costs up. Then there are bloated bureaucracies and excessive regulation, which force costs up (note: some regulation is ok). Then there is the enormous costs, opportunity costs and time spent for medical professionals to train, which increases costs. There are many factors which go into making US medical care more expensive. These are costs that other modern countries don't bear (although they can have other problems, nowhere is perfect, but they're usually not as broken as the US system). However, there are so many factors in play here that blaming "the rich" does seem a bit, well ... "rich". The reality is that "nature is a Bitch and she's out to get us" - there is no perfect solution. Replacing the ambulance chasing lawyers with a Federal "no fault" accident claims system (as happens in my country) would get the lawyers out of the system and would drive costs down significantly. That is a good place to start.

It is unspeakably evil, and I can only pray "God, please save us from the pit they have dug for us, their neighbors", and, "Come, Lord Jesus!"

Hmm. I'd rather subscribe to the notion that "God helps those that help themselves". I don't mean this in a self-centered way, but as in, to be active/pro-active rather than passive. I've seen the research and have given up or greatly reduced many foods I enjoy and am working to get my weight down (hard when carrying a lot of muscle). I take strenuous exercise every weekday. I do not smoke (anything, green or otherwise). I drink very very moderately. Apart from Slashdot :) I try to avoid excessive stress and hazardous situations. I avoid excessive sun. Despite living in a country with a decent health system I pay for additional medical insurance out of my income for myself an my family. I can always get unlucky and get terminal brain cancer, but I am actively doing what I can to stave off my inevitable demise. If God exists I hope it would help me, but given there is no evidence for it, I'm devoting significant resources to mitigate the risks. In no way do I blame your kid's godfather for his very unfortunately situation, like I said, the reality is that Nature is a Bitch and she's out to get us. Getting rid of F-35s will not change this, what it will do is change the risk for the US until 2053 (a weak US spells trouble for the whole world; unfortunately the weakness is not in terms of military assets or skill, it is political and high-level military leadership [often who are also essentially politicians] that is the problem).

Re:I say cut the F-35

[SplashMyBandit]

I used to believe as you did. Then I did more research. I find that God has hidden himself. He gives us reason, provides a consistent and ordered universe and then says we must disregard the overwhelming evidence for observable nature. We are instead to believe in a book written by ancient and ignorant men that in many areas is contrary to observed scientific facts and is contrary to itself in *hundreds* of places. Ask yourself, was Jesus crucified before or after Passover. Different Gospels have different dates. The Bible is riddled with flaws and the Qur'an is even worse (despite the laughable claim that it is the perfect and direct word of the Moon God Allah). No perfect being could do this to us, give us reason and make a consistent universe and then feed us contradictory, unscientific nonsense in book and say that if we don't believe the superstitious gibberish stuff and just happen to do stuff like have a mild erotic thought about some hottie walking down the street then we are going to be tortured in agony *forever*. We are commanded to love a diety we are in great fear of. As Hitchens so correctly put it, "This is a celestial North Korea, but at least you can fucking die to get out of North Korea. If you believe this stuff {Christianity/Islam} then when you die that's where the 'fun' really begins".

Religion used to serve a purpose. It was our first pass at morality, legal codes, sanitation, health regulations, interpersonal relationships, science etc. Because it was our first pass, it also turns out to be our worst estimate of reality. What we as a species now know far far outstrips what as known and encoded in the "holy" books (that possess no divine knowledge beyond what a 1st century writer would know [6th century for Islam, although it is basically at the same level of ignorance, and a great deal more barbaric]). Now that we have a better and *scientifically reproducible* understanding of reality we no longer need to be superstitious. We don't need to fear dying, just as we don't fear the time before we were born [since it was oblivion]. It is painful to think we won't see departed loved ones again, but that is just reality. We can't change reality, but we can understand it but dropping superstition and adopting reason instead. Once we do that we are liberated, and can act positively to benefit all creatures - rather than cowering, constrained in fear by some unprovable myths from ancient men now rendered abjectly ignorant by the massive progress made by normal but *enlightened* (as in, rational) men working toward a better understanding over the centuries.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[fluffy99]

"a vast majority of people get considerably more out of Social Security and Medicare then they put in."

Citations needed.

http://www.bankrate.com/financing/retirement/social-security-benefits-vs-taxes/

"No matter how much you pay into the system, whether you earn the average wage over a lifetime ($43,100 in 2010 dollars) or if you're in a two-income household where one earns a high wage and the other earns an average wage, you get back substantially more than you pay in. But those on the high end of the wage scale pay proportionally more in taxes than the average wage earner, not surprisingly."

Also see page 1 of http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/social-security-medicare-benefits-over-lifetime.pdf

Re:I say cut the F-35

[fluffy99]

I've seen economists say that you can't buy an annuity on the free market that would give you as good a return as Social Security.

It's one of those things that the government can do more efficiently than private enterprise.

Perhaps, but the problem is that the govt is going broke supporting SS and is passing the cost back to the taxpayers. So once you account for the higher taxes caused by SS, then you really aren't getting something for nothing.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[fluffy99]

The DOD in-house R&D is generally top notch. Its the contractors, who usually get the contract by bribing the right congressman, who are absolutely bleeding the DOD dry. The F35 is a perfect example of this.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

The numbers I see say that the top 3% of taxpayers pay a lot of the taxes because they get a lot of the income. Warren Buffet said that he pays a lower rate than his secretary. They stopped publishing the Statistical Abstract of the United States, but in the last edition, they said that the top 20% earned half the revenue, and the next 20% earned half the remainder. Now the inequality is even greater. So we could tax the top 40% and get as much as we're getting now. If the rich desert us, let them go. I'm willing to take that chance. There are plenty of creators pounding on the doors to get in.

Krugman and others also say that wealthy Americans pay less now in taxes than they've paid since the Gilded Age, and they pay less here than any other industrial country (the Cayman Islands isn't an industrial country). I think they can pay as much as the Europeans do.

I think we can grow the economy by bringing our social safety net, education and training up to German or Scandinavian levels. A billion dollars spent on education will boost the economy more than a billion dollars spent on upscale restaurants, $2,000 shoes, $1 million weddings, boats, and the other luxuries that the rich spend their money on. Adam Smith said we should discourage luxuries.

Thank you for summarizing.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

Interest or not, the "social security trust fund" is nothing but an accounting entry. There are neither dollars nor material assets backing it up.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

Social Security payments are alleged to be indexed to cost of living. However, in recent years the government has been severely fudging the numbers by excluding things which have increased in price more, namely fuel (over 100% in a decade) and food (about 30% in the last 3 years.)

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

I've seen economists say that you can't buy an annuity on the free market that would give you as good a return as Social Security

That's because most things sold as annuities are amazing ripoff schemes sold by insurance companies. Diversified stock market investments do better over the long term, and have the advantage of being convertible to cash in a matter of days (for emergencies).

Re:I say cut the F-35

[SplashMyBandit]

The numbers I see say that the top 3% of taxpayers pay a lot of the taxes because they get a lot of the income. Warren Buffet said that he pays a lower rate than his secretary.

In relative terms the rich pay a lower *relative rate* because they have good accountants. In *absolute terms* the rich pay *massively* more than their employees. I think a flat tax rate with fewer loopholes would increase total revenue, decrease compliance costs (good for everyone except tax accountants - but that's ok, they are a reducible "frictional loss" in the movement of money), and make the system equitable. Then Warren Buffet would pay exactly as much as his secretary in relative terms and far far more in absolute terms. I understand that most of the rich would be relatively ok with this arrangement (Buffet statements show he certainly would be).

I think we can grow the economy by bringing our social safety net, education and training up to German or Scandinavian levels. A billion dollars spent on education will boost the economy more than a billion dollars spent on upscale restaurants, $2,000 shoes, $1 million weddings, boats, and the other luxuries that the rich spend their money on. Adam Smith said we should discourage luxuries.

More money spent on education is a good thing *provided it brings results*. Here's a thought provoking video showing that simply pouring hundreds of millions of dollars (or a billion) will not improve education: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLRHZEhGWY8
The States seem better at determining and managing their education than the Federal Government is.

I think we can grow the economy by bringing our social safety net, education and training up to German or Scandinavian levels. A billion dollars spent on education will boost the economy more than a billion dollars spent on upscale restaurants, $2,000 shoes, $1 million weddings, boats, and the other luxuries that the rich spend their money on. Adam Smith said we should discourage luxuries.

I'd also like to point out a fundamental difference here. Most education money is raised through compulsary taxes. The spending on resturants, shows, weddings, boats etc may be lavish and wasteful - but they do not come from the public purse nor does the public lose when such things are spent. Sure, the rich could be fleeced to try raise taxes but that has been shown time and again (eg. tried all throughout the 20th Century all over the world) not to work. If there is no incentive to create economic wealth, and for the creators to keep a small slice of that (which may amount to millions), then the wealth (and jobs, and purchases) simply will not be created - and we, and the economy, are all poorer for it. Without the incentive of personal profit (and personal freedoms, rule of law etc) you end up Belorussia today. That is the logical outcome of the "eat the rich" strategy of tax gathering. As taxes are raised revenue increases for a while before economic activity stagnates. You then need to keep raising the taxes (what we are seeing now) but that hurts the economy further. This "Robin Hood" strategy [rob from the rich, give to the poor] has been tried many times and it never works. There is a sweet spot tax rate where you can take from the rich but leave them enough to invest, consume and grow the economy. The sustainable tax rate is not 75% nor even 40%. Witness how your example German and Scandinavian countries still have revenue problems - non-productive (eg. Government) spending also has to be controlled too.

Krugman and others also say that wealthy Americans pay less now in taxes than they've paid since the Gilded Age, and they pay less here than any other industrial country (the Cayman Islands isn't an industrial country). I think they can pay as much as the Europeans do.

The US could certainly adopt European tax rates. Of course this would also re

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Sabriel]

Presuming the GP meant "free" literally, rather than ironically. Plus different people seem to have different views on what a "free market" actually means.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

What a person can withdraw from SS is directly related to what he puts in. The person on a $5e6 annual salary gets no more SS payout than a person on a $1.5e5 annual salary. SS taxes have a yearly maximum, and so do the payouts, on the very same mechanism.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[khallow]

I read through this thread and came across this gem of mendacity you wrote earlier:

I've seen economists say that you can't buy an annuity on the free market that would give you as good a return as Social Security.

It's one of those things that the government can do more efficiently than private enterprise.

There's one word that describes what is happening here, "fraud". The US government is keeping tens of trillions of dollars of liability, just from Social Security, off the accounting books. That would be jail time for anyone doing the same thing in the private world.

Saying that a program is efficient merely because it gives away money, relatively efficiently, completely ignores the other aspects of the program such as: Can they keep doing that? No. Could US society be spending the money better by some other means than Social Security? Yes.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Electricity Likes Me]

You're reading into things which aren't there.

The national road network of any country needs to be - essentially - totally rebuilt every 50 years or so. It's basically a continuous process, and when you stop doing it for cost savings it gets more expensive later and you begin to pay for the costs due to slow traffic. Late deliveries or more expense in trucking has an economic effect, not to mention negative consequences for those behind poor quality roads. The same is true of bridges: you are basically rebuilding them every N years in terms of maintenance, and the US has reached the point now where a huge number of them really are going to need to be torn down because it'll be cheaper to rebuild them then certify the existing ones as structurally sound.

High speed rail has been on the books since the 80s - look it up. There's a bunch of major links and extensions which have been evaluated, re-evaluated and are still evaluated because it turns out every time you propose better transportation the same ideas which were good before that you didn't do are still actually really good.

My problem is you are operating on -- seemingly -- no information, but are feeling incredibly shore that these are "pet projects" and would be wasteful spending. It's akin to the senator who decided to get in a huff about volcano monitoring as a waste of money, 2 weeks before a volcano in Alaska exploded.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[sycodon]

If people paid for it all their lives, then there should be more than enough money...right?

Wrong. Fact is most people go through what they paid in, with interest before they die. That means it's just another form of welfare. You can argue the merits, but thems the facts.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[sycodon]

We saw what happens when you do that with the Shuttle.

If I'm going to be jetting about the skies with bombs and rockets, pulling 9 Gs, etc. I would want the best aircraft, not the least expensive aircraft.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

The nation's debt and deficit are not illusions: not because it can't refuse to pay (it can) but because there are consequences for refusing to pay, such as lenders refusing to lend in the future, trade wars and military wars, etc.

In fact, one of the ways the government can zero out foreign debt is to declare war on nations to which it owes money, declare the loans void, and seize all that country's assets within the US. It would be a tragic, insane decision with no winners, which is precisely what is to be expected from the government.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[MickLinux]

The crucifixion was right in the middle of the passover, and vice versa: they were integral together.

http://webpages.marshall.edu/~trimbol3/4thcup4.htm

The men were ignorant of some things -- that is what puts a stamp of authenticity when the angel asks esdras to measure for me a bushel of wind or show me a day gone by: they couldn't, and esdras couldn't, but its easy today.

But other things -- we are more ignorant of the diseases that they experienced. Nor were they ignorant about the things they dealt with every day -- fishing, for example.

A lot of your rage seems to come out of guilt that can't be dealt with. God has a purpose for that guilt. Read Isaiah 28: he sets it up, no differently than a farmer plows a field, so that you'll be ready to trust the plummet, not yourself. He does it because He wants a harvest of righteousness and kindness (cf Isaiah 5).

When we measure off our own judgements, it's like trying to get a straight measurement from a crumpled metal ruler. We can't succeed. That ends up being destructive to ourselves and others. If He loves us, then he isn't going to want that for us.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[saleenS281]

The beginning and end of the reason Social Security is at all broken is due to the cap. You don't pay in a penny over ~$110k in income. That means as more and more money is concentrated into the top 1%, less and less is being put into social security. The entirety of the US's financial woes go back to the same issue: our tax system is designed to give massive breaks to those with the most money, meaning there isn't enough left over to take care of everyone else. Period. End of story.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[MrKaos]

ok, so exactly what aircraft SHOULD the RAAF be flying then?

I can't really sum it up any better than dblll and the AC.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[SplashMyBandit]

Hey, did you ever check out the link I sent about contradictions between different parts of the Bible? Here's a nice list for you to consider:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/by_name.html

A lot of your rage seems to come out of guilt that can't be dealt with.

Rage? Guilt? no man, I'm happy - guilt is for the folks who can't reason and believe in an Invisible Man in the Sky despite there being no evidence for him other than a crappy self-contradictory and non-sensical book written by Bronze Age desert dwellers. Finally after doing my research I'm free of the bullshit and guilt. My only belief is that you are free to believe as you wish, as deluded and non-sensical as it is, provided you respect others (which you evidently and admirably do). Please check the link I gave the evidence of the Bible as bunk is strong, the evidence for evolution is strong (most Christians have a very poor grasp of the multiplicity of arguments for evolution).

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

The problems with depending on a no-load mutual fund for your retirement are (1) The market might hit a downturn as you retire (2) You might run out of money before you die.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

War is generally a losing proposition for both the winner and the loser, but the winner can sometimes hide its expenses. There are also lost opportunity costs, and the implied costs of failing to defend against aggression.

Since the popular opinion is that the US is fighting in the middle east to get cheap oil, a reminder of history is necessary. Oil production in Arab countries used to be owned by private companies, which sold their product on the global market, just as Panasonic and Tata Motors do now. Arab countries seized (stole, thieved, nationalized, it's all the same) those oil facilities made by others, and have been selling the oil for their own profit ever since. Panasonic and Tata sell their own product today, not the governments of Japan and India. The US would be morally justified to take the middle east oil wells from the Arab governments and kill anyone who tried to stop it, and return the assets to their proper owners. The US is not doing that, nor is it taking those assets for itself.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

I'd rather have US citizens be able to feed themselves

Funny that you should use those words. If you buy food with money you earned yourself, you are feeding yourself. If you eat food you grew yourself, you are feeding yourself. If you get food with an EBT card or other government handout, or from charity, you are not feeding yourself.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

The person who earns $5e6 a year is a person who can use the efforts of others 5 million dollars a year more effectively than anyone willing to work for much less. He adds at least $5e6 more value to his company than anyone else. The people he leads would produce $5e6 less if he were not at the helm, even if they worked just as hard. He, and not they, earned the money.

Do you believe that just anyone can run a company, that there's nothing special that a CEO can do to make a company successful? Do you believe that Carly Fiorina is just as good as Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard? No? Then re-evaluate what good leaders are worth.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Anonymous Coward]

We hear this crap about "America's promise to its seniors!" but I don't seem to recall making any promises. I'm in my early 30s, and I was in grade school, unable to vote when the boomers were spending all the money.

And we had to pay for your fucking school -- against our will.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

Ever sit around a camp fire and tell ghost stories? Was there some dummy in that group who believed the stories were true? That's how religions start, and as they grow they accumulate the beliefs, right or wrong ("morality, legal codes, sanitation, health regulations, interpersonal relationships, science etc.") that were in vogue at the time, except those that annoyed the highest leaders of the religion. Religion DID NOT originate most of the rules, it just codified a lot of what was popular at the time.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

MOST libertarians and conservatives object to the expenditures in the first place, it's only natural that they are pissed off at having to pay for it.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

Hey lazy guy, did you ever consider filling a pothole yourself?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

So instead of spending that money on defence[sic]...

The money spent on something other than defense does no good for the man killed in an invasion.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

Private road companies were starting to make highways prior to the Interstate system, and would have developed a good system given time and the absence of government interference. Do you honestly think private roadbuilding companies had a chance in the era of antitrust?

A private company would just build a straight line between NY and california because that would be the most profitable.

And that's why you're not the CEO of a big successful corporation.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

Profit margins: Boeing 4%, Lockheed-Martin 4%, Northrop-Grumman 8%, dividends 3%, 4%, 3% respectively. Try again, your lie was caught this time.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

I'm not going to bother refuting your racist argument.

If I steal your life savings and use it to live without working, according to you it's OK because it's an American's money being used to help an American..
Theft is just theft, and it doesn't become non-theft if it occurs within a particular group.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

Waste in civil programs, and civil programs acting against the country's best interest, are frequent news items if you bother looking for them. As these things are line-item expenditures and their prices can be traced to employee wages and purchases from non-governmental entities, they can be verified as non-spook waste. One of the most recent is the anti-American "sensitivity training" scandal at the USDA.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[SplashMyBandit]

That's true. Superstitious people mis-attributing things they see. Worse though are those that take the myths and then exploit them for the purpose of control of others.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[ChrisMaple]

The more a country follows free market principles, the more it prospers. It isn't necessary to go to the extreme to see the trend.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[sjames]

Hey, I'm not the one blowing up the brown people. Perhaps you should watch some old Carlin routines.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[TFAFalcon]

So since the rest of government doesn't want to send a bad signal to it's lenders, it's going to repay the debt it owes to SS? Then why is everyone screaming that SS is going bankrupt?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[GigaplexNZ]

I know it might seem trifling, but we are still engaged in active combat operations halfway around the world. If we still had a draft I think you'd be acutely aware of that.

Aerial combat where the F-35 might be of any use?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[geoskd]

The person who earns $5e6 a year is a person who can use the efforts of others 5 million dollars a year more effectively than anyone willing to work for much less. He adds at least $5e6 more value to his company than anyone else. The people he leads would produce $5e6 less if he were not at the helm, even if they worked just as hard. He, and not they, earned the money.

Do you believe that just anyone can run a company, that there's nothing special that a CEO can do to make a company successful? Do you believe that Carly Fiorina is just as good as Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard? No? Then re-evaluate what good leaders are worth.

90% of success is luck. Carly earned a lot of money, and was by almost any measure more successful than almost everyone I know. This was due to luck She did nothing any better than anyone else would have, and most things worse. The majority of poor and lower middle class people are only different from the 1% in terms of their opportunities. Bill gates may have dropped out of college to start Microsoft, but if he hadn't gone to college in the first place, it is a pretty safe bet he would never have met the people he needed to know to become successful. Ditto, the Zuck, and most every other successful entrepreneur.

Our society gives these people the opportunities, and that opportunity is worth far more than all the skill and hard work they have provided. There are millions of people out there with the hard work and skill to be wildly successful if they only get the chance, but for most of them, that chance will never come.

-=Geoskd

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Virtucon]

Your correct on the fact that modern technology and techniques should drive costs down but in Health Care the opposite is true because of the way the system has been "jiggered" as you say. Elected officials more intent on getting re-elected and worrying about their own campaign finances aren't going to be too concerned with a correct solution to the problems, whatever they may be. I don't care if it's Health Care, the budget deficit issues or other things. As it has been said in the past, we have the best government we deserve.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Virtucon]

Okay, first the US Economy is very big compared to Switzerland and second if you look at that chart I cited earlier, they spend about $3000 less per capita than we do and overall 11% of their GDP vs. 17% of GDP for the US. Yes, they're #2 in expenditures but they're still well below what we spend and see better results in terms of expected years on the human odometer.

I would suggest that members of congress take a look at the Swiss system of healthcare delivery and use it as a more tenable model for the US. Oh wait, big Pharama, GE and other medical device manufacturers and the AMA won't let that happen... Next...

Re:I say cut the F-35

[dunkelfalke]

Morally, you say? That these companies got to own the production by the military conquest in first place is apparently a non-issue for your set of morals?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[sumdumass]

I know, you will vote in your favorite politician and he will change it all by himself.

Oh Wait!!! is right.

We had a budget surplus before, there was absolutely no political will to change the law. There will never be any political will to do this. You operate under the assumption that politicians offer sound stewardship and have the best interest of the country at heart. Nothing in the last 30 years indicate any of this is true and in fact it appears to be the exact opposite where certain politicians depend on things going badly, on spending more, on arguing against more spending simply to get elected and secure a paycheck for themselves.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

There was a collection of articles and letters about the Swiss health care system in the Journal of The American Medical Association in 2005. Regina Herzlinger, who is one of the most popular advocates for a Swiss-style health care system here, with editorial columns in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, wrote an enthusiastic article about how the Swiss system is consumer-driven, gives people free choice, and is doing wonderfully. JAMA likes to get both sides of the story, so they had a more measured article by Uwe Reinhardt, the health policy professor at Princeton. A few weeks later JAMA published letters, including some from real doctors in Switzerland, the tenor of which is reflected by their headline, "Holes in the Swiss health care system." http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=200895

Unfortunately JAMA is mostly paywalled, and my notes are on another computer, but basically their free-market, consumer-driven system didn't work. Once you have a system of free-market incentives, doctors and hospitals have a great incentive to get around the system. For example, they have co-payments and deductibles, to give patients a stake in the game. However, they can't have copayments for treatments costing $50,000 or $100,000, because 20% of $100,000 is more than middle-class people want to be at risk for. So after a certain maximum, they stop the copayments. Result: Once they reach the maximum, doctors and hospitals can spend on anything -- CAT scans, weeks in the ICU, surgery, expensive drugs, consultations, anything to save grandma -- and the insurance company has to pay 100%. So according to the Swiss doctors, the present growth of the Swiss system is unsustainable, and the Swiss were trying to figure out how to reform the system. (BTW the Swiss health insurance companies are very heavily regulated, and it's considered bribery to contribute money to political campaigns. Try that here.)

So the Swiss health care system doesn't work. What else have you got?

Socialized medicine is economically efficient and single payer is also somewhat efficient and preserves the private doctor practices. I haven't seen any market-based system that works. They look good on paper but when you try them out in real life they don't work, and there are careful evaluations in peer-reviewed medical journals to document their failure. The government would have to correct the free market by giving massive subsidies to people who can't afford to pay free-market health care (as Obamacare does). That generates perverse incentives. People on welfare can't work because they'd lose their health care. The administration becomes complicated and expensive. In the US, the administrative costs of the insurance companies and the providers who deal with them takes about 1/3 of your health care premium dollar.

Marcia Angell, the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, said that the more incremental changes you make, the more administratively complicated the system becomes, and the more expensive it becomes. Angell supported single payer. It works in Canada.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[hjf]

I'm not an american but I think i know how it goes: It's obama's fault, right?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[MickLinux]

As far as I can tell, a lot of the stuff on the website you mentioned are nonissues, due to a basic lack of understanding. To address item --345, was it?--I just googled passover week timeline, and came up with this,

http://hoshanarabbah.org/passover_week_timeline.html

which basically matches my understanding: the Jewish day doesn't match our day from 12-12, but rather runs from sundown to sundown. Ritual impurity also lasted the whole day. So the leadership wanted to celebrate the full passover, staying clean the whole week, lest 1] they not be able to lead, a horror for the wicked 2] they have to delay their celebration of the passover until the 50th day, pentecaust.

That, according to their law in Leviticus/Numbers/Deuteronomy.

You might question whether they would go to that extent on little issues, but pharisees were purists by profession.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[MickLinux]

Your mention of Carly, and the mess that we are generally in, proves my point and disproves yours exactly.

Carly COST many times what she was paid, EARNED nothing, and TOOK much. Any value that the company got was due to the workers, not her.

Who weren't paid.

She was paid handsomely.

Now multiply that by the number of similar cases across the nation.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[rtb61]

The whole idea is to shift corporate thinking and greed away from totally lost spending into something with at least some potential for return. So a trade off from defence spending to NASA, same corporations, same dollars.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[RevDisk]

I come from a long line of accountants. My mom has been a tax accountant longer than I've been alive. My best friend is an economist. Both concur with geoskd. There is no "trust fund", only IOUs. It's an accounting trick, from what they explained. The surplus is rolled into general revenue, and spent.

Krugman is correct that "Big cuts in Social Security should not be on the table." Because it's not. Old folks are the most cohesive voting block in American demographics. Touch it and die, politically. Krugman did not touch the points geoskd brought up, and others have brought up for many years. The surplus is spent, and replaced with special non-transferable bonds. Which must be repaid from general revenue whenever the surplus becomes a deficit.

Krugman is popular because he's telling folks what they want to hear. I don't mind Keynesian economics. I prefer Hayek, but whatever. Thing is, Keynesian economics advocates government intervention during recessions. The flip side is that in government intervention during recessions, during non-recession periods, it acts financially sanely. Which is not the case with the US. IF the US was properly following Keynesian economics, they'd be financially prudent during the "good times" (ie pay off debt and get their house in order) and spend money like drunken sailors only during "bad times". Instead, they spend money like drunken sailors in good and bad times.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Virtucon]

Well it's market driven, but two facts remain:

1) Per-Capita spending is less than in the US, the US is worst in the world when it comes to spending in this category.
2) 11% of GDP vs 17% of GDP.

All systems have their flaws, under single payer or socialized medicine programs there's often wait lists for specialists and procedures that are more expensive. There are many more flaws but if we were to at least have an honest dialog without all of the special interests in this country pushing their lobbying into the mix, we may be able to get something done. But this is our mess now and as long as people are willing to put up with this overpriced mess, we'll still have lackluster leaders with no vision; always wanting to get re-elected and not piss anybody off.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[lsatenstein]

Canada, with the Harper government sucked up to this too. The budget is now double the pessimistic estimate. Opposition parties and we citizens are swearing at the Harper commitment to a super expensive toy.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

Lackluster leaders with no vision seems to be the problem.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[mug funky]

but... but... they stopped the boats!!

Re:I say cut the F-35

[thesandtiger]

We can fix those programs so easily, if only people would get the fuck over themselves.

Social security: No cap on earnings that pay into it, but keep a cap on benefits paid out. If you're making enough money for the elimination of the cap to be a factor for you, you're making enough money for a smallish extra tax to not be a problem. Suck it up and be happy that you're doing well enough for it to be an issue. Second, raise retirement age to 70 to reflect the fact that people are living much longer.

Medicare: Public option for healthcare. Promote preventative medicine, healthier choices. We would save so much money each year if people would just get an annual physical because some illnesses that become staggeringly expensive down the road would be nipped in the bud when they are caught at the point it's cheapest to treat. With better preventative/health promotion, we would avoid a lot of expenses outright because many health problems simply wouldn't develop. That is one of the reason other countries can spend so much less on healthcare than we do, per capita, and yet have better median health.

The thing is, those are all bad because socialism, death panels, and how easy it is to get uneducated and terrified people to vote against their interests in this country.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[pnutjam]

Take a long hard look at Syria. You want us to go through that? You want your family to suffer and your loved ones to die? Has it truly come to that in your opinion?
Look what happened after both of Russia's revolutions. Read up on the original and look who is in power now after the fall of communism. Sweeping change just gives the chiselers and crooks an opportunity to come out on top. Sure they are the ones that were pretending to be your friends, and they are different then the current ones. Too bad you also knocked a generation on their ass and probably lost a couple hundred thousand lives. Not to mention the environmental stresses a war causes (for all you greenies).

Re:I say cut the F-35

[coinreturn]

Super easy fix: remove the income cap. Without the income cap (currently around $112K), SSA would be so flush with cash, we would stop hearing the tired meme that SSA is going bankrupt for at least 50 years.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Pope]

The problem is that most of the data is not available till it is too late. Or worse, only the data for the government part is available.
So when we see X Gazillion is spend on a dead end project, people will shudder. You will seldom hear about this from private companies.

Bullshit. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e60e60d6-c495-11e1-a98c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2Lvyph9ak is just one example from the past year. Or Google and Motorola Mobile http://www.rethink-wireless.com/2013/01/23/motorola-drags-googles-quarter.htm

This happens all the time, very much in the public eye, since publicly traded companies have to announce these results to their shareholders.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[claytongulick]

Please go read Bastiat: http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html it will do you a lot of good intellectually.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

Since the 80's, That process has been undercut by congress "loaning" then money to itself in the form of special bonds, and then using the proceeds to offset spending (such as excessive defense spending, welfare, and reducing taxes on the wealthiest 1% of Americans).

Check out the 1967 amendment to the Social Security Act. Just two years in, The Great Society already busted budget projections and, combined with LBJ's escalation in Vietnam, the budget deficit was getting out of control. Rather than admit they screwed up, Congress and LBJ agreed to amend the SSA to state that any government body program ran a surplus would transfer that surplus to the General Fund in return for the General Fund covering any deficits those programs ran in future years.

They knew the budget was unsustainable but they played accounting games to cover it up so they wouldn't have to be accountable to the people, which meant they could keep their jobs despite having pushed an agenda they knew would eventually bankrupt us. By the time the shit hit the fan, they'd be retired or dead - essentially untouchable. Earlier in that decade, there was a politician that would later become President who was already warning that Social Security was going to go bankrupt on its own, but I'm guessing that's the guy that gets most of the blame today, despite him not being the one that actually caused the problems or drained the Social Security Trust Fund (in fact, it wasn't even his party that created Social Security, The Great Society, the 1967 Social Security Amendment or escalated Vietnam, but most people blame them anyway because, ahem, "reality" has a well known liberal bias).

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Specter]

And the Supreme Court has confirmed this. Congress can stop paying any or all of your SS; you are not entitled to it.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Specter]

Listen, you have got to get your economic information from someone other than Krugman or at the very least someone in addition to Krugman. The man is a political hack. Based on your posts, here's are some sites that are probably aligned with you politically but are actually written by people who know something about finance and economics:

The Big Picture
Interfluidity

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Specter]

Because the money to pay for that debt has to come from somewhere, and somewhere basically breaks down to: taxes and/or inflation. The government's ability to continue to play a shell game with the money it's taking in is quickly coming to an end because the SS 'surplus' has now turned into a deficit. Someone (read: taxpayers and/or people whose assets are in US currency) are going to have to foot the bill.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nobodie]

But I find it interesting that no one looks at the source of the waste. It is the contractors and the contract process that insists that the cheapest price is the best that creates a system that makes real budgeting impossible. If we were to have a system where the government had its own factories and paid people as government employees instead of private sector prima donas who are mostly over-paid loafers riding the gravy train because they are hidden from inspection by their status as "contractors"

Oh yes, I hear the screams, but your solutions are old, tired, tried and failed. Why are you afraid to trust people who, like the members of our armed forces, are entrusted to run our government to the best of their ability?

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

I didn't just depend on Krugman. I read the Wall Street Journal every day, news and editorial page. It was pretty interesting, until they discovered supply-side economics and went completely off the wall. I'm not an economist, but even I can see that it was a convenient excuse for rich guys to raise taxes and wasn't going to work. Which it didn't. Now they want to deregulate the FDA and the financial industry. It's become the right-wing Republican Pravda. (And they're not even principled conservatives any more.)

Now I think the most reliable economics I read is from Science magazine. They're peer-reviewed so they can't get too crazy.

href="http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/">The Big Picture/quote>

Interesting guy. http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-11-05/business/35283739_1_credit-crisis-financial-crisis-wall-street I'll remember that name. But he's basically an investor and trader. I'm not interested in that. I would be interested to know whether he called out the housing derivatives market before they crashed.

Interfluidity

Well, I already read Steve Brill's article. This essay is incoherent. The guy can't write. If nothing else, Krugman knows how to write a readable essay where he gets to the point (and has a point).

I have no more than a layman's knowledge of economics. I do know a lot about health policy. When I read what an economist says about health policy, I can usually tell whether he knows what he's talking about. The shoemaker criticized the sculptor's sandals.

Krugman usually gets it right. The Wall Street Journal editorial page gets it wrong. They've become a PR flack for Genetech and the rest of the health care industry.

I still read the WSJ, because I want to know what the other side has to say. I would also hope they would have something intelligent to say occasionally, but I haven't had much luck there.

It's too bad we don't have economics journalism like we have science journalism, which is easy for non-specialists to understand (at least if they do a little work) and isn't promoting their own financial interests. Haven't found one. These don't work.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Specter]

You won't get an argument from me about the WSJ; it's really gone downhill since Murdoch got involved. Also try:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/

You'll not likely agree with him but he's worth a read.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Magius_AR]

Yes, but the money contributed was invested, so it "grew".

Except it's not and it doesn't. SS funds are "invested" (if you want to call it that) in very safe low-yield treasury bonds that don't even keep up with inflation. A 1% per year growth rate is effectively negative if the dollar is inflating 3% a year.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Magius_AR]

There's been a solution to any problems with Social Security available for some time: raise or eliminate the cap of income subject to the Social Security tax.

Why? So politicians can have even more money to borrow from, thus necessitating the need to raise payroll taxes again in another 10-20 years? Why don't we try focusing on the problem instead of scrambling to pay "whatever it costs" to get it done? Start with any of the following concerns:

1) People live longer than this program was ever meant to support.
2) Government borrows money they're not supposed to, leaving shortfalls when it is needed.
3) The securities SS funds are invested in do not keep up with inflation, leaving people taking out far more than they put in.

It's completely stupid (and financially unsound) to simply hike taxes whenever a real system flaw arises. It's like adding an additional bailing bucket to continue pouring water out of the sinking boat while a bunch of other jackasses continue to poke holes in the bottom of it.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Magius_AR]

If you look around the developed world, to see what works and what doesn't work, you'll see that government-financed health care, including socialized medicine, works better than ours, and no country has come up with a free-market health care system that works.

Transparency and choice works. Stop strawmanning the issue on the free market you hate so much. America's healthcare system is so far from an example of a free market that it's not funny. If you don't believe me, then I would like you to tell me how much your last doctor's visit cost. Not the cost to you, the actual cost. Tell me what cost comparisons you did vs other providers. Coupons used? Slickdeals taken advantage of? Tell me which doctor you wrote a check to. Which procedures did you choose to take advantage of? Were they worth the cost? Do you know the cost? The US healthcare is a gigantic game of smoke and mirrors. Ever heard of a Chargemaster? http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-february-21-2013/exclusive---steven-brill-extended-interview-pt--1?xrs=share_copy

They practically set prices by throwing darts at dartboards. Yeah, whole lot of "supply and demand" at work there...
We don't need government telling us what things cost anymore than we need the hospitals or insurance companies doing so. We need transparency and choice. That's it.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

Yes, I read that Brill article. That's the free market. The costs in Canada for the same treatment, with the same outcomes, cost half as much.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[TFAFalcon]

You're right, but why blame SS? The taxes that are supposed to fund it are defined, and the fund has plenty of 'investments' in government bonds. It's the rest of the government's expenses that can't be supported by the taxes meant for them, and those departments haven't been funding the rest of the government in the past. So stop screaming about needing a SS reform and start screaming about needing a reform of just about everything else (or raising taxes).

Re:I say cut the F-35

[NoOneInParticular]

Ah, a true free market fundie. Property rights as both the necessary and sufficient condition for a free market to come into existence. Necessary, probably, sufficient, no freaking way. A single private individual owning all property would be a 'free market'. A number of individuals that own sufficient amount of resources to create barriers to entry are another 'free market'. As the 19th century has shown, this is where this type of 'laissez-faire' free market will converge to.

What is needed (as a sufficient condition), is the ability to compete. Without competition, no free market. However, property rights are not sufficient for competition. If I own the widget market, and have a gaziilion bucks, I can stop competition. How I will do that? Well, when you with your meagre million start to create and sell widgets, I will undercut you. I will sell at a loss. I will give it away for free. I will give it away for free until you are broke. I've got a gazillion bucks, I can give it away for free for a very long time. Then I (or my offspring) will raise prices again, and will get the rest of my gazillion dollars back. If you also have a gazillion dollars, we will meet and agree not to harass each other. We will also agree to help each other to keep everyone else out. We both have a gazillion, and if we do this, we will each have 2 gazillion, instead of each having only having 1 gazillion due to us competing. Because it is just us two, or maybe a handful, we can do this, using promises we give in person. Promises we will keep because it will make each of us richer. We will still dictate price to a level that optimizes our income.

So, who can make sure that I do not give away my produce for free to kill all competition? Who can make sure that I'm not determining price with my competitors? The free market? You've got to be kidding. There's only one entity that can do this: the law, i.e., government. It is a job for government to keep the free market competitive and to limit the negative effects of excess capital. Read that again: negative effects of excess capital. The government needs to keep the market competitive for it to remain free. If you don't believe me, please explain how the scenario's I sketched above are countered by property rights alone. We need a right to compete for it to work.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Magius_AR]

I'm sorry you don't know what a free market is. Believe it or not, there are possibilities other than "single payer" or "free market".

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

Transparency and choice doesn't work in health care. Kenneth Arrow, the Nobel laureate in economics, wrote an article explaining why in technical detail.

That's true, there is no free market in health care. The free market (in most things) is like one of those transuranium elements that last only a few miliseconds after you create it. Then it turns into something else.

Offhand, I can't think of any free market in America right now. For a while, we had something like a free market in the computer components industry (most of which moved to China, subsidized by their government). I read Adam Smith. There are benefits to the free market and also costs. I like to be able to look for a cheap restaurant or supermarket. But if those employees are getting paid so little that they can't survive, and need government subsidies of food stamps and Medicaid, then the government has to step in and regulate their salaries.

I've studied health care systems around the world, and I can't think of a single system in which a free market works. Sometimes limited free markets can be useful, like competition for generics, but that takes a lot of government regulations.

I do get copies of the bills from my insurer, stamped "This is not a bill. Do not pay." So I know what they paid.

I once copy-edited a book on management accounting, which is the branch of accounting that deals with calculating inter-organization costs. I learned that particularly in an institution like a hospital, it's impossible, in principle, to assign a specific cost to a particular product or service. Most of the charges are arbitrary. You can buy an aspirin for 5 cents in the drug store, but it costs a few dollars of a nurse's time to administer it, and another few dollars to pay for a system to make sure that you get an aspirin and not a dangerous drug. Doctors have to spend time reviewing the latest medical literature to see whether aspirin is appropriate to what you've got. The hospital has a computer department, a legal department, and lots of other departments which are necessary to run the hospital. How do you charge the cost of the comptuer department to that aspirin?

And furthermore, in a free market, or whatever we've got, different parties negotiate different prices, even for the same service with the same supplier. McDonald's buys potatoes a lot cheaper per pound than I do. Employees who know how profitable their employer is can negotiate higher salaries. Unions can negotiate higher salaries than individual workers. That's part of the free market.

In fact, throwing darts at a dartboard can indeed be part of a rational negotiating strategy.

(I read the Steven Brill article in Time, so I didn't have to watch the Daily Show. And I already knew about Chargemaster.)

Re:I say cut the F-35

[nbauman]

I've read a lot of articles in the major medical journals (and the Wall Street Journal) about the different health care systems around the world. I know what the people at Reason magazine call a free market, I know what people on the WSJ editorial page call a free market, and I know what the different markets in health care and other industries look like.

A lot of times the medical journals will draw a chart of the different health care systems with cost on one axis and some proxy for quality, like life expectancy, on the other axis. There are many ways of doing things.

I know what the conservative policy analysts in the WSJ call a free market. There is no successful health care system in the world with a free market, by any of their definitions.

Re:I say cut the F-35

[Magius_AR]

There is no successful health care system in the world with a free market, by any of their definitions.

lol, well that's an easy metric to hit, considering there are very few, if any, health care systems in the world that operate as a free market. Lack of a counter example is not proof of failure. For example, how many countries do you know that separate their healthcare market from their health insurance market? Even Switzerland, which is the highly touted example of free market at work, has a mandate with all care handled via insurance entities. I challenge you to name me a single country where the consumer is exposed to direct costs, where it's not simply a game of "which insurance package do I want? what deductible am I going to pay?" But relatively, the systems out there that are more "free market"-based are doing just fine. Take Canada for instance. The federal government is mostly hands-off, with healthcare handled at the state level (provinces over there). That includes Medicare. The bulk of their services are provided by private entities and the bulk of their citizens have supplemental private insurance. Hell, if it weren't for the single-payer element of their system, I'd say they're more free market than we are. They're certainly more decentralized than we are. The US has miles and miles of regulations and programs at the federal level (Obamacare, Medicare, HMO Act, so on and so forth).

No bias at all...

[dywolf]

I especially love this statement: " By the Pentagon's own admission, building and operating three versions of the F-35 — one for the Air Force, one for the Navy and one for the Marines — will cost more than $1.4 trillion over its lifetime, making it the most expensive weapons program ever undertaken". The implication being even the military thinks it too much, which they don't. Such a statement implies something that doesnt exist, and conveniently ignores that the entire reason for developing a common platform for multiple roles is to save money. Yes, that one single platform is 1.4T. But the thinking was that 3 separate weapon systems to update all 3 branches at would cost even more. When properly executed this type of program does work; shared parts commonality is a real savings. When poorly executed you can end up with an unusable product (re: Naval version of the F-111 that was too heavy and unmaneuverable)

Point is, yes, the man from the CIP, a group dedicated to the eradication of the world's militaries, but particularly the US military, thinks we should cut the military.
Shocking. I love how people for various things never call their organization by their true intentions, but always give it something normal and official sounding, to create a built in bias towards thinking they are legit when they call for things.

Re:No bias at all...

[postbigbang]

The Pentagon puts all of its eggs in one basket. It better be a spectacular basket. One of the best reasons for operating systems diversity is that you can likely only kill off one branch with an attack. Imagine being able to find a way into a US$1.4trillion fleet, and whack all of them.

I'm not off-put by one turbine fan in one aircraft having problems; this has happened before in this fleet. Could have happened for many reasons. But I the US Military and its defense contractor network are vastly too cozy for my tastes. Add that to congresspeople trying to continue programs so that their districts have US military spending, and the whole process seems mightily corrupt.

Re:No bias at all...

[Troyusrex]

And the F-35 replaces the F-18, F-15, F-16, A-8, A-10 and the Harriers. The 3 versions they will have is a huge SAVINGS because it replaces so many other planes. Of course, the author also doesn't adjust for inflation which is a huge factor. I'm not saying that there isn't a lot to cut from the Pentagon, or even from the F-35 program, I'm just saying that the rational given here makes no sense at all.

Re:No bias at all...

[Jawnn]

Point is, yes, the man from the CIP, a group dedicated to the eradication of the world's militaries, but particularly the US military, thinks we should cut the military. Shocking. I love how people for various things never call their organization by their true intentions, but always give it something normal and official sounding, to create a built in bias towards thinking they are legit when they call for things.

So..., you're saying that an organization that, "...promotes transparency and accountability in U.S. foreign policy, while advocating a foreign policy that promotes international cooperation, demilitarization and respect for human rights..." (taken directly from the CIP mission statement) should have no credibility? That it's not possible that one of the reasons that they support "demilitarization" is that they actually understand that the business of war is hugely profitable and the money that is spend on that might be better spent on better things? Riiiiiiight....

Re:No bias at all...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, right now it replaces *nothing* because it *does not work*. Too many purposes for the same aircraft, too many bleeding edge technologies, and too many companies given local contracts to build components in different states and try to mesh them into one aircraft. The result is that it fails in testing, consistently. That means lots of research and development money, and *no working planes*.

Toss the whole program and replace it with ground troop enlistment and equipment, and we wouldn't be short of ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and could stop hiring mercenaries^H^H^H military contractors who are immune from prosecution for war crimes.

Re:No bias at all...

[arse maker]

The F-18 per unit cost is $29-57 million in 2006 dollars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F/A-18_Hornet)

Which is a small fraction of the F-35 cost. So I dont see how they can be saving money.

I dont really follow your logic. Replacing a plane is a total loss on the old plane. So you can't possibly save money.

Re:No bias at all...

[Nidi62]

The problem is the F-35 doesnt need to replace half of those planes. Instead of scrapping the F-15s or F-16s, we could have just upgraded and modified them: new electronics, upgrade the airframe (I think a lot of the 16s are starting to develop cracks in their wings). And the F-35 has nowhere near the survivability of an A-10. A-10s can fly and land with damage that would make any other plane fall out of the sky. Instead of spending a lot of money on the bastardized F-35 (remember, something that can do a little bit of everything can't do anything well), we should have bought a lot more of the F-22s and upgraded the rest of the fleet.

Re:No bias at all...

[jamstar7]

The F35 is basically a Swiss Army Knife of warcraft. It does a bunch of things, none of them well.

Re:No bias at all...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pentagon puts all of its eggs in one basket.

And if they put them in multiple baskets, they get lambasted for redundancy and wastefulness. Which results in cuts to all except one program, leading to the situation we have now.

Re:No bias at all...

[Dr. Tom]

and the remotely piloted aircraft are doing those jobs already. seriously, why do we need billions of dollars worth of aircraft carriers full of overpriced defense-contract-airshow F-stuff when we are already taking out our enemies with cheap drones and no risk to pilots?

Re:No bias at all...

[Drethon]

Yes the F-35 will replace the A-10. There is something so wrong about that idea...

Re:No bias at all...

[anagama]

And the F-35 replaces the F-18, F-15, F-16, A-8, A-10 and the Harriers

Jack of all trades, master of none.

Re:No bias at all...

[Electricity Likes Me]

Not really valid though: it would likely still be cost-effective to develop replacements for the old components with current technology, and probably a lot cheaper then it was originally. Airplanes don't sit around and age - you overhaul them constantly anyway and the principles of aviation haven't changed that much.

The A-10 is the most egrerious thing being replaced: it does it's job extremely well, and is notable because it does exactly what the US military needs for it's current operations (and likely future as well). Upgrading that package with new avionics, maybe investing in looking at some design changes for new planes, would be cheaper and more effective.

Re:No bias at all...

[sumdumass]

It is not replacing just one plane though. It is replacing 5 or 6 planes- each with different roles. Now think of this, suppose it only replaces 3 types of aircraft currently in use. No more training on 2 other aircraft to certify pilots, no more separate spare parts, storage and logistics programs for 2 other aircraft. No more cross training and specialty training of mechanics and support personnel (these aren't like cars where the concept of changing a starter is transferable to models you had no training on. mistakes can cost lives and parking a broken down jet at 35000 feet in the air will always result in an insurance claim where a car breaking down on the highway is more of a safety hazard and inconvenience.)

The cost of the plane alone is not the only savings.

Re:No bias at all...

[sumdumass]

I think he is saying that every claim needs to be closely examined in the context of the bias of the person making the claim. It's like the vegan environmentalist arguing about cow farts and global warming or an agriculture group arguing for ethanol subsidies or even the oil industry arguing again global warming being real.

Re:No bias at all...

[budgenator]

The Air Force hates the A10, because it's ugly, it's slow and it doesn't have the sexy air superiority role. The Infantry loves the A10, it's has hellacious firepower, it's quiet and has long on-station time, in short it's the apex preditor of the battlefield. Now I know these blue-shirts really thing that this new sexy AKC registered pure-bred is up to the job as the alpha-dog, but I really don't thing our beloved junkyard dog is going to give up the role quietly.

Re:No bias at all...

[CodeBuster]

Except that it doesn't really replace them in the sense that any of these more specialized aircraft is better, and probably as we are now learning cheaper, at its specialized niche role. The F-35 is fast becoming the jack of all trades, master of none, that so often results when compromises are made in so called multi-role military aircraft. Take for example the A-10. It's tough, reliable and survivable; perfectly suited to the ground attack role. It even has a backup control system so that complete loss of hydraulic pressure will not render the aircraft uncontrollable. The F-16 is one of the most successful US fighters of all time and a favorite of many friendly airforces around the world, including Israel and Qatar, who have also made their own indigenous upgrades, modifications and improvements to the platform to further increase it's combat effectiveness. There's definitely something to be said for improving, upgrading and refining a combat tested aircraft instead of simply throwing it all out in favor of a new and untested design. Finally, to your point on cost, it's not at all clear that upgrading and maintaining our existing fleet of aircraft would be any more expensive than building enough F-35s to "replace" all of them.

Re:No bias at all...

[Solandri]

IMHO the F-35 will go down in history as an object lesson in specificity vs general purpose. They looked at all these different types of aircraft with different roles and different parts, and the huge expense that came with warehousing all those spare parts and training maintenance people who could fix one plane but not another. They thought they could cut costs by building one plane which could fill all those roles while using the same parts. In other words they went from a bunch of planes each build to a specific role, to one plane built to fill all those roles as a cost-cutting measure on the maintenance. But they're now discovering that when you try to assign so many different roles to the same airframe, it increases cost on the design side. And I predict it'll increase it more than they save on the maintenance side.

Re:No bias at all...

[quacking duck]

And the F-35 replaces the F-18, F-15, F-16, A-8, A-10 and the Harriers. The 3 versions they will have is a huge SAVINGS because it replaces so many other planes.

F-18, F-15, A-10, Harriers: 2 engines
F-35, F-16: single engine.

A major issue over replacing Canada's CF-18s with F-35s was that the F-35 has a single engine. Our ancient CF-18s definitely need to be replaced, but the F-35 IMHO is not the right plane for Canada: these fighters will cover a vast northern expanse, they can't always glide to the nearest airfield if a lone engine fails.

A recent report said there were 228 incidents since 1988 where CF-18 pilots had to shut down one engine during flight, or an average of 9.5 times a year. These were "precautionary" and the report doesn't reveal if any were actual failures, or would lead to one if kept running, but it's clear a second engine was very beneficial despite additional maintenance and parts to support a 2-engine plane.

On the other hand, a single-engine fighter can be taken out by one bird. It's a CT-155 Hawk and not an F-16 like the title says, but that's still a $30million loss.

The F-35's unit cost will likely exceed $250 million when they're finally delivered. Canada still has around 100 CF-18s in service. There's no way Canada's buying enough to replace them all.

Re:No bias at all...

[sjames]

So you're saying I can save money by scrapping everything I currently own and buying all new cheaper stuff? I'm not sure how that works.

Re:No bias at all...

[aliquis]

Just order 1000x JAS-39 NG (or said 2400, or 5000!) and everyone will be happy! (Well, some would =P)

Just PM me in advance so I can get some SAAB stocks before your place the order =P

Re:No bias at all...

[ducomputergeek]

Bullshit. My father was a VP at McDonnell Douglas. I spent more than half my life around the defense industry and it's all a political game. Little of it has to do with actually what we need to defend the country. The F-22 and F-35 are not about defense, they are about keeping the engineers and union factory workers at locheed busy.

Read the after action reports of conflicts for the past 20 years. They all said pretty much the same thing: Need more A-10's and B-52's. Today the A-10's role is increasingly being done by Drones like the Reaper. The B-52s are still flying. While you typically need a few fighters for air superiority and defense, you need a few. Not a lot, a few. The last credible air threat was in 1991. And that threat lasted how many hours before any birds in the air were shot down and every airbase the enemy had destroyed?

It's true the Air-Force needs new airframes. The F-15's and F-16's are getting too many hours on them. The question is why spend these huge amounts of money on the F-22 and F-35 when the era of the manned fighter is coming to an end. Sure there will need to be some manned fighters, but not as many. If we had been serious we would have launched a modernization program for the F-15 and purchased replacement airframes for those aging out. Sad thing is, Boeing did this anyway for the export market with the F-15S. And those planes are still cheaper than the F-22's and without the billions in overhead that the R&D cost.

Re:No bias at all...

[TFAFalcon]

But was the update needed? Is there an enemy out there that you need a F-35 to fight?

Re:No bias at all...

[dbIII]

immune from prosecution for war crimes.

That's not the reason, the USA didn't sign up so US troops are immune as well. However military discipline and professionalism means they won't do some things the mercenaries can be asked to do. Ulitmately the weasel "deniability" and ability of bit-players to push an agenda outside of the normal chain of command makes mercenaries attractive to toy soldiers like the CIA.

Re:No bias at all...

[Drethon]

Not sure I'd call the F-35 a purebred, its like six roles crushed into one aircraft and they wonder why it has performance issues. Still fully agree with your assessment.

Re:No bias at all...

[sumdumass]

That might be true in the end. I don't really see why we need to save money on the things in the first place but I guess political pressure is there which is why they wanted to try.

Re:No bias at all...

[sumdumass]

I don't know why or what you are calling bullshit on. I certain never said anything to lead the opinion opposite of what you claimed. I said specifically that there is more in savings then the cost of the plane.

As for the last air threat, I think you are discounting the likes of China who is creating new fighters and Russia can easily become a threat again- even if not to US directly.

Re:No bias at all...

[srmalloy]

I especially love this statement: " By the Pentagon's own admission, building and operating three versions of the F-35 — one for the Air Force, one for the Navy and one for the Marines — will cost more than $1.4 trillion over its lifetime, making it the most expensive weapons program ever undertaken". The implication being even the military thinks it too much, which they don't. Such a statement implies something that doesnt exist, and conveniently ignores that the entire reason for developing a common platform for multiple roles is to save money. Yes, that one single platform is 1.4T.

And you have to wonder how much of the 'increased in cost by 75%' is due to actual cost increases and how much of it is due to reducing the number of airframes that are actually procured, with the corresponding flaky math: taking the development cost -- money that has already been appropriated and spent -- and dividing it by the number of airframes built, then adding it to the manufacturing cost of a single airframe, and saying that the resulting number is the 'cost' of the airframe. What people don't understand is that the development cost is gone; canceling the program outright isn't going to get it back. All you're going to get back is the funding for the planes that haven't yet been built -- and the production cost for a single airframe is much, much less than the 'total' cost for one low-production-run airframe plus that airframe's share of the development costs.

For example, say that you spent $1000 developing a device, which you can produce for $1 per copy. If you make a thousand of them, the 'cost' of each device is $2, counting your development costs. If you make a hundred of them, the 'cost' is $11 for each device -- more than five times as much. But making one more device isn't going to cost you $11; it's going to cost you $1. But whether you produce one, ten, a hundred, or a thousand, the $1000 you spent on the development is already spent; you can't get it back by deciding not to put the device into production.

Re:No bias at all...

[ChrisMaple]

Toss the whole program and replace it with ground troop enlistment and equipment

Do you understand why "cannon fodder" is a nasty concept?

Re:No bias at all...

[sumdumass]

Evidently you are daft one.

1: There already is the different versions of the existing planes for different branches. If you look, I simplified all that and just took a general approach to explaining it. You can do the detailed analysis if you want, but be honest and do not forget about the same problems with existing logistics.

2: Insurance was hyperbole you idiot. And yes, the US does insure it's jet fighters. The US itself is a self insurer qualified under existing laws. but that aside, how stupid would you have to be to not see the car analogy in place.

4: so you are saying that if it doesn't exist today, we should never build anything for the future? I mean seriously, what in the hell is your point here?

And pilots can breath in the f-35. Those problems have been found and fixed. They weren't that the pilots couldn't breath either, it was that their supply of oxygen was being reduce as they were breathing causing them to black out. It turns out that an undersized supply line could pinch closed after certain maneuvers cutting the supplemental oxygen supply off sending a pilot into a hypoxia situation.

Re:No bias at all...

[redlemming]

Yes standardization is economical.

This is the kind of thing economists with no real world experience (or good engineering experience) tend to believe. Perhaps it works for the kinds of ideal situations found in their journals. However, there are only so many degrees of freedom in any given engineering design, and all real-world designs have non-linear aspects to them, which can (and often does) make standardization difficult. Human factors, such as politics, complicate things even further. Much like software re-use, only so much standardization makes sense.

Unfortunately, because the limits on standardization, like the limits on software re-use, are not really understood by most people it is very easy for uninformed outsiders (or those with a political agenda and no integrity) to attack designers who do sensible designs. This in turn creates a tendency for political systems to force the creation of bad designs, in a misguided attempt to avoid these forms of attack.

It is especially difficult to design aircraft that are both suitable for the naval role, and for other roles. The corrosive effects of the ocean environment impose significant constraints on design. Having to design aircraft to land on carriers poses additional problems. The engineering required to deal with this reduces the degrees of freedom available for other design decisions.

Re:No bias at all...

[mpeskett]

You're making the assumptions of what we need to defend ourselves based on the enemies we're currently fighting. You better believe I expected the military defending this country to not be this shortsighted.

Considering how difficult it has been to fight a war in Afghanistan and Iraq, I am extremely worried about our abilities to protect ourselves. Because these are developing nations without a strong military. How do you think we would do in a war against a first-world country?

So far as I can tell, it'd be a hell of a lot easier for the US to fight against a clearly identifiable enemy nation with a defined/professional military. If it ever came to actual all-out warfare then all the expensive armaments could be used to full force, and the fact that you out-spend the next 10 highest military spenders combined (incidentally, mostly your allies on that list) would show quite clearly.

The problem seems to be that the whole engine is geared up to fight a war like the wars of the past, where you knew who the enemy was and could justifiably bomb the living crap out of them until they surrendered. Now that "the enemy" is indistinguishable from the civilian population, and they're not openly associated with the state they're in... well, it becomes a lot harder to justify anything except laser-accurate precision strikes. Which takes a lot more work to pull off, and even more work to do it without earning the animosity of the people surrounding whoever you just smote.

Re:No bias at all...

[Drathos]

Btw, there's no actual A-8 the for the F-35 to substitute, unless you are saying the F-35 substitutes a drawing.

They probably meant the AV-8B Harrier II, which one variation of the F-35 was specifically designed to replace.

Plenty to cut

[gmuslera]

And always at the neck. Putting the blame in the dot that is at the very tip of the iceberg makes simple people forget the 10% of it that is over the water, and normal people forget the 90% is below. If just gets considered the cost of starting wars (cyber and real world ones, even if they are disguised as humanitarian, or supporting rebels, or whatever), preserving the (corporate) order, or plainly stripping privacy/spying to all the world, including US citizens, would be evident where the real waste is.

Re:Plenty to cut

[AmiMoJo]

Even lower down it isn't clear that government agencies are particularly wasteful because there is nothing to compare them to. No private companies do anything like what the government does, and that is kind of the point of the government doing it. It's something not commercially viable, or that we can't trust to the free market to sort out.

Re:Plenty to cut

[Dr. Tom]

so you're saying cutting the F35 cuts even more than we think, so cutting it will save even more money for programs that already work for less, like unmanned vehicles

Re:Plenty to cut

[gmuslera]

I say that the problem is a far bigger than the F35 (and drones, and a lot more), and the necks are of the ones at the core of the problem.

It's a management problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the turbine blade cracked, lets look at assembly lines. Did you know the USAF puts 200 of its members on staff at a turbine production plant for quality assurance, and that's just 1 of many engine types they use? Compare and contrast that with all of the major airlines. They operate using the manufacturers warranty. They have nobody on the production lines. It works just fine. That's 200 jobs to cut and save on, but that goes against the grain in bureaucracy because everybody wants to be managing the most amount of people, so no matter how logical the cost reduction, they often are thrown out to further personal ambitions.

Re:It's a management problem

[O('_')O_Bush]

I'm not sure what your analogy is, since airlines don't make airliners, unless you imply that somehow we can magically poof the planes into existence for free, and then run the airforce like an airline. If you meant something about commercial airlines being most efficient:

Airline turbofans don't have nearly the same requirements as an engine designed for higher mach numbers.

Your analogy is comparing Team Ferrari and a schoolbus manufacturer, and claiming that Ferrari could save a lot of money if they fired all of the people involved with testing performance, since schoolbuses don't need it.

The funniest part is, Boeing, the loser of the bid on the JSF program, is a commercial airline maker (supercapitalist) but couldn't do better or cheaper than LMC (almost pure defense contractor).

Re:It's a management problem

[ColdWetDog]

The funniest part is, Boeing, the loser of the bid on the JSF program, is a commercial airline maker (supercapitalist) but couldn't do better or cheaper than LMC (almost pure defense contractor).

Totally orthogonal statement. The 'winner' of the JSF contract has little to do with the design (which has changed a bunch since inception), the budget (which has changed more) or the operating capabilities of the various contractors (roughly the same). The real reasons for Lockheed-Martin for winning the JSF contract have more to do with back room deals (and a desire to make sure YoYoDyne didn't get all of the work) as anything else.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[Anonymous Coward]

Afghanistan? Why not from everywhere around the world?

Look at the Pentagon suppliers

[QuietLagoon]

Look at the Pentagon suppliers for extracting as much money as they can from our defense spending. Good ole Capitalism at its worst.... sucking a Country dry just to engorge defense contractors' executives.

Re:Look at the Pentagon suppliers

[arse maker]

Building these kinds of machines is always going to cost a fortune. Even at 2000-3000 units, this isn't mass production. It also incorporates a lot of new tech which is hard to budget.

I'm all for cutting military spending but that will also cut jobs. I wonder what the jobs per million spent on the military is compared to other government spending.

Re:Look at the Pentagon suppliers

[O('_')O_Bush]

Yep, cost (materials and labor)+10%(the profit) is totally sucking our country dry... Nothing to do with the Pentagon driving costs through the roof by forcing bidding on one set of requirements, then changing them hundreds of times before the program is finished.

No, it is killer 10% markup that is the problem.

Re:Look at the Pentagon suppliers

[fafaforza]

It takes two to tango. If contractors are sucking the government dry, why is your government letting it happen?

Re:Look at the Pentagon suppliers

[Troll-in-Training]

The real markup is taxation, companies that take government contracts have to pay taxes on that income and on the income of the employees that work for them. As every dollar spent on a government contract comes from taxes, the prices the government pays are inflated by the amount of taxes the company has to pay back to the government. If we passed legislation exempting government employees, contractors and the employees of government contractors from taxation in direct proportion to the amount of tax dollars they recieve as income we would reduce the cost of government services and contracts by about 25 -30 % without affecting the amount of services delivered.

Re:Look at the Pentagon suppliers

[ChrisMaple]

I like the idea, but I see two problems: massive fraud in assigning costs of civilian contracts to government contracts, and political outcry against tax-advantaged companies and employees. Leftists would have apoplexy.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[TheSunborn]

I think that using "tens of thousands of our nation's best and brightest engineers" to build something more useful instead would be a good choice.

Re:Vague and Misleading

[jklovanc]

There is a case for keeping the F-35B. It is to replace the aging and very outdated Harrier. One of the next hot spots is North Africa. The French and Europeans may not be able to handle it. VSTOL aircraft become very important in those areas and there are no runways to handle conventional jets. Yes, there are drones that can operate in those areas but they do not deal well with dispersed targets like troops on the ground. A drone is a sniper while a ground attacks jet is a machine gun.

It's not just procurement

[MikeRT]

If you fired at least 50% of the civilian employees, you would probably barely notice a dent in military readiness since most of the DoD's work is done by the uniformed services and contractors.

Re:It's not just procurement

[arse maker]

Depends how you define readiness.

But looking at the sizes of civilian contracts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_contractor) I doubt it.

Re:It's not just procurement

[Nidi62]

Why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to put a person through bootcamp and AIT/whatever just to have them push papers or make copies? Use civilians for clerical/office work, and let soldiers actually soldier.

Re:It's not just procurement

[O('_')O_Bush]

I think what he is saying is, keep the Mils and the defense contractors, let go of the civvies doing menial tasks as part of the DoD itself.

Re:It's not just procurement

[Sarius64]

Good luck on that. I'm sure all the military program managers would easily insert a field of enlisted and officer engineers with a whopping two years of experience (on average) at their last command. /rolleyes

Re:It's not just procurement

[fermion]

Not to that we apparently have been accepting military personel that are unfit for duty. One big problem we have in the military is that in order to keep all these officers employed we have to keep recruiting, even if those recruits are not going to be able to perform. We have to supply the training camps with youngsters, even if those youngsters are just going to take money from the taxpayer without giving anything in return.

Furthermore, why are we paying these kids for the first four months. The reduction in pay over others already indicates that they are of little value. Why not just give them room, board, and stipend? If someone really wants the opportunity to serve their country, they should be willing to do so without compensation. I mean a teacher does not get paid to get certification, in fact has to pay for it. Yet a recruit get paid to eat food provided by the taxpayer.

What is even more distressing is we are accepting all these recruits, many unhealthy, and we working taxpayers are going to be on the hook for their medical care for their entire life. We pay for stroke, heart attack, even diabetes because the veteran knows the tax payer is at risk, not the veteran. This is not me talking, this is what all the conservatives say. Government health care just makes people sicker. And in 2009 the income restrictions on this care were reduced to let even more veterans, many who could afford private insurance, get this tax payer funding windfall.

The pentagon, just like any other corporation, is bloated with middle manager officers who only concern is spending a budget so they can justify their own positions, many of which could be eliminated. Which would eliminate their budget. And 40 years of funding the health care of the unhealthy.

Re:It's not just procurement

[PPH]

So now we'll pay 3 or 4X a soldier's pay for some Blackwater truck driver or cook.

One of the reasons we like to have soldiers 'push papers' is just to have them around should they be needed for combat. They can do non-essential work rather than just sit on their hands. The other reason we have them do K-P duty or maintain IT systems during peacetime is that this must also be done during war. And its better not to have civilians and other non-qualified personnel underfoot in the event of hostilities.

Re:It's not just procurement

[Whorhay]

I find it cute that you first complain that the recruits aren't up to snuff and then in the next breath condemn them for costing too much money. You can't have both and maintain current manning levels. You can get more picky about who you let in but if there isn't an increase in pay you can be damn sure you will start missing recruitment goals.

The pay for an E1 through E3 already pretty much is just a stipend. When I enlisted I took something like a 40% drop in pay. I did so because I wanted to serve my country and despite the horrible pay it appeared to offer more upward mobility than the job I already had. And don't forget that once you graduate from training a service member can be deployed to a hell hole like the middle east.

I have several friends who worked desk jockey jobs like me and ended up deployed to ride on convoys. I just count myself, and them, lucky that all my friends came back alive.

The only times the tax payer is going to end up on the hook for a soldiers medical bills for life is if they either end up severly disabled as a result of service related injuries or tough it out for 20+ years. And that free medical coverage is far from the best money can buy. One of the first things that I discovered when I seperated was that my military Dentists were pretty much incompetent as I had to spend several thousand dollars to fix the teeth they screwed up.

I don't doubt that there is probably bloat in the officer core especially at the higher ranks. But blaming the DoD's ills on the enlisted troops is insane, they have next to no pull when it comes to making command or spending decisions of any consequence. They are the ones with their balls in a sling every day out patroling in a hostile environment waiting for an IED to go off and shred said balls.

TLDR:
Fuck you, you fucking slackass armchair general!

Re:It's not just procurement

[Whorhay]

Most people work in some job because it suites their sense of morality better doing something else with higher profits. For instance how many attractive women do you know that don't work as "Escorts". There are plenty of things other than direct pay which factor into a persons evaluation of whether or not to stay with a job.

The military, no matter which branch or job specialty, is not like any civilian equivilants. First, there is the always present threat of long term deployments to combat zones. Second, you can't quit and just walk away from your job, that would be a felony. Third, your boss doesn't just tell you what to do, he is ordering you to do it, refusing that order is possibly a felony. Fourth, in case it wasn't already evident they own you, almost literally. In my opinion considering all of the above and who knows what else that I've forgotten the marginally better than minimum wage pay is easily justified.

Walmart also hires people with asthma, heart abnormalities and a host of other disabilities I am sure. The military also requires at least a GED, and a relatively drug free past. There are all sorts of dumb restrictions including age for some branches. Some branches also will only take people within specific BMI's regardless of actual physical ability, and that has at times also related to people that were under weight. The military is far more restrictive in terms of who it will hire than most any other large employer.

I'm sorry your friends father was clearly dicked over, but how is that relevant to whether or not the healthcare disabled and retired veterans can recieve is often horrible and substandard? The military and VA have what healtcare systems they do simply becaue it was legislated into law at some point. If you don't like it then lobby and vote to remove it. At the same time if you think that civilian companies should provide the same type of benefits then vote with your dollars and feet, work for and buy from companies that do that, although you could persue this by legislative means also. I would justify the lifetime VA disability payments under the fact that it's a promise to a soldier that if they end up permanently injured, maimed, or disabled in anyway as a result of service they will be taken care of to some extent. All taxpayers have Social Security which fills a similiar role, though obviously not identical but neither are the working conditions.

I'll call bullshit on the largest part of the US military's spending being on staffing, link below. From there you can see that Operations and Maintanance easily beat out personnel costs. Operations and Maintanance do not include war spending, that's a seperate line item in newer budgets and a completely different spending bill previous to 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

Re:Yes.

[olsmeister]

Exactly. The sequester is better than nothing at all, but it is frustrating to me that these cuts are across the board. Maybe that's the only way to do it given the current political situation, but not all government is bad - there are a lot of effective government programs that live right alongside the bloated, wasteful ones. Ideally we would cut heavily in the latter and not so much (or even expand) the former. But of course, then someone must determine which category everything falls into ...

Fix acquisitions

[Nidi62]

There is no need to cut programs or funding. If the Pentagon wants to save billions per year, simply fix the acquisitions process. Pretty much every single defense program in development and production runs over in time and budget. If we simply hold the contractors to the terms of their contracts, we will save tons of money and have equipment that works. Contracts are always underestimated in terms of the time frame and the cost, and yet companies that constantly overrun these still get preferential treatment when it comes to the next contract. And heaven forbid there's a fair competition for a bid: if one of the main contractors doesn't win the bid, they push for and usually get a reevaluation from the military for the bid, and usually end up getting the contract. A simple fix off the top of my head would be that, should a contractor not be able to adhere to the terms of the contract, they should be unable to bid on another contract for a certain period of time. Any other business that was constantly late and over budget would stop getting work and go out of business; so why do we tolerate it with defense companies? We need a strong military, and we need new, modern equipment. What we don't need are programs that run 3-4x over their stated costs or take 15-20 years instead of 10.

Re:Fix acquisitions

[cyber-vandal]

IT contracting companies have been useless forever and yet corporations still keep employing them. This isn't private sector vs public sector, this is crap contracts agreed to by people focusing on price over reality because agreeing to an impossibly low figure on the new payroll system means a bonus now and any future shambles can be blamed on the contractor.

Re:Fix acquisitions

[Nidi62]

This isn't private sector vs public sector, this is crap contracts agreed to by people focusing on price over reality because agreeing to an impossibly low figure on the new payroll system means a bonus now and any future shambles can be blamed on the contractor.

I never said anything about public versus private. I think defense is an industry that needs both. What I said is simply to make those that bid for a program to actually be held accountable for and adhere to the terms of the bid that they propose. If we do that, we will save a lot of money.

Re:Fix acquisitions

[Troll-in-Training]

I never said anything about public versus private. I think defense is an industry that needs both. What I said is simply to make those that bid for a program to actually be held accountable for and adhere to the terms of the bid that they propose. If we do that, we will save a lot of money.

The problem is twofold, military contracts are often on technology that is brand new or theoretical and proven only by a prototype. Turning new science into a finished product that can handle sustained operations in wartime conditions is expensive and prone to cost overruns. Second, the lead time on military contracts is such that technology changes between the time the contract is issued and delivery. These technological changes can make the product as initally specified obsolete unless changes are made, which leads to cost overruns. Even in an honest system new development of military equipment is expensive.

That said, the current system is horribly inefficent because in order to even get a contract approved contractors have to play games with the inital costs and jump through hoops in order to get congress to approve it. Many ovveruns are caused by contractors later adding in the real costs that wouldn't have been approved if they were known in advance.

As long as the procurement system requires corruption in order for ANY contract to be approved only corrupt contractors will bid and taxpayers will be stuck with outrageous bills.

Re:Fix acquisitions

[ColdWetDog]

Exactly correct, which is why you don't let line-of-battle contracts out the door with unproven technology. You fund DARPA / skunk works / whatever to expand your technologic base and you contract weapon systems with proven tech.

Less sky, more pie.

Re:Fix acquisitions

[PPH]

DARPA/Skunk works projects have at times been very successful, budget-wise. What gets cut out of these projects and enables the success is cutting Congress out of the acquisition process.

Black projects, built with no public visibility, allow the customer (Pentagon) and suppliers to negotiate on price and performance without some Senator trying to get a piece of the business for his constituency. If the technology proves to be beyond reach, the two parties can cancel the contract without all the political fallout we get on typical projects.

Re:Fix acquisitions

[sumdumass]

One of the biggest problems is that the bids submitted are often not the product produced. Imaging you bidding to repair the storm damage on my home. you place the bid, I accept it, then I decide i want the new front door to be one of the security doors I recently found out about. I then notice the front entrance would look better with a stained wood rather then painted wood. Oh, and I want Oak trim instead of pine and wooden floors instead of carpeting.

Now suppose suppose some of those changes are made because materials for the original bid are no longer available, too difficult to acquire in the quantities needed, or studies have shown them to be vastly inferior to the new materials. Suppose some of those changes were made because it vastly increased the over all value of the complete project and future proofed the home from similar damages in future storms. Suppose some of those changes were made because long term maintenance would be cheaper and/or functionality could be increased. Would you still charge me the same as the original bid? Of course not, you would charge me the increased costs plus your profit

Bids on military projects often change like this. The projects are often long enough in development that serious changes in technology happens or the required roles or needs of the military change or the politicians get involved and want things built in certain places (to benefit their local constituency).

Re:Fix acquisitions

[DRJlaw]

If we simply hold the contractors to the terms of their contracts, we will save tons of money and have equipment that works. A simple fix off the top of my head would be that, should a contractor not be able to adhere to the terms of the contract, they should be unable to bid on another contract for a certain period of time....

A simple solution proposed by a person who has obviously never dealt with a contracting problem in their life.

Adhere to the terms of which contract? A contract reflecting the specifications laid out in the initial proposal? A contract reflecting the specifications laid out in the revised proposal? A contract reflecting the specifications described in the explanation of the award (which is a particular point tending to draw defense contract litigation -- suddenly the criteria on which the award is judge change from what was laid out in the propsals)... or...

A contract reflectiing the first change order, the second change order... the thousandth change order... the thousand and first change order...

Do you propose to hold the government to the terms of its contracts? Or is this a one way license for the government to alter the content while keeping the initial cost and time requirements?

If you'd ever dealt with commercial or residential construction, you know that change orders cost real time and money. You don't enter into a contract, and then decide that you want a fourth bedroom, and the floors to be slate instead of hardwood, and the walls to be wired with that new grade of fiber optic cable necessary for 10 Gbit ethernet rather than the 100 Mbit single mode fiber you initially specified thinking that you could move to higher speeds, but which didn't make the cut. No without paying relatively dearly for the privilege.

And that's just one part of it. The government's proposals for new equipment, especially for combat aircraft, do not limit themselves to established technology. They set cutting edge requirements that the defense contractors attempt to meet with prototypes, then balance between what is wanted and what is possible, then leave it to the contractor to turn the prototype into production aircraft. Money tends to be spent lavishly because that is the level of risk that the government wants to take, and the defense contractors simply will not accept that level of risk entirely on their own -- there are risk sharing provisions and guarantees in the event that that prototype thrust vectoring system which seemed like it might meet the proposal requirements really can't be turned into a RoboTech-like ability to take off vertically with a 6000lb weapon load and 2000 miles worth of fuel.

Simply hold the contractors to the terms of their contracts, and you will only get what is demonstrably production ready at the time of the propsal, and you can throw your change orders down the engine intakes.

Re:Fix acquisitions

[murpup]

You don't understand how federal contracting works. Most of the time the cost overrun is the fault of the government because the specs that it generates are not complete. Which is understandable because R&D is inherently risky and unknowable. Issuing a contract that says "design and build me a new fighter jet that will replace my current fleet of planes" is not conducive to getting exactly what you want. But many requests for proposal that the government issues are precisely at this level. And another mistake you are making is thinking that the initial amount of the money that the government budgets for a particular project, based on its own limited knowledge of what it will take to complete the project, has any relation to the actual amount of money required to get the job done. If the government worker tasked with generating the contract specs was in a position to know with complete certainty what the job would require, then the contract specs could be written with much more detail, and the cost predictions would be better.

Re:Fix acquisitions

[cyber-vandal]

Any other business that was constantly late and over budget would stop getting work and go out of business;

Yes you did and I provided an example of companies that do a lot of work for private entities who also often don't do a good job but are yet to go out of business.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[Charcharodon]

Afghanistan doesn't represent that much in terms of the budget, but I agree with your sentiment. Either go declare war and go into Afghanistan with the entire might of the US military and burn the Taliban to the ground, which would mean decimating most of the civilian population, since pretty much the two are heavily intertwined, or leave them alone.

The US military should only be used like a flame thrower, to reduce the temptation to meddle, not like a scaple which encourages just that and has kept us at war for the past 90 years.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[O('_')O_Bush]

False dichotomy. If the DoD can't justify spending that money, they won't (look at NASA). Cutting programs like these merely reduce the demand for engineers, it doesn't offer our country any advantages.

Enough with the damn spending cuts

[rsilvergun]

We're not broke people. Really. We're not. This is what people in politics call a "Narrative". It's a story to get you to vote a certain way. Specifically to vote for massive tax cuts for the rich so they can pocket all the gains in productivity from the last 50 years.

Cut all the "Waste" you want. It'll never come close or be a drop in the bucket against what the ultra wealthy are taking from you on a daily basis. I tell ya man, dog eat dog capitalism for the poor, socialism for the wealthy...

Re:Enough with the damn spending cuts

[rubycodez]

wrong, government is the primary way the uberwealthy steal from us, for our goverment is in their pockets. our US government needs to be butchered to a third of what it is now (the other 66% is unconstitutional), and their current masters destroyed (banking cartel, petro cartel, weapons cartel..).

Re:Enough with the damn spending cuts

[anagama]

Why do you say "wrong" -- it sounds like you two agree. At least, I agree with you both.

Re:Enough with the damn spending cuts

[the eric conspiracy]

That article claimed that super-rich people world wide have 21 trillion in assets. Suppose that's true AND we confiscate all of it.

Guess what. It's not enough. The public debt of the US, Japan and Europe combined is more than twice that, some 44 trillion.

We are broke.

Re:Enough with the damn spending cuts

[rubycodez]

adds more zing to thread, that's all.

Re:Enough with the damn spending cuts

[SplashMyBandit]

The "narrative" actually comes from the political Left (eg. Obama Administration) that says that social spending can continue at the current rate provided they eviscerate defence (which can be shrunk for sure, but not gutted) and conduct class warfare on the rich (which is the narrative you appear to subscribe to). The "narrative" of libertarians/conservatives is that social spending is out of control (looking at the numbers, it is), government is too big and intrusive (looking at the numbers, it is), and that the solution is to promote growth for the whole economy (although they sometimes downplay the importance of worker protection against exploitation - which is essential). If the economy grows the workers get paid, the unemployed get jobs, the politicians get taxes, and the capitalists get profits (to create jobs and invest in equipment) - which get taxed again and the circulation continues.

Cut all the "Waste" you want. It'll never come close or be a drop in the bucket against what the ultra wealthy are taking from you on a daily basis. I tell ya man, dog eat dog capitalism for the poor, socialism for the wealthy...

Hmm, more narrative. Looking at the *statistics* the top 3% of earners in the US pay the bulk of the tax revenue. They contribute massively in absolute terms. They also pay more in relative terms as well (they already have a higher tax rate), especially compared to the lower 47% that effectively pay no tax. For the most part the wealthy did not steal their fortunes, they earned it through hard work, study and creating things that people wanted (also creating jobs and supporting industries in the process). As long as the rich pay their fair share then I'm ok with it. Waging a "class warfare narrative" on them, as you appear to do, doesn't follow the statistics and is not a sustainable way to grow the economy. Here is a video for you consider (and hopefully get some perspective too): should spending be cut or can the US solve its long-term problem by bleeding the rich for every penny? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQ

Re:Enough with the damn spending cuts

[SplashMyBandit]

True, this video sums the numbers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQ

Re:Enough with the damn spending cuts

[Wildclaw]

That article claimed that super-rich people world wide have 21 trillion in assets. Suppose that's true AND we confiscate all of it.

Guess what. It's not enough. The public debt of the US, Japan and Europe combined is more than twice that, some 44 trillion.

We are broke.

For every one dollar that the federal government owes, someone owns that debt. That is a simple fact.

Fiat currencies are a basic zero sum game. The only interesting thing is the distribution as it has a real impact on the productivity of an economy. And here is where people are right to blame the government, as it is the federal government that is responsible for managing said distribution via taxes and spending.

And yes, the managing of the distribution of currency is inherently unfair. The whole point is to make it unfair in a way that best keeps the economy running well.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[sulimma]

It also employs tens of thousands of our nation's best and brightest engineers..

Who are unavailable for other tasks due to this programm.

and almost all of it goes to labor (and a big chunk returns in taxes, if not all in economic activity)

As would almost any other type of spending. The difference is, you get planes instead of schools, highways, vaccines or what else could be done with the money.

Also, the money for this programm is coming from taxes so not spending the money at all creates purchasing power all accross the population which might be the best thing for welfare and economy.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[guises]

If the DoD can't justify spending that money, they won't

Of course they will. The DoD is subject to congressional pork just like everyone else - just look at how difficult it was to cancel F-22 production, even though the DoD said they didn't need any more.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[O('_')O_Bush]

It was difficult to cut the F22, because it was expensive to cut the F22. They have a hard time swallowing that if they ever need more than a couple hundred planes, the cost of spinning back up will be far more than the savings from not getting another couple hundred planes.

Sorry H-1B holders

[gatkinso]

I guess there is no longer a need for your services.

Sequestration is not your friend

[voice of unreason]

There's two separate issues here. The first is the F-35. The other is the offhand comment that sequestration isn't such a bad thing because it'll force the Pentagon to make much needed cuts. I deal with government contractors a lot at work and am a little familiar with the sequestration process, so I can tell you that unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way. With a normal defense budget cut passed by Congress it might. But if sequestration goes into effect, many of the funding cuts are across the board and automatic. The Pentagon often always get to say what is or isn't cut. This means that important stuff gets cut along with the unimportant, because sequestration isn't always based on military necessity. It also means that there will be cuts that don't even make sense. Here's an example. Say that you've got a project to build a submarine. Suddenly sequestration says that you can only do 50% of the project. How do you pull that off? It's a ship. You can't build half of a sub, unless you want to build the bottom half of the hull and row it around like a big kayak. You might try building half the sub now and putting off the rest till later. But by then your hull's gotten rusty and you have to fix it, and the workers have to be rehired, and you end up paying more than if you'd just built the whole thing in the first place. So if you want stuff like the F-35 to get canceled, the right thing to do it is to try to get it cancelled in congress. The generalized sequestration cuts won't target the waste, and will in the end actually create more expenses that we have to pay off.

Re:Vague and Misleading

[Dr. Tom]

There is a case for keeping the F-35B. It is to replace the aging and very outdated Harrier.

not a compelling argument. tech has moved on, yes. so has the enemy. fight smarter, not more expensively

Re:Plenty to cut...

[Dr. Tom]

No, America's RPVs will always be the best, we can take out anyone anywhere in the world at the touch of a button, without a pilot and for so little cost it's clear the government would use it so much more they're terrified of people calling "skynet!" The old military systems are like PDP-10 processors in an iPhone world.

The F-series has run its course. It's time we admitted it and built a new, cheaper, more agile force without feathering the nests of the fat military contractors.

Real world numbers

[Grayhand]

So over it's service life it would cost roughly the same amount as putting solar panels on 40 million homes. One unneeded airplane that has yet to see a day of service. There's plenty of money to solve our problems it's all being wasted!

Re:Real world numbers

[Rougement]

Wish I had mod points for this ...

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[ColdWetDog]

OK, so you think this is a one off aberrantcy? That the military requisition and supply chain basically works?

Check this out. This new concept for a troop carrier has been in the works since 2006, hasn't produced anything other than some parts and a bunch of reports and is on target to create something heavier than an M1A1 tank. Just to carry nine soldiers.

If you can't even get a truck right, how are you supposed to develop something actually complicated?

"An elephant - a mouse built to government specifications" (Heinlein)

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[prefec2]

If the US wold not employ the brightest engineers for military stuff, but would let build them useful things, the US would not be that much behind on those nice technologies for renewable energy (solar panels), electronics, like displays, flash rams, mobile phone, hard drives, car manucatoring, tooling, steel production, trains.

But yes, they developed the most expensive military airplane. Even the EU was not able to waste that much money on the so called Eurofighter (Typhoon). Ok the French separated and spent money on Rafale which is quite similar to the Typhoon.

Rafale: € 64 mio
Typhoon: € 90 mio
F35C: € 180 mio

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[prefec2]

The is no other way. However, it would be more sensible to find a world governance concept without someone being at the top. But it looks like, that the US overstreched their resources already and are replaced by the Chinese, who will then "rule" for a while until they can't afford being at the top.

Re:Cancel the F35 - that'd be hillarious

[ColdWetDog]

We Brits could then convert our not-yet built and now completely useless carriers into novelty cruise liners or something!

A reality show - Catapulting for Stars... Have to think about this, but there are possibilities.

Re:Eisenhower - M.I.C. Not so much.

[anagama]

MY guys are going to have the best weapons I can make for them because I do not want my sons and daughters having to fight off kings, popes, and power mongers the way that we had to.

What is the power that kings etc. abuse most? What did our founders, who had experience in such matters, write the constitution for?

To prevent power from concentrating into the hands of one person. To make it hard for the government to start a war without a lot of public buy in. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily spy on you. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily imprison you. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily execute you. The structure of the US government and the Bill of Rights were designed to avoid the insanity of European monarchies.

Look at where we are now:

-- Libya: President can wage war even in the face of congressional disapproval. Result: unlimited power to make war, like a king.

-- FISA, AT&T immunity: Any American can have their privacy violated without so much as bogus warrant.

-- Due Process Free Detention: When the "world is a battlefield" and the enemy is an idea ("terrorism"), there is no limit to where this abuse of human rights can be practiced, and no possible victory conditions defining when the abuse may end.

-- Due process Free Execution: See due process free detention.

Seems to me we don't need to worry about fighting off kings and popes or power mongers abroad. The threat is right here at home -- one we pay for and vote for -- in essence, we are subsidizing our own subjugation.

Sounds nice

[rsilvergun]

but besides a strong federal government what do you suggest can stand it's ground against the uber-wealthy? Join or die you know.

I think we forget just how much power the wealthy had up until the end of WWII. What changed was that since everyone came back a war hero they finally felt some entitlement. The felt they'd earned something besides a nasty & brutish death. We've lost site of that. It's the opposite of an entitlement complex. Mitt Romney said that what's wrong with the 47% is they feel entitled to food, housing and healthcare, and nobody though to ask what the hell is wrong with that? Who ISN'T entitle to that?

Re:Sounds nice

[ChrisMaple]

No adult is entitled to anything he hasn't earned. If someone else is forced to pay for your food, that person is acting as your slave. You have no right to enslave someone. You have no right to obtain food or housing at another person's expense; you have no right to force a doctor to cure your ills.

If a stranger breaks into my house to steal from me, I will kill him. The "47%" deserve the same: stealing by proxy does not absolve you of guilt.

Re:Vague and Misleading

[Electricity Likes Me]

What is the point of a carrier fleet if you need bases on the ground in Africa?

There's no advanced AA and also no real standing armies to fight. Drones which can loiter will rule the day, and strike missions could be run from carriers easily since they're not going to need the fuel for combat manoeuvering against non-existent air defenses.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[sumdumass]

Are you arguing to cut spending or to spend the money elsewhere?

I highly doubt the engineers working on the f-35 would be suitable for working on schools, highways, vaccines. However, their use of the materials and applied sciences with pave he way to make those schools, highways, vaccines better through technologies developed to handle the extremes the f-35 will be subject to.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[Ritchie70]

That's actually how most things work, you know. If you buy 400 of something all at once, it's cheaper than buying 200 now and 200 later.

But it's also almost always cheaper to buy 200 total than to buy 400 total no matter how you order them. Just like everyone else, the military needs to figure out what they need when they place the order and they need to get it right or expect additional costs.

The people who agree with your argument to not cut the F22 think they know better than the military how many F22's the military needs. Seems kind of arrogant to me.

Be careful when cutting!

[ctrl-alt-canc]

If you apply a 20% reduction to the number of pentagon sides, it shrinks to a square. You can go further, and apply a 40% reduction so that it becomes a triangle. But if you apply a 60% cut the pentagon shrinks to a segment. As a consequence workers will find quite difficult to move along the only remaining hallway. The consequences of a 80% cut are left as an exercise to the reader. It should also be obvious that applying cuts that are not multiple of 20% will change the pentagon into a fractal shape, with unpredictable consequences over the productivity of people working inside.

Re:Be careful when cutting!

[Greyfox]

Damn I wish I had mod points right now!

Military fat trimming is overdue

[CaroKann]

I think that some trimming of the fat is long overdue for the military. It will force them to think about what is really necessary, what is "nice to have", and what is obsolete. It might even force the politicians to think a little more carefully about how the military is used and what its role is supposed to be. (Fat chance?)

Re:Military fat trimming is overdue

[gtall]

That isn't the military I'm familiar with. The military I'm familiar with get programs shoved down its throat by congresscritters. They cannot build stuff they need where they wish to build it because congresscritters will demand a cut in order to support the appropriation.

Re:Military fat trimming is overdue

[rubycodez]

the basic use of our military for wars of choice for profit and power over foreigners needs to stop. that's over 50% of its budget

Re:Military fat trimming is overdue

[the eric conspiracy]

Exactly right. Scratch a bloated unneeded program and you will find a Congressional mandate. It isn't the military - they don't want this junk. IT'S CONGRESS.

These days Congress is about one thing - getting re-elected and they will do anything yes anything toward that goal. And that means wasteful government programs by the $trillion are not a problem so long as they can be shown to benefit a constituent base which can be parleyed into a vote.

It is the NUMBER ONE argument for term limits.

As a member of the military industrial complex

[Anonymous Coward]

As a current member of the DoD acquisition community, there is definitely waste, and nobody knows it more than the insiders. I have a few theories on the subject. One problem is that we are so risk adverse and afraid of buying the next $500 hammer or $600 toilet seat that we have imposed $500 worth of bureaucracy on every $30 dollar hammer we buy. Individual accountability is lost to the system. The entire acquisition process is mindbogglingly complex. I've been to a bunch of acquisition training courses. None of them taught me how to actually do my job "better", all they really did was teach me how to navigate the small piece of the system that I needed to deal with. Most of this crap is mandatated by law. Every time there is some fiasco a new set of checks and balances is imposed, rather than just firing the guy responsible.

Secondly, programs like F-35 are driven at least 51% by political considerations and marketing, not technical or military considerations. For example, what is plan B if F-35 doesn't work out? Answer- None. Not because there couldn't be one, but because if there was one it would jeopardize F-35, so all competition had to be crushed. Why no alternate engine from GE? STOVL is a joke. Why do we want a single engine stealth 5th gen fighter to ever be forward deployed close to the troops (F-35B)? It has nothing to do with real military utility, it has everything to do with keeping partners (RN, Italy) on board. F-35 is not popular in the services, outside of the F-35 program. It is sucking everything else dry.

Now, on the discussion of the current impending cuts. The problem is that it is across the board, with very limited ability for the services to "reprogram" money (move it from one pot to another). Yea, we could probably solve the whole thing by just cancelling F-35, and buy a few more F-16/F-15/FA-18s to get by for a few years, but the services do not have that ability. They have to cut everything equally. This means the fat get skinny, and the skinny (programs that are already at the bone) get dead. In the Navy we've got holes in runways that are not going to get fixed, because repair and construction budgets are cut. Meanwhile, there is an Air Force base that is going to have to stop watering the golf course.

Pentagon Accounting Standards

[nickmalthus]

On September 10th, 2001 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced the pentagon could not track 2.3 trillion dollars. To this day, the Pentagon cannot be accurately audited For an institution with organization and discipline as its creed this is laughable. If Congress mandated that they would not receive one penny in funding until they got their house in order this problem would be solved overnight. Unfortunately the power of fear, obstinate Militarism, and the federal reserve corporations ability to manufacture unlimited debt provides no impetus for Congress to take the necessary corrective action.

Re:Pentagon Accounting Standards

[dbIII]

While it may be true I'd advise you not to take the man who tried to destroy the US military from the inside twice at his word without getting it confirmed from another source.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[gtall]

You mean Pakistan, that's where most of the Taliban hang out. And the Pakistanis would get their turbans in a twist all over again after the U.S. nailed their adopted favorite son.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[sulimma]

So you are saying, the number of engineers and teachers available shall define how much is spent on military engineering and schools?

I believe that demand shall define the amount. If there are not enough engineers to meet this demand efforts shall be made to get more (either through education or hiring abroad). If there are more engineers than needed for military engineering there are two options:
- don't give government money to them and leave it to them to find other useful work
- use government money to hire these engineers for non military projects that are needed

But dveloping airplanes just because you have the engineers is a stupid waste of tax money.

Wishful thinking

[Python]

This statement is just wishful thinking "we have more troops than we need in a world in which we will no longer focus on fighting large, boots-on-the-ground conflicts like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." Yes, the same thing was said after every single war in the 20th century as well, and was the mantra of the 90s after the Soviet Union fell. No one thought we would be fighting the kinds of wars that happened in late 90s (Serbia, Bosnia, etc.), or the Watson the early 21st century and yet here we are. This is just wishful, hopeful thinking, sure a world without wars like Afghanistan seem possible but let's face facts we didnt suddenly inherit a world filled with peaceful stable nations. There are plenty of screwed situations in the world that will likely cause more wars.

The realy problem with the pentagon is the procurement system. Things costs too much because weapons platform developers can get modifications to their contracts, which means more money, if they don't deliver. They basically play games with the contract, unbidden with a partial solution that appears complete to dod, a well written contract, wich means they did what they said, yt need more money to deliver a complete product. It's all very legal, but its so prevalent that its a sick joke in dod.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[dkleinsc]

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

Just a bit of wisdom on this subject from some pacifist coward named Dwight Eisenhower.

Problem, congress will decide not pentagon

[Maxo-Texas]

Listen, if you told the pentagon- we are cutting 10%. You decide where.

A few bad programs might be retained (generals personal favorites) but a lot of bad programs would be cut.

But congress decides. The pentagon tried cutting the laser plane multiple times and congress insisted that it be continued because a powerful congressman had jobs depending on it.

So we need to cut 10% but probably a lot of bad programs will be retained and a few good ones will be cut.

Krugman is a bit of a twit

[JBMcB]

"Trust fund," riiiight.

Know where that "Trust fund" is invested? The safest investment there is: treasury bonds. Know who backs treasury bonds? The treasury, AKA taxes from you and me. Know what the government did with the money it took from selling itself those bonds? Spent it.

So when those bonds mature, guess who's gonna have to pay out?

This is Krugman's idea of a sustainable system. Heh.

Re:Krugman is a bit of a twit

[nbauman]

I dunno. Krugman has a PhD, a professorship at Princeton, and a Nobel prize.

I suggest you read his article again more carefully.

The cabal lives

[gottabeme]

Wow, common sense modded down to 0, Troll. I guess there really is a cabal.

Nothing replaces the Warthog.

[gottabeme]

Nothing.

Re:Vague and Misleading

[jklovanc]

Nice simplistic solution with no solution whatsoever. It is very easy. to say "fight smarter" but much harder to actually do it. By the way, modern fighting will always be more expensive; it is called inflation.

Re:Vague and Misleading

[jklovanc]

Carrirrs are for coastal areas; Persian gulf, North Korea, Coastal Africa, etc. When one gets a few hundred miles from the coast, carrier aircraft get very ineffective as the spend most of their fuel getting to and from the target.

Drones which can loiter will rule the day,

Combat range of a F-18 Super Hornet is 390 nm. To get to North East Mali it would be 1100 nm. Even with 25% more range that would mean 3 refuelings. At a reasonable cruise speed of 300 knots that would take over 7 hours to get there. Then there is loiter time. To keep a sortie to 8 hours, a very long one for a fighter pilot, and keep one aircraft available over Mali it would require 8 aircraft in the air. Or they could have a vtsol aircraft on the ground within 300 miles. Another issue is speed of deployment and support costs. Do deploy an F-35B would require a few tons of supplies a few maintenance personnel, the aircraft and the pilot. To deploy an F-18A takes a carrier attack group. An F-35B can deploy at a speed of 300+ knots while a carrier group can deploy at 25 knots. Basically they get there faster with a much smaller tail.

A Predator drone can carry 2 Hellfire missiles for a total payload of 200lbs. Combat range of a F-18 Super Hornet is 390 nm. An F-35B can carry 15,000 lbs. It would take 75 drones to carry the payload of one F-35B . Drones are good for dealing with single or concentrated targets. They are almost useless against dispersed infantry in cover. They are great for surveillance but useless for attack. Again, sniper vs machine gun.

Re:Cancel the F35 - that'd be hillarious

[SplashMyBandit]

Ah, you'll still need your carriers. Given the rate at which the UK constructing Sharia courts and importing people who believe in (over UK law) then you'll need the carriers for sure to wage jihad against unbelievers who haven't yet converted (although France may beat you to it given current demographic trends). I jest - or do I ? :)

Not Pentagon's fault that the government is stupid

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Currently American taxpayers fund the defense of Europe and Asia. This is like you providing for, and paying for, electrical service to your neighbor. Were we a wee bit smarter, we would withdraw all military personnel and equipment worldwide and only return on condition that the country in question pay *us* with a reasonable profit thrown in, of course.

So you say you want a revolution?

[dbIII]

Notice how things are going in Syria? I suspect a revolution in the US would be as bad or worse for civilians caught up in it.

Problems with cuts

[PuckSR]

The current sequester will indeed cause a lot of problems, and this is rather useless at point that out. The current sequestration requires ALL PROGRAMS to cut 15%. So, the F-35 will have a 15% cut and the guys who maintain the A10s will have a 15% cut, the janitor will have a 15% cut, and the security will have a 15% cut. This is the problem with the sequestration. This was actually on purpose, to make sure that congress actually took care of everything. The thought was that no one would be stupid enough to let this go through, and at the very least the would modify it so that they could cut a weapons research program before cutting the budget for the furnace at the office.

Even if we get past the stupidity of the sequestration, we are still left with the fact that many of the cuts that managers want to make don't align with what cuts congressmen want to make. A great example is that the military knows that operating so many bases is a huge drain on their resources, and it would be much easier to operate a few large bases like Ft. Hood. Unfortunately, a base closure will raise the ire of the local congressman because it hurts the local economy so he fights to keep it. Government organizations have two customers: the public and the congress. They have to make sure that they operate in a way that pleases the public, but then they also have to operate in a way that pleases as many congressmen as possible.

Finally, the bulk of the programs which are being discussed are not the bulk of our spending. DoD and discretionary spending(FAA, Parks, Dept. of etc) only account for about 35% of total spending. Considering that our deficit is about 35%, the only way that this would even balance out is if we zeroed ALL of it. This would mean that every single department of the federal government ceased to exist. No more Departments.(Except for perhaps the treasury). If we did this, we would have no more deficit. Even the most idealistic conservative would agree that this is insane. We can't get rid of the patent office, for example. This entire debate is somewhat pointless.

The only options that would actually be feasible would be some combination of the following: Reducing benefits for social programs, some tweaking of regular government spending, and higher taxes. This isn't an opinion. The only optional part of that is that you might be able to avoid any government tweaks with much higher taxes, but that seems unlikely to pass. This is why the entire thing is so silly. Everyone in Washington knows the score, they just don't want to be the one who has to be the messenger to their constituents.

The truly sad thing about all of this is that Social Security is probably going to get hurt in the process. It is sad because social security has its own paycheck tax(OASDI), and the program has a massive surplus credit. It is just that Washington raided Social Security to pay for other programs, and now that Social Security cannot pay its own way(despite having generated trillions in surplus), people are suggesting that it is a bankrupt program. I don't mention this to make any argument about the program itself, but rather to use it as an example of how much of the argument is manipulated to take advantage of the short memories and general naivety of the American voter. Only in Washington would someone agree to a plan that paid dividends for 40 years but eventually would require interest and go along with it happily until the first bill showed up.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[sumdumass]

So you are saying, the number of engineers and teachers available shall define how much is spent on military engineering and schools?

Actually, I was saying that not spending the money in one area does not automagically mean those engineers can be useful or productive in another. But now that you mention it, Yes, the amount of engineers trained should dictate where the money is spent when it comes to defense. And this is not out of line with your entire " efforts shall be made to get more" statement.

You see, a certain amount of military engineers need to be employed at all times in order to continue to advance military technology else we will find ourselves like Russia was at the start of WWII or even worse yet, like Iran and Iraq are today. It's not that they do not have engineers to solve problems for them, it's specifically that they do not have the advanced military engineering capabilities and instead rely on purchasing technology and stockpiling it as other countries develop and implement, then determine it ok to sell to them.

I don't really care what your opinion on that is, we need those engineers and the military tech to advance otherwise we will end up in world wars when crazy idiots do it.

When has Obama ever

[rsilvergun]

talked about "eviscerating" defense? Or are you talking about all those horses and bayonets?

Again, Narrative. But nice try there.

Re:When has Obama ever

[SplashMyBandit]

Well, cutting the F-35 programme so close to the end makes little sense once you realise that they have a service life of 40 years and have to be ready for use for that time. In modern war there is no "just in time" re-armament as could be used in World War II. In modern war it takes a long time to build the effective machines and even longer to train effective crews (about 5 years to become good on modern aircraft). Cutting the F-35 program is *eviscerating* and is following a *political narrative*. It has nothing to do with defense requirements in the next 40 years, or much to do with tackling the structural problems of the US deficit (where unfunded entitlements make a decade of F-35 program [mostly already paid for] look like chump change).

I know, I'm not a US citizen and have seen and recognize political assaults on defense spending - with aircraft being one of the first things cut. In the case of my country, we had lease to buy of F-16s for around $1million/year/aircraft - which was a total steal - but an incoming leftist government got rid of them thinking we wouldn't need them. We would do peacekeeping instead. Well, it turned out that a few years later we went to do UN peacekeeping but as our soldiers landed the aircraft of a bad regime lurked nearby. It would have been a disaster for us had not friendly aircraft from a neighbour come to give us air cover and scare the bandits away. By selling our capabilities we lost a measure of independence in foreign policy. That was a bad thing.

The whole "we ain't gonna need F-35s" aspect is crazy. With a 40 year service life it is like someone in 1901 saying we won't need , yet by 1941 the US had been forced into two massive wars and definitely needed . Can you conclusively say that the US (and allies) will have no need for F-35s until 2053 ? The argument against them is clearly bullshit. Now you may quibble over the numbers of F-35s needed, but it is cheaper to produce them while the production line is open and things like resource and labour costs are lower now that they will be in the future. The US economy can afford the aircraft and it makes long-term strategic sense to get them. What the US cannot afford are the liabilities of huge social programmes it has and inefficiencies in parts of the government (although, as other posters have pointed out, some parts of the government are efficient - despite a recent study showing that government workers and benefits are often higher than the private sector).

Re:When has Obama ever

[Magius_AR]

When has Obama ever talked about "eviscerating" defense?

How about the 10% cuts defense has taken in the past 4 years? Or the additional 10% cut it will take when the sequester occurs? And the fact he wants additional cuts on top of that? (as his proposed alternative to a sequester is a defense cut...)

20% isn't an evisceration to you? I guess we can just shave 20% off of Medicare and Social Security then.

I prefer...

[rsilvergun]

This one.

Re:I prefer...

[SplashMyBandit]

Thanks for the video. It was a promotion video for a group criticizing political donations made by the wealthy: perhaps in your view these are 'impure' compared to the political donations made by the huge numbers of average joes, I guess? are you trying to assert that non-wealthy political campaign contributors donate for altruistic reasons and the wealthy only donate for selfish reasons?

With regard to campaign contributions the most democratic way to handle it, IMHO, is to place a cap on the amount that may be raised by one party (leveling the playing fields between parties without having to spend a billion each) and to make a register of contributions that records *who* contributed and by *how much*. Legally mandated transparency is the solution to corruption issues. The rich should not be discriminated against because of their wealth, they should be able to donate just as any other citizen can - but let's make it public knowledge who donated what to whom.

US political campaign contributions are a bit off-topic though. Changing how donations work will not trim the deficit, which is not caused by "corporate welfare" but by the unfunded liabilities of excessive *social programmes*. Some social programmes are necessary but a Government cannot promise what its tax revenue (as in, contributions from workers and business) cannot afford.

Now that I've taken the time to watch your video please take the time to watch the video I posted. If you are interested in getting some real insight then besides Bill Whittle you could search for Thomas Sowell on YouTube - he's one of the economic thinkers of our time (no wonder, he studied under Milton Friedman who was a genius - Friedman's slapping down of a young Michael Moore is excellent in exposing just how misguided much of Michael Moore's populist but inaccurate thinking is).

Up to $32 Trillion actually

[rsilvergun]

also the debt tends to be compounded by a) interest and b) the fact that the super rich use the debt as an excuse to lobby for smaller gov't, which in turn means lower taxes.

That's sort of the problem. The Narrative is simple: Big gov't has us all Tax to The Max (tm) so we need to cut spending NOW! Simple right? But the trouble is the actual effect is complex. Re-read the first sentence I wrote. It's a complex multi-step trick build on simple rhetoric that appeals to common sense. The trouble is the world isn't simple, and common sense doesn't work.

To put it another way I'll borrow a fellow /.er's sig: For every complex problem there is a simple solution that is also wrong.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[sulimma]

Yes, the amount of engineers trained should dictate where the money is spent when it comes to defensse

What if the wrong amount of engineers has been trained? Don't you think it would be wiser to analyze how many engineers are needed to achieve the goals that you are describing and than find projects for them? (You know, this is the demand thing I was talking about) Instead of blindly assuming that the amount of engineers currently available is the right number due to some hidden magic?

Re:The sequester is across the board, not selectiv

[murpup]

This is not entirely true. I work for a small federal regulatory agency. We are not cutting our budget equally across the board on all funding areas. For example, our agency brass has decided that nobody will be furloughed or lose their job and that all the cuts will be taken from contracting funds. And of that, the majority will come from research projects. So an 8% cut to our agency budget is translating to a 40% budget cut to research projects and some other contracts. The agency senior management then asked each low level Division to identify the projects that would be cut in order to add up to the 40%. Each Branch Chief/Division Director was given discretion as to whether they wanted to take a little bit from all of his/her projects, or to simply prioritize each project and then start cutting whole programs from the bottom up until the 40% was reached.

There are plenty of pork programs

[cozytom]

I was offered a chance to work on the "Crusader" program back in about 2001. A mobile howitzer. The idea is sound, but the program was pork all the way. One company doing the software in Minneapolis, another building the chassis in Oklahoma City, some assembly in Denver, basically parts of it were being worked on in all 50 states. So the lobbyest gets to tell the local congress critter that they will be loosing jobs in their state if they cut the program. Well the "Crusader" got cut, but go look at the "Non-Line-of-Site-Cannon", same technology, same do part in every state.

Find your favorite program that is happening in the defense industry. It probably falls in the same pattern, one or more contractor partners have work being done in several states they don't really need that much stuff being done but, it helps keep the lobbyests have a good argument to not cut the program.

The cost of a "program" like this is the lifetime. That is crew training, maintenance, fuel, and every dollar spent on the airplane over its lifetime. Buy several thousand, and guess what, it adds up to a trillion. How many cars are planned to last 30 years, but hey the F-35 variants will be around in 2043, just like the Harrier that was build in the 1970's is still around. It is a different mind set. Sure each new program will cost more than the last one, partially due to pork, but mostly due to simple inflation. The Harrier is really that old, and the F-35 makes a solid replacement for it. The F-16 is almost that old, and there needs to be something else in line for it's replacement (although one could argue, that the F-16 probably has 20 years left in it). The navy really doesn't need it, but it is probably cheaper to operate than an F-18. (It won't replace the A-10, no way, it is too fast, and
I wouldn't fly that so close to the ground. The A-10 has more armor, and two engines, and a bigger gun, it just make sense to have a medium straight winged airplane that is built that tough helping the ground forces).

We have so many people in the pentagon pushing paper these days, it is quite inefficient. Get rid of some of the extra reporting that congress has mandated and we could afford the F-35 and the next aircraft system. (I know people will argue that there will be no more manned aircraft, but I'd believe it when I see it.) I know there is a risk someone is going to take advantage of the guvnment, heck congress has been doing it for years, I guess they hate competition (or not being able to share in the wealth).

There is always a role for a manned aircraft, not just transport (do you really want 300 people riding in a UAV? I know about autopilots, don't give me that). Fighter escorts and close air support are still going to be done with people in the aircraft.

Velly good, but you make one mistake

[MickLinux]

I, for one, wish to welcome our new Anonymous overlords...

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[sumdumass]

If you want a first class military capable of defending against all threats known and possibly unknown, you will continually need to create a demand for the engineers and they will continually engineer worth while technology and products with a few failures in between. Some of this tech will be transferred to the private sector and you will benefit from it as well.

We do not live in world where a civilian can just up and grab a gun and defend the country as the only thing necessary any more. We do not live in a world where if we fall behind in our tech and one of our allies decides to become an enemy, we can defend ourselves after the fact because of how advanced and efficient the military forces are. For every measure we create to create strength, an enemy can defeat given enough time. For every defense an enemy can defeat, we lose the advantage and make it more likely military will need to be used.

Defense tech is not like a company where you can compare expenses verses profit. We gave up fighting for spoils of war a long time ago. When an ally or enemy advances enough to make our technology inferior, we either replace it with superior tech or become ineffective and unable to defend ourselves. Of course there is a measure of how many engineers are needed and how many contractors are needed, that is dictated by the abilities of technology. Right now, as we speak, the taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan can use foreign tech to find where our drones and air craft are so they can avoid detection and capture/confrontation on our terms. Missiles and drone strikes are still killing innocent civilians on those areas. It is not like we will need less tech, less abilities, or less capabilities to hit the bad guys while not injuring the innocents.

wtf

[fazey]

Current national debt is 16 Trillion. But yet, there is damn near 2 Trillion on each of these 3 Jets. Sounds like we really just don't give a shit about national debt.

You mean like the tanks the Army didn't want?

[inhuman_4]

I remember reading this article a while back showing how congress was forcing the military to buy equipment they didn't even want.

Lets get real here. The military could cut a ton of funds and it would have zero effect on readiness. If the military actually had control of some of these decisions instead of stupid politicians. There is a ton of equipment that the military would skip buying, or buy cheaper versions if the government would stop running the DoD as a corporate welfare program. There are lots of bases that can and should be closed and consolidated, but can't for political reasons.

The problem is not that the military is going to lose funding, it that the pork that congress pushes through the DoD in the name of national defence will go under the chopping block.

Re:Eisenhower - M.I.C. Not so much.

[dryeo]

MY guys are going to have the best weapons I can make for them because I do not want my sons and daughters having to fight off kings, popes, and power mongers the way that we had to.

What is the power that kings etc. abuse most? What did our founders, who had experience in such matters, write the constitution for?

To prevent power from concentrating into the hands of one person. To make it hard for the government to start a war without a lot of public buy in. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily spy on you. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily imprison you. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily execute you. The structure of the US government and the Bill of Rights were designed to avoid the insanity of European monarchies.

You should read some history. The American Constitution was written to make a more powerful central government while attempting to not make it too powerful. America had just gone through almost a decade of independence under the Articles of Confederation and most everyone agreed that the Articles created a useless federal government that couldn't do anything without unanimous support of the States.
That is why they gave the President way more power then the King of Great Britain had. At the time of the Revolution the King had little more power then the current Queen has. A hundred years before the American Constitution was written England had re-realized that Kings having too much power was bad,

Re:Eisenhower - M.I.C. Not so much.

[dryeo]

Sorry for reposting, Slashdot ate part of my post.

MY guys are going to have the best weapons I can make for them because I do not want my sons and daughters having to fight off kings, popes, and power mongers the way that we had to.

What is the power that kings etc. abuse most? What did our founders, who had experience in such matters, write the constitution for?

To prevent power from concentrating into the hands of one person. To make it hard for the government to start a war without a lot of public buy in. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily spy on you. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily imprison you. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily execute you. The structure of the US government and the Bill of Rights were designed to avoid the insanity of European monarchies.

You should read some history. The American Constitution was written to make a more powerful central government while attempting to not make it too powerful. America had just gone through almost a decade of independence under the Articles of Confederation and most everyone agreed that the Articles created a useless federal government that couldn't do anything without unanimous support of the States.
That is why they gave the President way more power then the King of Great Britain had. At the time of the Revolution the King had little more power then the current Queen has. A hundred years before the American Constitution was written England had re-realized that Kings having too much power was bad, had a (second) revolution where they kicked the King out (replacing him with a King and Queen who knew who held the power), made Parliament Supreme and wrote a Bill of Rights and most Americans at the time of the Revolution still considered themselves Englishmen and revolted as their rights as Englishmen were being infringed.
Some of those rights were ancient, the Magna Carta included Habeas Corpus and the whole point of Parliament was that the King could only tax his subjects with their approval. Being proficient with Arms was an ancient responsibility that every freeman had to meet and was written into the Bill of Rights of 1689 as a right (for self defence). Most of the other rights spelled out in the American Bill of Rights were considered ancient Rights which was why the American Englishman was so pissed at them being ignored. Parliament being Supreme had its own problems such as being to over rule the Bill of Rights with a simple law which was another driving force to write a Constitution that was Supreme.
The thing is that the American Constitution was not perfect and most of the authours considered it to be temporary with the idea that after a couple of decades a better replacement would be written based on the lessons learned.
This never happened and now we have the condition where the American President has way too much power. Congress is corrupted by the need to raise lots of money for election purposes and the Senate never did really work out.
The very first proposed Amendment tried to deal with the House of Representatives having to much power concentrated in to too few Representatives. Perhaps ratifying it would improve things, the second proposed one did finally get ratified so it is a possibility. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proposed_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment
It would be good if something can be done about your list below, ideally in a non-partisan manner but is probably going to take a major Constitutional Amendment, perhaps called for by the States.

Look at where we are now:

-- Libya: President can wage war even in the face of congressional disapproval. Result: unlimited power to make war, like a king.

-- FISA, AT&T immunity: Any American c

Re:Plenty to cut...

[ChrisMaple]

The F-series has run its course.

Are you saying there is no future whatsoever for human-piloted fighter aircraft? "F" is just part of a name.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[ChrisMaple]

As long as you ignore the difference between aggression and defense, pacifism makes perfect sense.

"Why are you coddling that murderer? Have you no concern for his victim?"
"His victim is dead; I can't do anything for him. Surely I can reform this murderer, who has been so badly treated by society."

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[sulimma]

You argument is completely unrelated to mine.
Observe that my argument of analysing demand could well result in the observation that more engineers are needed.
It could also come to the results that there are diminishing returns and that having less engineers will result in almost the same advantage for significantly less money. A demand analysis will show which is the case.

But it seems that you are arguing that more military tech is always better, not matter what.
I suggest that you at once stop producing food and train all these people to be engineers and mechanics to make sure that the taliban don't have better drones than you do.

Re:Vague and Misleading

[jklovanc]

An F-35B takes a lot more than "a few tons" of supplies and "a few" maintenance personnel.

Compared to the thousands of personnel in a carrier strike group it would be a few tons

Why don't we just take over Bordj Mokhtar Airport in Algeria (or some other random airfield out there) and fly A-10's, F-16s, FA-18s, AH-64, AH-1s, SuperTucanos or any of a number of cheaper alternatives.

If by "take over" you mean "negotiate access to". sure but if they refuse it is not a good idea to "take over" sovereign territory in another country.

Here is the paradox of the F-35B. - It is a stealthy, expensive, STOVL 5th gen fighter. If you need a stealthy 5th gen fighter, you don't want to be based close to that opponent. If you can be based near an opponent with reasonable security, you don't need a stealthy 5th gen fighter.

What if this year you need an aircraft based close to the enemy and next year you need a stealth aircraft to penetrate heavy AA? Do you have two aircraft types that will do each role or do you have one that can do both? The F-35B takes the second approach. One aircraft that can do both roles is less expensive than one aircraft for each role.

Re:Vague and Misleading

[Electricity Likes Me]

An F-35B takes a lot more than "a few tons" of supplies and "a few" maintenance personnel.

Compared to the thousands of personnel in a carrier strike group it would be a few tons

Why don't we just take over Bordj Mokhtar Airport in Algeria (or some other random airfield out there) and fly A-10's, F-16s, FA-18s, AH-64, AH-1s, SuperTucanos or any of a number of cheaper alternatives.

If by "take over" you mean "negotiate access to". sure but if they refuse it is not a good idea to "take over" sovereign territory in another country.

Well that is why the US has a large diplomatic corp. There's a long history of governments suddenly discovering they see a lot of benefits to cooperation: case in point, Pakistan.

Here is the paradox of the F-35B. - It is a stealthy, expensive, STOVL 5th gen fighter. If you need a stealthy 5th gen fighter, you don't want to be based close to that opponent. If you can be based near an opponent with reasonable security, you don't need a stealthy 5th gen fighter.

What if this year you need an aircraft based close to the enemy and next year you need a stealth aircraft to penetrate heavy AA? Do you have two aircraft types that will do each role or do you have one that can do both? The F-35B takes the second approach. One aircraft that can do both roles is less expensive than one aircraft for each role.

This observation hardly seems borne out of empirical evidence, seeing as how the one aircraft to do both roles presently is the single most expensive program in US military procurement - and again - hasn't actually demonstrated that it can fulfill any of those roles.

That's setting aside the fact that the VTOL variant of the craft is not the same one you'd be using for a long-range mission through heavy AA, since the VTOL engine means it can carry less fuel and payload. So, really it's one aircraft on the basis that the shared components might work out cheaper. Which again, is an unproven hypothesis.

Re:Stay the hell away from the F35

[sumdumass]

Actually, I had no clue what your actual argument was because you jump it around so much. We started this off with you saying something about cutting military engineers to build schools and roads and stuff and I pointed out that those engineers aren't suited for those rolls. You then put something up suggesting that I was saying we should keep military engineers for the sake of keeping them around and I said absolutely we should because without them at the ready, we risk becoming a second rate military reliant upon foreign nations for our technology or a defeated military incapable of effecting our goals.

There are analysis done all the time. The problem you seem to not understand is that without enough engineers for a worst case scenario (which is what military force is traditionally used for- especially in defense), we will lose most all worst case scenarios.

But it seems that you are arguing that more military tech is always better, not matter what.

Military tech is a necessity else you end up with things like the draft and millions of unwilling citizens being slaughtered when the fighting is pressed on them. Do you realize that more people die every year from ill intent (read murder, homicide, a chargeable offense under the law) in the state of California then soldiers we lost from Afghanistan and Iraq from 2002-2008. And every soldier we lost joined the military on their own accords. This does not happen without the tech to back it up. Right now, the Taliban uses foreign tech to effectively monitor the positions of our drones in order to evade detection. They glue shards of glass and other things to their transport vehicles in order to defeat our million dollar flying cameras when they go into villages and kill the people for helping us or gather stashed supplies to continue their fights. It is a never ending battle to ensure your tech is capable of doing the jobs that is relied on. It is a never ending battle to ensure our missiles, our soldiers, engage the enemy and not innocents in the area. Without this tech, it get bloody and a lot more people get dead who shouldn't have.

I suggest that you at once stop producing food and train all these people to be engineers and mechanics to make sure that the taliban don't have better drones than you do.

Don't be silly.

Congradulation, you're an anarchist

[rsilvergun]

or a despot. If you discard the idea that society should make things better you get Anarchy. Welcome to the world of Ayn Rand and Libertarian Paradise (google it). OTOH, If you keep that idea then you're just choosing an arbitrary place to draw the line. In that case welcome to the world of despotism. Say hi to Rand Paul for me.

In the late 50's

[vac65]

In the 50's some strategists declared that aerial dogfights are obsolete, until Korea and Vietnam. Also declared that the gun on airplanes has no use... Bad choice.

Re:Vague and Misleading

[jklovanc]

The "single most expensive program in US military procurement" is a red herring. If you add the program costs for the F-18C/D, F-18 Super Hornet, A-10, AV-8 Harrier, F-22, and F-117 together and add inflation you will come up with a very large number. The F-35 is designed to cover all those roles.

since the VTOL engine means it can carry less fuel and payload

Less is a relative term. Here are the specifications for the F-35A; Combat radius >590 n.mi Max Payload 13,000-15,000+ lbs. Specifications for the F-35b; Combat radius >450 n.mi Max Payload 11,000-15,000+ lbs. By percentage that would be 76% range and almost 100% payload. Yes the specifications for the F-35B are a less bit less but still very respectable.

no free lunch for anyone, including retirees

[JBaustian]

People are entitled to Medicare and Social Security, but they did not pay for the full future value of those programs. So if they get what they paid for, they'd receive much reduced benefits.

You apparently believe that retirees have an unlimited claim on the earnings of younger generations -- which they cannot have.

Re:no free lunch for anyone, including retirees

[nbauman]

People are entitled to the deal they contracted for. They paid FICA tax, with the assurance that they would get Medicare and Social Security on certain terms, and now they're entitled to Medicare and Social Security on those terms.

If I contracted a mortgage with a bank on certain terms, I'd have to pay them back on those terms. Maybe I paid in a lot more than they said I would pay. Maybe the house is worth a lot less than they said it would be. I still have to pay back the original terms.

John Galt's speech, as much of it as I could get through, said that he believed in the sanctity of contracts. That doesn't sound like the way conservatives treat social programs.

Re:no free lunch for anyone, including retirees

[JBaustian]

When people pay the FICA tax, that money goes to pay benefits for people who are already retired. If people think they are buying something for their own retirement, then they are mistaken.

Additionally, the Supreme Court has ruled that there is no contract -- Congress can change the rules whenever it wishes. For instance, if the Federal Reserve keeps printing money then there will be significant inflation; but Congress is not obligated to keep the automatic cost-of-living increase in SS benefits.

Re:no free lunch for anyone, including retirees

[Magius_AR]

People are entitled to the deal they contracted for. They paid FICA tax, with the assurance that they would get Medicare and Social Security on certain terms, and now they're entitled to Medicare and Social Security on those terms.

No, in fact there is no contract. This is one of the many reasons people should have control of their own money rather the government. Because the government can change the rules at any minute. When I bought my house, I certainly factored the housing deduction into it -- does that also mean the government can't ever change the rules regarding the deduction?

Re:no free lunch for anyone, including retirees

[nbauman]

This is what happens when you let anti-government conservatives run the government.

They say, "Contract? What contract?" and they take handfulls out of your Social Security and Medicare.

Re:no free lunch for anyone, including retirees

[Magius_AR]

This is what happens when you let anti-government conservatives run the government. They say, "Contract? What contract?" and they take handfulls out of your Social Security and Medicare.

You think conservatives are the only ones that have raided the Social Security/Medicare funds? HA. Think again. What do you think Obama was doing when he was cutting payroll taxes?

You (or anyone else) would be outright daft to give the government full control of their life. Why should your entire retirement fund be a promise from the government? (rather than an actual asset in an account owned by you). You honestly think that's better for the populace? To have to trust that the government will keep their money safe and hope no one changes the rules on them?

Congratulations, you're a thief and a parasite

[rubycodez]

your words are rotten at the foundation, it is NOT making things better to take wealth from those who work, by threat of force, and redistribute that wealth to those able bodied people who do not work.

If you wonder where government waste is...

[ToddInSF]

Look at the contractors and businesses that DO business WITH it ! Is it any secret that THE biggest waste of tax dollars IS the military and it's corrupt business associations ? Surprise, surprise, surprise ! ! !

I'm concerned.

[Stubbyfingers]

I live near DC. I REALLY don't want to see weapon's designers with "Will make WMD for food" signs.

How long before a contractor Defense Intelligence Analyst realizes that someone else will pay him for his skills--perhaps someone in places where they don't like US very much.

Some people are a tad dangerous to "lay-off".