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Pentagon To "Temporarily" Fire 800,000 If No Cliff Deal; Chaos To Ensue
Just in case the stakes in the final episode of the 2012 season of the "Fiscal Cliff" soap opera, and a 30 second advertising block was not selling for a record amount, here comes the Pentagon with a warning that it may fire almost 1 million civillians their services will be required but unpaid if there is no Cliff deal. From the WSJ: "Mandatory federal spending cuts designed to be prohibitively drastic will become a reality on Wednesday if negotiators remain unable to reach an agreement to avert the reductions. Illustrating the gravity of the cuts, the Pentagon plans to notify 800,000 civilian employees that they could be forced to take several weeks of unpaid leave in 2013 if a deal isn't struck, and other agencies are likely to follow suit. The cuts, which members of both parties have referred to as a "meat ax," are the product of a hastily designed 2011 law that required $110 billion in annual spending reductions over nine years to reduce the deficit. Their severity, representing close to 10% of annually appropriated spending, was intended to force Democrats and Republicans to come together on a broader package of deficit-reduction measures, which would replace the cuts. That effort failed, raising the prospect of the cuts' taking place."
It gets worse now that it turns out absolutely nobody is prepared for precisely the contingency America is now facing:
Complicating matters, the White House hasn't informed federal agencies or contractors of precisely how the cuts might be administered, leading to confusion about the potential impact. Several federal agencies referred questions about the cuts to the White House's Office of Management and Budget. OMB didn't respond to questions.
"The biggest challenge is just the uncertainty," said Steven Glass, chief financial officer at the Cleveland Clinic, a medical center and health-care system that expects to see a $22 million cutback in its Medicare payments in 2013 if the government doesn't reverse the cuts. "It's really hard to plan when you're literally looking a few days out and you don't know what Washington is going to do."
Oh well, luckily according to the latest bout of optimism spewing forth from Politico, things are fine and a deal, at least in the Senate, is imminent.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Vice President Joe Biden engaged in furious overnight negotiations to avert the fiscal cliff and made major progress toward a year-end tax deal, giving sudden hope to high-stakes talks that had been on the brink of collapse, according to sources familiar with the discussion.
McConnell and Biden, who served in the Senate together for 23 years, only started talking Sunday, after negotiations between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and McConnell sputtered.
Sources close to the talks said a deal is now more likely to come together but cautioned that obstacles remain, including how Speaker John Boehner and House Republican leaders react to any tentative agreement.
“The Leader and the VP continued their discussion late into the evening and will continue to work toward a solution. More info as it becomes available,” a McConnell spokesman said.
Then again, this wouldn't be the first time Politico has gotten absolutely everything wrong about the near and far-term outcome of the cliff. So sit back, grab the popcorn, and watch as algos proceed to respond with furious stupidity to every single unsourced, unvalidated, and untrue rumor and various other flashing red headlines.
As for those millions of people who, like the guy in the basement in Office Space, and like the New Normal Schrodinger cat, are employed and unemployed at the same time but certainly unpaid, better luck next time.
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Boo fucking hoo.
Warmongering scum like Graham, McCain and Obama will soil their panties over this but eh, fuck em.
And the defense department should be renamed the War department because that's what it is.
http://rt.com/usa/news/us-deploying-troops-order-749/
US deploying troops to 35 African countries
The United States Army will be deploying troops to nearly three-dozen African nations in the coming year.
Obama, biggest warmonger since Hitler... and not even Hitler invaded 35+ countries at once.
A couple of muslim astronauts could totally pick up the slack.
Good. Let's hope the drone operators are among the first to go.
Wouldn't need them if we could just kill off all the Hollywood actors....just sayin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxRlpRcorEU
almost 9am. ramp those futures, knock down gold and the vix....business as usual. do yourselves a favor and go do something fun today because this is pure theatre. if u are hoping for a real market u will again be disappointed.
and, right on time, cue, futures rally
btw, I'm afraid to ask what that spot is on the dude's tie
"I'm not economically viable"
~~~
William Foster
In this situation, nobody is.
Regardless of position.
Finally....the only way to 'reign' in our .gov has some wings......ready to go off the cliff....
and the milk subsidy....ready for it to go to 'market price'....
Let's start the 'cuts' by stiffing the Afghans,.... er,... too late:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/30/afghanistan-us-military-rent-land-dispute
I will be hurt by the fiscal cliff but I want it. I want austerity now cause later it is gonna REALLY hurt.
maybe they can fire everyone and rehire them at 1/3 just like the private sector
Country'll grow.
Exactly!
The race to the bottom for the west has only just begun!
How are the corporations supposed to get the wages in the west down to being competitive with China without a few major downward shifts?
Bust the unions! Mass layoffs! Hire back at pennies on the dollar!
USA! USA! USA!
In this fucked up - upside down world, reducing government is deemed bad.
Fire them all!
Probably drivel, wears it the whole movie http://youtu.be/qfSAcVq6s9c
Remain calm........all is well.
Excellent video. If you haven't seen it, you need to.
I did - LOL - it took me one full minute to understand the message +1
Beware! Anti vius poped up as the Youtube page is under attack. Looks like the government is still working...
Might just be the actors union.
Film Actors Guild?
Why do those guys get the fancy name.....don't they work for a living?
Yet another act in the Cliff comedy called 'The Blackmail'.
And shot by drones as they leave the building....
Let the scare tactics begin...
+1
When the SHTF and the checks stop - the thugs with the .40 hollow points will not be getting paid.
The Tea Party Repubs need to squeeze the muslim at every turn and cut everything. Cut the White Hut budget 95%. No av gas for Air Farce One.
Freddie, I am one of your biggest fans.
However, the DHS thugs (TSA) will be taken care of. They ordered ammo for a reason.
From someone who has been there, the rank-and-file do not like the DHS.
I worked with a lot of USCG. Here is what virtually everyone told me:
1. They will not attack their own citizens.
2. They will not give up their personal arms.
3. They wish the CG was never placed under the DHS.
4. They will defend their country from foreign aggressors or illegal orders, that is, obey their Oath against enemies foreign and domestic.
By the way, a majority supported Ron Paul.
on 1. My friends in the military have said the same to me.
As I'm sure all the german soldiers said to their jewish breathren in Germany in 1938.
Of course once you brand jews/blacks/gays/asians/muslims as non-citizens, then yes, our soldiers will not be opening fire on 'citizens'.
Plus they'll just be 'following orders'.
Do you really think its a stretch that US soldiers who are ok with using a 25mm cannon on AP reporters, or gunning down an entire village or drone bombing children will have any qualms about shooting US citizens? We already kill US citizens overseas with impunity. They will not ask soldiers from california to police california they will send them to boston or new york, then those people are not the soldier's 'family'.
All these people who have fought hard to suckle off the rotten teat of government,
groping for handout/bribe after handout/bribe from the corporate citizen are integral
to the problem at hand.
Problems, cannot be solvers of problems, by definition.
Too bad the tax code won't roll back to one page, or something like it, too. Then all the CPAs, ESQ's and other bend-you-over-with-an-I'm-here-to-help-you-smile tax compliance bridge trolls would be forced to create something people actually want -- with those $billions wasted on tax compliance and strategy being redirected to something that actually improves our standard of living vs. thier parastically hosting on it.
Most people do not like being 'controlled'....and if they would simply realize that the complex tax code is just another form of .gov control then they would possibly stand against it.
The military industrial complex needs new customers.
pls don't look in our direction - we had our share and in some places here we still find unexploded bombs, are rebuilding historic buildings, etc.
we love you long time
No doubt they are courting Japan as we speak.
It is a governmental industrial complex. Don't limit yourself by just focusing on one aspect. The ENTIRE gov need to be reduced. The welfare side of the house is simply following the success of big military. Both are so big now, with thousands of private companies built around it.
But as long as the getting is good....get your free scooter....you whale.
It is the governmental FINANCIAL complex - we have exported the majority of our industry to cheap labor countries years ago after Ike's famous meme - get this right people.,
Fuck those Mercenaries.
Short Xe or Blackwater or whatever the shell company is called today.
Isn't 3 weeks of leave just called a 'vacation'?
if it's paid
Unemployment insurance FTW
Contractors don't have to be paid it. Employees do. The changed those rules two summers ago remember.
Contractors are self employeed therefore must pay, but it'll be a cold day in hell when a nickle of the money is paid out. Yet it has to be paid. Therefore it's not insurance of any kind. It's a business tax that can't be deducted.
If you have to take it in Kabul?
Well what's wrong with bringing war to Africa???? There will be a shit ton more little black babies for the braindead Hollywood crowd to adopt while their own American babies wallow in poverty. I mean talk about a true patriot..it's walking salad eaters like Sandra Bullock who are the real American heroes.....
interesting thought, but Russia and China might complain, they are buying up the place
Yes, correct. Why US is sending in troops, trying to disrupt China's foothold there ...just like in Lybia.
Sooner or later China's gonna say "enough" and have their Russian buddies lob a couple ICBMS over here. NYC and DC hopefully. We can dream at least.
The United States Army will be deploying troops to nearly three-dozen African nations in the coming year.
Cant have coup' if the real soldiers are on American soil,thousands of miles from nowhere and no way to get home............what plan.
Yep, gotta get active military out of the US before they do their martial law gun grab.
No, it is the Offense Department as the number of wars waged on US soil are practically ZERO.
Ha ha ha ha ha government stops spending money and 800,000 Defense Department employees to lose their jobs ha ha ha ha ha.
But wait.... maybe there's a down side?
Bring it on! It's now or sometime in the future. Let's get it over with! TD, may I change my userid to "Meat Ax"?
ETA: Is CNBS's John Horowitz down voting everyone in this thread?
Meanwhile 800 military bases in 128 countries remain open for occupation......can't have the empire sleeping
THe fall of the Romans... Guns or Butter!
The fall of the Romans... Swords or Olive Oil!
There, fixed it!
The Fall of the Romans: expand so fast you need to hire mercs to do it and then try to screw them over on compensation!
Oh,...shit.
that's actually the Fall of the Roman Republic you are describing - which culminated in Augustus founding the Empire out of the rubble of the Roman Civil Wars
I mean it's *****g over. Just like Rome with a corrupt Senate of scumbags.
The Tea Party Repubs in the House should just ***k with our dear Mullah and the Dems 24x7. Cut everything by 15% then cut more. You want the debt ceiling raise - F you pay me with more cuts. Just like GoodFellas. Want money for the White Hut or CIA - F you pay me with 10% more cuts on EVERYTHING.
Cut the White Hut budget 95%. No av gas for Air Farce One. Cut all govt employee salaries 15%. Cut cut and cut more. These people would be heroes.
Sadly the game is about over. The good news is it will all fall apart when the money stops.
yeah... but I bet 'all US patriots" must be crying their eyes out right now reading this news...
imagine... 800k people fired doing stuff nobody knows or cares about... unless you're the one who's family is killed by them...
it's just cruel... and so close to the hollidays...
WELL!!
Buckle up cheerio!
Time to look and find a real job!
I generally consider myself a US patriot, and I'm OK with this... I think you're confusing the term US patriot with Neo-Con.
perhaps the confusion started with the Patriot Act - a label that gave me at that time the impression it was done to react to a lack of patriotism
Excellent point. From now on I will refer to it as the "Neo-Con Act". That should piss off a few of my shallow thinking "patriot" friends.
The best term would be "The Enabling Act."
See, Hitler, history of.
or, O-Phone, Executive Orders, histroy of.
History does not repeat, but it rhymes.
Reichstag fire = inside job
Enabling Act of 1933 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933)
WWII
You say that, but there are no "real" jobs for most of those people, that's why we have massive government employment in the first place. They are papering over the problem of post-industrial society using .gov jobs at all levels (ever ask yourself why 5-6 cops show up at a traffic stop when *anything* goes a little bit away from the script? It's because we have too many cops). How many cops showed up at Newtown, btw? 5,000? They are also impenetrably bad at their stated job of serving and protecting.
But back to my main point, which is that we have several layers of "employment" in the US--we have people who are simply unemployable and they sit home and collect checks for doing nothing besides not rioting. If they can't handle that, we have plenty of prisons to throw them into. Then we have all the government employees who shuffle things around and don't accomplish much. Then there is the core of useful government employees--people who are actually needed to run cities, states, and the nation as a going concern. The problem is that it's hard to tell where exactly the line is between those whose work output matters and those whose does not. After that, you have the many layers of the private sector--from minimum wage all the way up to whatever, and then at the very top, we come back around to the super-highly paid whose purpose and function is arguably just as redundant and useless as those useless government workers, they have just managed to position themselves better.
I think you've got it backwards. It isn't that government jobs exist because there are no jobs. Instead the government has taken jobs from actual productive activity and redirected it to bogus work. Just one example, by creating a byzantine tax code, hundreds of thousands of people that otherwise would be contributing to the economy by providing needed products and services, have been redirected into coping for government regulation. Tax accountants, tax preparers, IRS agents, lawyers, lobbyists, ...
The statist insistence on guaranteeing a perfect outcome for everyone will never work. Life's tough.
I got tons of leaves to rake.
So do my neighbors
True, there are unemployable people. I would also add that there are many people who are very intelligent, capable and willing to work who are currently unemployed. Many employers don't hire these folks because they prefer mindless drones over someone who is intelligent and may prove to be a threat to themselves one day. Another reason for their unemployment is that there are no jobs worth having for most of them outside of some form of government subsidized DoD or Homeland Security BS. I say good for those folks won't take those jobs.
It's funny how folks here laugh at the bogus unemployment numbers every month knowing they are higher than stated, but then they bitch about the unemployed as though they are lazy "takers". Seems to be a problem with seeing the full picture in those cases.
I live around a crap pile of these folks and it's kind of scary thinking about them being idle and pissed because they aren't getting their cut from the sheople. Many I have encountered are former military folks who definitely have an air of entitlement about their current "private sector" job. (Their wives are often worse.) Very few similar private sector jobs offer the pay and benefits of these government contractor jobs these days.
My guess is they will somehow figure out a way to give their enforcers back pay for the time off as they don't want to piss off that sector of their operation. As indicated numerous times above, the vast majority of these folks have no skills whatsoever that are valuable outside the war machine. Let these folks go a couple months or more without pay and things may get very interesting quickly. I doubt it'll happen, but we will see.
Wal-Mart is hiring greeters thsi time of year...
Why not just delay the checks to Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, or Northrup? Making a political statement with these "layoffs". We all know "defense" spending is just another form of corporate welfare. Interesting where some of you "contractors" that think you're defending freedom fall on the priority line, isn't it??
Easy reason - we are still a nation of laws with one of the most inviolate being contracts. Even if your agreement is with unsavory characters, that does not preclude you from carrying out the contractual obligations. The real rule of tyranny is law by public opinion (vs rule of law) and the retroactive revocation of contracts, ie venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, etc.
Review how the Chrysler bondholders were treated. Nation of laws my ass.
While Obama is taking over another part of the US government and violates the constitution :
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/30/Obama-Seizing-Sole-Au...
Obama Seizing Sole Authority for US Defense
In an attempt to seize total control over national security and bypass congress, a frightening new step by the Obama Administration is coming into play. As noted in Friday’s Wall Street Journal in an op-ed by John Bolton and John Woo, a State Department advisory group that is run by former Secretary of Defense William Perry is advising that the U.S. and Russia both reduce nuclear weapons without a treaty, as a treaty would require ratification by Congress. This would allow Obama and his executive branch to unilaterally cut our nuclear weaponry and ignore the treaty clause of the Constitution.
John Bolton, a neocon hyper-imperialist, and John Woo, the lawyer who came up with the legal justification for the Bush Administration to use torture. A couple of great guys! New START was already ratified by the Senate. Woo and Bolton are full of shit.
Say what you will about Bolton; however, he supports the Second 100%.
Even if Obama was going to try to reduce nuclear stockpiles. I can't see that as a bad thing, and I have no love for the man. They are weapons designed for mass CIVILIAN casualties. Bury them all, or burn them all up in thorium reactors. The problems ARE the governments. I certainly don't trust a government to be responsible with nukes which on the other hand mass murders children with drone strikes. It's just logic.
So you're saying that Obama has no power to reduce America's nuclear arsenal? As "Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces"? I don't think that's right, and it's certainly not "seizing sole authority for US defense". And it certainly is not a violation of the treaty clause for the President to NOT enter into a treaty. And some op-ed in WSJ is not US law or policy. There is no legal scholarship to be had on breitbart.
No. He has no power to "reduce America's nuclear arsenal," nor does he have the power to increase it, either. There is no justification for this usurping of the US constitution for the political benefit of the one in the white house, PERIOD.
Didn't Obama just increase the pay of members of Congress, among others, by executive order even though the 27th Amendment prohibits that? ("No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.")
He doesn't give a shit what the Constitution says. To quote his predecessor: "It's just a goddam piece of paper."
The very definition of partisan hack (Breitbart is to neocons as Maddow is to liberals).
And it certainly is not a violation of the treaty clause for the President to NOT enter into a treaty. And some op-ed in WSJ is not US law or policy.
Enlighten me...........
No Treaty shall be passed without a two thirds majority of the Senate and the POYUS signature.
Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, includes the Treaty Clause, which empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries, which become treaties between the United States and other countries after the advice and consent of a supermajority of the United States Senate.
wait a moment. this is again - correct me if I'm wrong, pls - one of those political jijutsu moves made to demonize the very word "treaty"
yes, if the prez and Congress sign/approve a treaty to scrap missiles, this has the same power as a law
but the prez cannot "bypass" Congress in any case - if Congress does not want. Your use of the concept of "treaty clause" is very suspect in my eyes
from a different angle: is there any law that states how many nuclear weapons the armed forces have to have? because the US Constitution for sure does not state anything about that
Just this verbage about not having a standing army for more than two years... *cough*
eh? you mean "To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years"?
this is more about Congress not having the right to fund armies beyond it's legislature period - i.e. a form of spending-as-you-go
Which has been nearly completely circumvented with the federal budgeting process
Would not hold water, he can do this crap all he wants, and it MUST be ratified, and voted on.
All else is a figment of his imagination as King.
The Security and Surveillance State definitely needs to lose 800,000 drones. This is a good thing.
Yippee. I feel safer already.
Get rid of DHS while we're at it. There's another $40b for you.
Could we maybe strip the gold plating and diamonds from those unflyable F35s? Or maybe ask the various branches if they could live with, say, 900 of them rather than 2700?
You don't seem to understand that the 40 billion is only current operating costs. Doesn't include second ledger project costs that have gone over another cliff by themselves.
Remember this is government...not any of our houses, they get to piss away whatever they want even at the cost of their own employees. Their own employees will starve from lack of food and food prices before it stops. Something as simple as clerks not pushing paper work can end a government department. Departemental mandates are only as good as the filed paper work.
In anycase, the bunch of them better start training all their officers and managers in their extra duties. If TPTB they were wearing ten hats today? Just wait. The outcome is the paycheck shrinks in power and the work load gets bigger. That was going to happen anyways...the lay-off notices are just foreplay.
DHS is funded separately from DoD.
DHS is not being cut.
The people who might defend you from the DHS are being cut.
The defense contractors always get paid. It's the soldiers and veterans that always get fucked. Though doing said fucking has a negative historical precident. But these people don't read books... especially without pictures.
800,000 is a good beginning. How long will we pretend that the defense budget is not the primary cause of our financial ruin?
Over $1 trillion a year for the military, $85 billion a year for spy agencies and $50 a year for homeland insecurity.
Without the $3 trillion spending on the Iraq war, there would be no fiscal cliff.
Wow, didnt know the debt was only 3 trillion.... you must be a dumocrat...
Too stupid to know you are stupid. Without the trillions added to US debt due to unnecessary wars, there would be no debt crisis.
Wow, I didn't know Repugnicant's from Florida were that ignorant about Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II.
Enjoy those Medicare Part D drugs, they're obviously working wonders for your mental faculties!
Your boy obama is doing wonders..... Let me guess you both are on "disability" or in some other fashion eating at the government trough........
And how would that been any different under Romney?
who here has ever said they give a damn about a side in this puppet show?? oh yeah, you have
Your numbers have no relation to reality. It's like after WWII when the Soviets claimed they lost 10 then 15 then 20 million in the war. The cost of the wars keep rising as if folks are having a bidding war.
As for the fiscal cliff, look at history. In 1951 (my birth year), defense was 50%, social spending 16%. 2012, defense is 16%, social spending 60-70% depending on who is counting. Defense may be bloated but it is not the cause of the fiscal cliff.
Much of defense spending is social spending. It is a very inefficient and wasteful jobs program.
None are so deluded as those who believe what their government tells them:
While everyone knows that the defense budget is large -- even in the numbers that the public sees as the formally admitted figures by the Department of Defense -- the truth is that when one scratches beneath the bureaucratic veneer, national security spending is much larger, nearly double the amount US citizens are told.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/02/the-real-defense-bud...
Seems you are also ignorant of the FACT, fully 50% of DOE, NASA even a smaller fraction of DOT budget is hidden DOD!
They forgot to add Stalin's work to the totals in the early returns.
What's funny with the $1 trillion a year war budget, it's that in PPP terms, compared to China, it's only twice the size... and China is spending publicly $106 billion... their real budget is more around $160 billion. But the way China calculates it's military budget, there's LOTS of stuff that are not counted... procurement of hardware : not counted. Research and development : not counted.
Anyways, let Russia, Japan and India deal with China... they will have to, way before NATO has anything to do.
<del>
Just Observing said:
"Over $1 trillion a year for the military, $85 billion a year for spy agencies and $50 a year for homeland insecurity."
But, but we were attacked by radical Muslims who hate us for our freedoms. Who will protect us from the ever-present enemy???
Entitlement spending is #1.
aerojet: Correction brother, Military, Wars, DHS Police State spending is and has been #1.
Permanently FIRE the whole friggin' government - all THREE branches.
We have a winner!!!
Ah yes, the 3 branches of government as described by one of our more illustrious Harvard Law Graduate senators...
Three Branches of Government
They have 800,000 civilian employees in the Pentagon, what could they possibly be all doing?
Buying houses in DC
Well, it's either them or the ChiComs. Someone's gotta support that bubble.
Yep, there goes the DC housing market!
One can only hope!
Watching you @@.
Contractors. Doing contracting. Basically just sucking up ObamaBucks.
Dont worry folks.
Since his job here is more than done, I can officially anounce we are sending you David Camoron to help you lot solve your problems.
And by the way, keep the cunt, we dont want him back, the inbred, peodophile protecting, blue blood, zionistic bastard.
See, every cloud has a Silver lining. ;-)
"the White House hasn't informed federal agencies or contractors of precisely how the cuts might be administered"
That means there will be a mickey mouse deal announced at 3:50pm est to lift stocks 200 points and destroy gains in gold/silver
Good Riddance !
If we are lucky the .gov will kill itself no shots fired! But then who feeds the EBT er? We are so fucked
Careful, another missle may hit the pentagon.
Now THAT would make for a happy new year...
I wonder if martial law will also be threatened to 'protect' America from those 800k disgruntled workers?
Or to protect those "workers" from the rest of us...
The gov got their pay rises and are coming to work late, so they don't care
They have to meet at Starbucks and 'do brunch'......this is all SO EXCITING to them, you know!
Good, fire all the fire fighters, police men, teachers and hire them all in the private sector. That will stimulate the economy. It's never the unnecessary workers at the top is it?
Nothing will happen. When the first instance of real pain makes its appearance, the cowards in Washington will start up the printing presses and delay the reckoning. Buying opportunity on the way, or, as they say around here, BTFD.
Another example of how these clowns have no practical sense of how to run anything. Any business faced with a potential loss of income or change in business environment would have plans in place with their employees, suppliers, customers etc.
These idiots (and their well paid staffs) wait till the last minute, have no plans in place leading to choas.
They cant even run a lemonade stand. (maybe that is why they want to outlaw them)
BUT - they are confident they can run the health care system and the economy is general.
+1000 you are correct sir!!!!!
We should use this opportunity to reduce the federal government to a mutual defense authority for the states- send congress home - cut their pay 50% - set term limits - eliminate the dept.s of education, energy,interior, homeland security
Instead our representatives give themselves a raise and get work at the crack of 10 am with some serious shit pending.
Cue Dolly Parton: "Workin'...four to five!"
What you fail to perceive is that almost every industry in the US is somehow tied to government spending. Nothing is free of the beast.
no chance of that without a repeal of the 17th Amendment - no. bloody. chance.
this is a question - and result - of constitutional design
Boehner should get the house to pass that and say to the turd in Chief "your move." That would be negotiation instead of Boehner constantly asking "is my head far enough up your ass Barry?"
You seem to be under the impression that chaos isn't their plan.
fire them perminantly as a good start
save the little darlings jobs
But don't cancel the mega orders for the red staplers!
From a family member, who is involved with such things down in the Hampton Roads/Norfolk area, they all knew what was coming if we ent over the cliff. They figure it would affect about 200,000 people in that area alone. They knew something was up when the administration gave contractors a pass on notifying employees of potential layoffs just before the elections. (Remember that one?? Well, those notices were never sent- not before the election, not after.)
Story may not have it's facts straight but it isn't total BS. Lots of people will be laid off. You can question the value of those employees, but not their existence.
thanks for the reminder and great point! sneeky fucks.
I should add that many of them would understand a "permanent downsizing". They wouldn't like it, but at least they would understand it. What's killing them is the uncertainty of "do I have a job here or what??". Same uncertainty that is killing so many other things in our economy.
FYI- the Pentagon is a lot bigger than those people who work directly for it. A LOT bigger. Outsourcing to civilian contractors throws the net much wider than you may think. And the contracting process is not like what you would find in the private sector. It's byzantine and doesn't respond will to flipping the main breaker on-and-off in rapid succession.
Temporary interrruptions can break stuff in those contracts permanently. Maybe you like seeing the mass death of inefficient government contracts (I know I do), but all that makes them do is go back through the ENTIRE contracting process over again when money is restored just to arrive at the same point they were at before the breaker was dropped a year earlier. Your $800 hammer now costs $950.
Very true! I didn't think about it. They do have cancellation fees in the RFPs.
Precisely. The gargantuan nature of some of these Pentagon contracts is astounding when you consider the radius of effect contained therein. An award goes to a prime like Lockheed, but inside the contract there is language mandating the use of x number of subcontractors and 'small business concerns'. When these type of arrangements are 'terminated for convenience', there are HEFTY fees paid out. As with all things gubment, the whole process is a giant black hole of money-suckage. Then you add in brilliant ideas like 'Just in Time inventory' philosophy (as if DoD could run like a Toyota assembly line), and presto....$950 hammers and $500 simple nuts, bolts, and washers.
Despite this, I don't see an easy fix that doesn't involve major pain for all those people now dependent (in one form or another) on government spending. The whole thing is messed up on SO MANY levels it truly boggles the mind.
These morons put freezes on firm fixed price contracts! You heard it right, they want to pause to figure out what they are doing, so they put out a general stop work on a firm fixed price maintenance contract that has pepole coming to work, getting paid, and told NOT to do anything.
Lay them off
Fuckers can come rake my leaves for $15 an hour.
Nuremberg trials made it clear that "just following orders" was no defense against criminal charges.
Fuckers are part of that peace prize winner's war machine. They can rot in hell