Back in the 70s, the biographer of Huey Long, an LSU professor originally from Illinois named T. Harry Williams, had his Long bio (pun intended) picked as a main selection by the Book of the Month Club, which basically assured best seller status and serious wealth. He used the money to pay off massive debts, buy a big-ass Caddy, and to buy an old plantation that he refurbished and moved into. He renamed said plantation "Lincoln Land.
Hmmm. I wonder where we would be if I got my way back in 1999/2000. I was so pissed at both Bush and Gore for the way they were falling all over themselves to spend the surplus. Bush on tax cuts that most people weren't even looking for and Gore on a whole bunch of things. So, what if we left taxes where they were and paid down debt with any surpluses? In addition, President M. would have never gone into Iraq and would have levied a "war tax" that would have been limited to our actions in Afghanistan and would expire when we leave. You know, shared sacrifice and all of that. Funny that you don't hear republicans using that phrase anymore, do you? Sure was popular when they were going after public employees, but not so much when we talk about tax loopholes.
In much much better shape. But we deserve what we got. The Republicans fell over themselves giving back money to the rich, the Dems fell over themselves giving out goodies to their constituents, and nobody had any heart whatsoever for saying, "Don't eat all the autumn harvest at the time; put away a big chunk for the winter." Not that I blame the politicians, the voters would have pitched a fit that they couldn't afford a 3rd television if the government had lived within its means and not fed them sugar. Shared sacrifice for Republicans has always meant "make the Dem voters pay, and then cry 'class warfare' when we are discovered."
Perhaps someone could design a military that did not require almost 1,000 generals/admirals, 12,000 colonels, 29,000 LtCols, 45,000 majors & 72,000 captains? That would have more than 28% of the Army & Marines in combat roles? http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos249.htm
There's really no big headlines for today, so I'll just continue the countdown: 19 days until an American default.
This certainly occurred. How widespread a tactic it was is a matter of some debate, but it was a tactic. Unfortunately, much of the South, to this day, is not too far off from this characterization.
Oh good, you're back. Could you answer my question posed in another thread about what you meant when you said that the FFs "didn't trust the central government enough to give it the authority to tax its own citizenry." ? Thanks.
Professor Neil Buchanan (who was an economist before becoming a law professor) has had some good posts on one of my favorite legal blogs regarding the debt ceiling crisis. Here's another... http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2011/07/some-further-thoughts-about-debt-limit.html
Yet the link doesn't really break down the issues relating to combat/non-combat roles and the requirements for each position.
28% sounds right to me. For every guy they need to be out there killing people, they need roughly 2 others to keep him in bullets, patch him up when the bad guys try to kill him back, fix his equipment, and process his paychecks. Not to mention the folks responsible for training him in the first place. 28% is a sound ratio; the military is closer to a NASCAR race team than a Rambo movie. The true waste is in procurement and R&D. edit: I didn't notice this on the first go-round, but the link you gave says we've only got 38 generals in the army and similar differences between your numbers and theirs going all the way down. Even if you multiply by each branch of service, something's not right.
Got it, thanks. I know that 250,000 officers sounds like a lot, but using the numbers given, it's only 16% of the military, or about 1 in 6. Without O-1 and O-2's, it's less than 1 in 7. Is that so far out of line?
Each service is different. The Marines and Army have a ratio of around 1 officer for every 10 enlisted members; Air Force is about half that, if memory serves.
For me, I would suspect the AF and Navy need more officers than the other branches for all the extra engineer types they require. Back to my question, though, do you think is that an acceptable ratio or can we save a lot of money and still be effective by raising that a bit? I just don't see a significant amount of fat there to cut.
So the Republicans gave up a meaty real deficit reduction deal in order to get a much less substantive stuff - a little political cover, the chance to officially 'disapprove' and avoid any additional revenue. It's almost as if they're more into on raw ideology instead of sound fiscal policy. It's crazy cause they keep telling me how important the deficit is, then they refuse to actually reduce it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...1/07/18/gIQAKoRZLI_blog.html?wprss=ezra-klein
Well you know the answer here. They don't think the deficit means boo, but they're terrified of being scalped by the Tea Party. Posturing, posturing, and more posturing.
Almost? The Republicans' fiscal policy is literally "more tax cuts. If not tax cuts, whatever makes the Democrats look bad." Sound fiscal policy - lol.
Tom Coburn unveils $9 trillion plan http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/59300.html An obvious non-starter with the expected savage cuts and age increases to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security that will be unlikely to appeal to Democrats, while Republicans will be turned off by the $1 trillion in defense cuts and $1 in increased revenue. Of course the gigantic number of cuts compared to revenue is likely to turn off Democrats as well. 15 days until a US default.
This is a lie. Or rather, it's only true if Barack Obama wants it to be. The U.S. will have revenue coming in. It could, if it wanted to, meet its obligations. If we had responsible people running our government, they would have begun preparing for this months, if not years, ago.