Why Do Republicans Hate the Troops?

[lil mike]

I wonder why the Republicans hate the troops so much?

Naturally, that makes no sense.  Please elaborate.

[Howey]

Naturally, that makes no sense.  Please elaborate.

Muddling perfectly Defense Appropriation bills with crap like this? Ending disability benefits to millions of vets? Cutting funds available for veteran disability appeals? Preventing troops in war zones access to body armour and vehicles? Voting against Stop Loss payments? Voting against GI bill benefits for children of killed vets? Tripled TriCare costs? Cutting funding for psychiatric care for returning vets? Cutting food stamps and housing for wifes of veterans serving overseas? Denying foreclosure help for those same military families? The list goes on....but this is the kicker:

Making it harder for troops overseas, and their spouses stateside, to vote.

[Howey]

Just how much did Bush hate the troops?

This week, after The Post pressed for information contained in the Dover mortuary’s electronic database, the Air Force produced a tally based on those records. It showed that 976 fragments from 274 military personnel were cremated, incinerated and taken to the landfill between 2004 and 2008.
 
An additional group of 1,762 unidentified remains were collected from the battlefield and disposed of in the same manner, the Air Force said. Those fragments could not undergo DNA testing because they had been badly burned or damaged in explosions. The total number of incinerated fragments dumped in the landfill exceeded 2,700.

[lil mike]

Muddling perfectly Defense Appropriation bills with crap like this? Ending disability benefits to millions of vets? Cutting funds available for veteran disability appeals? Preventing troops in war zones access to body armour and vehicles? Voting against Stop Loss payments? Voting against GI bill benefits for children of killed vets? Tripled TriCare costs? Cutting funding for psychiatric care for returning vets? Cutting food stamps and housing for wifes of veterans serving overseas? Denying foreclosure help for those same military families? The list goes on....but this is the kicker:

Making it harder for troops overseas, and their spouses stateside, to vote.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/15/eveningnews/main20092652.shtml

Radical overhaul of military retirement eyed

The proposal comes from an influential panel of military advisors called the Defense Business Board. Their plan, laid out in a 24-page presentation "Modernizing the Military Retirement System," would eliminate the familiar system under which anyone who serves 20 years is eligible for retirement at half their salary. Instead, they'd get a 401k-style plan with government contributions.

They'd have to wait until normal retirement age. It would save $250 billion dollars over 20 years.

[Howey]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/15/eveningnews/main20092652.shtml

Radical overhaul of military retirement eyed

The proposal comes from an influential panel of military advisors called the Defense Business Board. Their plan, laid out in a 24-page presentation "Modernizing the Military Retirement System," would eliminate the familiar system under which anyone who serves 20 years is eligible for retirement at half their salary. Instead, they'd get a 401k-style plan with government contributions.

They'd have to wait until normal retirement age. It would save $250 billion dollars over 20 years.

Gawd...that's old news! Although the military retirement system has gone through changes over the years, something as radical as this would never pass.

Influential? Hah! Here's the plan, which I read a few weeks ago:


http://dbb.defense.gov/pdf/DBB_Military_Retirement_Final_Presentationpdf.pdf

wtf is with your comrades and their incessant need to privatize everything and give us 401k's, etc? Ask the majority of Americans how that's worked out, huh?

Is it because Wall Street owns the Republican Party? Now your comrades are adding our military members to the hated group of police, first responders and teachers? Sheesh! Fuck you!

Get back with me when it passes, ok?

[Howey]

This is interesting...

Slide 6: Military compensation for retirement is 10 times greater than the civilian sector. – It is a folly to compare military service to a job in the private sector that doesn’t have to worry about PT every morning, losing basic rights, forced to move continuously, combat deployments, etc.  It would be more useful to compare US military retirement to that of other country’s that conduct the equivalent amount of work the US military does.  If these foreign militaries have a 401K plan than what does their retention numbers look like?  This would be real analysis instead of what is presented in this slideshow.

 Slide 7: Military retirement has little recruitment or retention benefits for the first 10 years of service.  I would like to see their data to support this.  I agree that he 20 year retirement doesn’t have much recruiting value as the GI Bill and bonuses for enlisting.  However, between the 6-10 year mark is when personnel make the decision to stay in for a full 20 years.  To claim that personnel with that amount of time in service do not take into heavy consideration the 20 year retirement is completely dishonest.  When retaining people with that much time in service that was one of my biggest selling points to get people to stay in, especially for their wives that saw a light at the end of the tunnel that made all the time away from home and constant moving seem worth it.

 Slide 7: Current system does not compensate those in high risk situations or jobs. – Many of the MOS’s that deploy a lot and see combat are often given retention bonuses to stay in the Army compared to MOS’s that don’t deploy and see as much combat.  Additionally people who deploy more receive hostile fire and family separation pay.  So those areas are already getting more pay than a personnel clerk that never deploys.

 Slide 9: The cost of retirement is going to undermine future warfighting capabilities. – This statement is code for we need the retirement money savings to keep the acquisition programs that would otherwise be cancelled going.  Also notice how causing a retention problem by getting rid of the 20 year retirement is not considered as part of undermining future warfighting capabilities.

 Slide 13: Making military retirement equivalent to the highest end private sector retirement plan. – Well if they want to make military retirement equivalent to the civilian sector how about we make the work equivalent as well?  Should servicemembers be allowed to work 9-5 and paid overtime for any time over that?  I could go on and on, but I’m sure everyone gets the point.

 Slide 14: On this slide you can see that they are leaving the option of going after the retirement benefits of current servicemembers.  I wonder if a lawsuit could be initiated if this happens?

Helllllooooooooooooooooo, Draft!

[Howey]

Is it because Wall Street owns the Republican Party? Now your comrades are adding our military members to the hated group of police, first responders and teachers? Sheesh! Fuck you!

Get back with me when it passes, ok?

Hah! I hit this nail on the head!

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/defense-business-board-pentagon-wall-street?page=1

Inside the Corporate Plan to Occupy the Pentagon

These ideas may sound like a bold new approach in an urgent moment—but in fact, the push for pension cuts and other corporate "reforms" at the Pentagon originates from an obscure advisory panel that has existed for a decade: the Defense Business Board. Its 21 members know little about military affairs, but they are rich in Wall Street experience, including with some of the biggest companies implicated in the 2008 financial meltdown. They are investment bank CEOs and CFOs, outsourcing experts, and layoff specialists who promote a corporate agenda of "behavior change" and "business solutions" in the military bureaucracy. The board proposes not only to slash and privatize military pensions, but also to have the Pentagon invest in oil futures, boost pay for its executives and political appointees, and make it easier for them to fire rank-and-file employees while scaling back those workers' collective-bargaining rights.




Indeed, "this sounds like what's being done now around the country with the public unions," affirms Charles Tiefer, a University of Baltimore law professor and defense contracting watchdog who's testified to Congress about the board's recommendations. The board was launched in 2001 by then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who famously wanted to downsize the military and corporatize its management system.

The essential reason it exists, Tiefer says, is so that "a pro-business attitude—especially on personnel issues—remains intact" inside the Pentagon.
 
While the board's ideas have enjoyed support on Capitol Hill over the years, it has made only a modest impact on policy. Now, the board's proposals—which they say represent "a culture of savings"—are gaining currency as politicians look to cut federal spending any way they can.
 
When the federal debt ceiling crisis was escalating in July, a report (PDF) from the board argued that paying soldiers and their families for 60 years after 20 years of service was "unsustainable," adding, "The 'Military Retirement' sacred cow is increasingly unaffordable." The board called for scrapping the system in favor of a mandatory 401(k)-style account whose savings could "be invested in higher yielding equities and bonds."
 
Over the years, the board has recommended a series of "cost-saving" measures that would channel large amounts of money to private-sector businesses.

The board's proposal would set aside 16.5 percent of a troop's base salary in a savings account to be invested in the markets. Assuming a modest annual return—hardly a safe assumption these days—the plan would still provide retired soldiers with far less money than what they are entitled to now. Critics say the proposal would also make it harder for the military to retain its most senior, most knowledgeable members. As Joe Davis, public affairs director for Veterans of Foreign Wars, put it in August: "Where will our future military leaders come from if people leave the service early because they're losing retirement money?"
 
It's a plan that even Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), chairman of the House subcommittee on military personnel (who's known for shouting "You lie!" at President Obama during his 2009 health care address to Congress), has called "radical…a very controversial proposal with immediate negative consequences for morale and combat readiness."
 
The head of the Defense Business Board's pensions task force, Richard Spencer, served as a Marine aviator in the 1970s. But more recently, he was the CFO of a web-based commodities and derivatives exchange that is under investigation in Europe for its trading in credit default swaps just before financial markets imploded in 2008. Prior to that job, Spencer worked "on Wall Street for 15 years where his responsibilities centered on investment banking services focusing on strategic advisory services and capital markets underwriting," according to his current biography on the Defense Business Board's website.
 
A cached version of Spencer's bio identifies the firms where he previously served: Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, and Merrill Lynch, three of the biggest Wall Street banks involved in the housing and credit collapse. Joining him in the board's vote to gut military pensions were the managing director of Accenture's defense industry portfolio; the chairman of HR consultant Convergys, "a leading outsourcing company"; the CEO of the Bank of Virginia; several high-profile investment bankers; and two Sears executives.
 
Over the years, the board has recommended a series of "cost-saving" measures that would channel large amounts of money to private-sector businesses. Its members have consistently advocated for the Pentagon to engage in fuel hedging—investing in oil futures to lock in a supposedly low cost for their long-term fuel needs. The board's fuel-hedging push was led by member Denis Bovin, who was a top investment banker for Bear Stearns until the firm went bust in late 2008. After consulting with energy giants BP and Shell, among others, Bovin's team concluded that the Department of Defense should invest based on rising oil prices, even while he conceded that "as a whole, DoD is not highly exposed to fuel price volatility." Such deals, he noted, would incur investment transaction costs of "$10 to $250 million per year." Even though no federal agency currently engages in fuel hedging, the board tasked Bovin with another study on oil futures last January.

Jeez...I shoulda just bolded the entire thing. The compelling question now is:

Why does lilMike hate the troops??

[lil mike]

Why does lilMike hate the troops??

This reminded me of the days when you gleefully reported the casualty reports on the muche, because you felt it advanced your political position.

Thanks for the reminder of how really contemptible you are.

[Howey]

This reminded me of the days when you gleefully reported the casualty reports on the muche, because you felt it advanced your political position.

Gleefully? Nah...

Why would I gleefully report murder?

Thanks for the reminder of how really contemptible you are.

Thanks!

[Howey]

Now...

Are you going to answer the question?

Why does lilMike hate the troops??

[Howey]

Seems like congressional republicans really hate the female troops!

Despite pervasive sexual assault in the U.S. military, women who become pregnant as a result of rape while serving in the military are denied abortion coverage under their health plans -- a policy that will remain in place, the Senate decided on Wednesday.

Under current policy, pregnant women in the military are only able to use their insurance plans to pay for abortions if their lives are at risk. Civilians who work for the government or rely on Medicaid, by contrast, can use their insurance to pay for abortions in cases of rape and incest as well. Even rape survivors in federal prisons receive government-funded abortion coverage.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) introduced an amendment to the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act that would lift the ban on military insurance coverage for abortions in cases of rape and incest, providing military women with reproductive health coverage that is equal in scope to that of civilians. But Senate leadership decided against allowing a vote on the amendment Wednesday, ruling it non-germane. A spokesman for Shaheen said he did not know why the Parliamentarian had made that decision.

In related news, Sen. Bubba T. Baggersky was quoted as saying "Those bitches were asking for it!"

[uselesslegs]

Remember when ole Newt said Women shouldn't serve, because they were more prone to infections???

Guess he meant the rape induced baby virus.

[Howey]

Remember when ole Newt said Women shouldn't serve, because they were more prone to infections???

Guess he meant the rape induced baby virus.

As more and more people are reminded of the "ole Newt", his poll numbers will start falling precipitiously.

As far as getting women's votes, the only choice he has is to open up a big account at Tiffany's and start sending them diamonds.

Oh.

Wait.

Nevahmind!

[FooFa]

When has recent history showed that caring about troops is anything other than a temporary talking point? Like the veteran's hospital a few years ago, the problem was that it happened(s) at all, not that it was brought out in the open and had bold proclamations made about "this never happening again". A certain German who is still a special state envoy has a memorable quote about troops, yet he is still used by president after president.

Does everything have to be a disagreement along R/D lines?

[Howey]

When has recent history showed that caring about troops is anything other than a temporary talking point?

That is a flawed statement.

Like the veteran's hospital a few years ago, the problem was that it happened(s) at all, not that it was brought out in the open and had bold proclamations made about "this never happening again".

The situation at Walter Reed was an isolated incident, brought on by an overworked staff run by bureaucrats. Sometimes blame is easy to place on bureaucrats hired not to do a job, but as a return favor. In this case that blame lies solely on their shoulders and of those who appointed them.

Does everything have to be a disagreement along R/D lines?

See above. It was Bush appointees who created this mess.

A certain German who is still a special state envoy has a memorable quote about troops, yet he is still used by president after president.

Don't go there.