Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[KaelGotDwarves]

Or the New York Times Opinion piece by the brilliant Krugman, "Obama Surrenders".

Basically we staved off imminent disaster for future disaster. I really hope Obama has some sort of plan...

This part of the article was telling -

Did the president have any alternative this time around? Yes.

First of all, he could and should have demanded an increase in the debt ceiling back in December. When asked why he didn’t, he replied that he was sure that Republicans would act responsibly. Great call.

[RedKing]

I think his plan is to run as a Republican in 2012.

[Aqizzar]

Interesting numbers as people get a better look at the deal.  Of the cuts bundled into the package that's supposed to pass today, about $350billion will come out of the military "immediately", with another $600billion over the next decade.  Apparently, the thinking was that if the Republican position was going to be "no new revenue or the world gets it", then their share of the deal would have to be cuts from the one big area of spending they as a party platform have thrown themselves in front of trains for since the 1970s.  Admittedly, most of the math backing up that trillion dollars of military reduction is based on the assumption that Obama will continue to roll down the deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan (maybe faster, lack of detail there), and that whoever's President in the next ten years won't launch any more wars, but that's still a lot of non-critical spending being hacked out.

I have to wonder about the strategic thinking at play there.  Sure, military spending has always been a "Republican" issue which others would love to take an axe to; and with the military sucking up about 20% of the budget any given year, with it's dollar-cost having about tripled in the last 15 years, it has to take some serious cuts eventually.  It is "discretionary spending" after all, and more loaded with earmarks and pet spending than the rest of the budget combined (why hello there spare jet engine factory in John Boehner's back yard that even the Pentagon wants to close).

But then, one has to remember that of all private sector jobs created by government spending, it's none more than military procurement spending; funny little aspect of Keynsian economics working that Republicans never want to talk about, and Democrats never want to be seen as relying on.  Though inefficient in dollar cost altogether, with the way military suppliers go out of their way to spread industrial elements to as many insecure Congressional districts as possible it's actually one of the biggest and most successful job programs the government has going.  Don't let the fact that the Republican Congress has singed onto this (hopefully) fool you, they are going to call the complete package "Obama's terrorist coddling, debt spending, retreat cuts" and no one is going to say otherwise.

[Nadaka]

Well damn. I don't like the idea of slashing the military budget off hand, what it needs most is our troops to come home and a reform in procurement. Except for the really big names like Northop Grumman, Raytheon, etc, the corporate margins are not all that high and a lot of it goes into middle class incomes for soldiers, engineers, scientists, programmers and IT.

[RedKing]

Exactly. Not cutting the defense budget was probably one of the Republican "wants" that the Dems would have been happy to concede. And I can deal much, much easier with $1 of my money going to pay for the military (which has a useful function and serves the whole country) versus paying to offset some the tax burden of some corporate wanker (who most likely has no real function and serves himself).

EDIT: So thanks, man. Now I'm even more depressed at how this is ending up. Is it weird that I secretly hope that the Tea Party folks in the House will form a perverse alliance with the Dems and defeat this in the House? I feel like I'd almost rather default at this point. At least everybody gets burnt that way.

[ed boy]

Has this actually been voted on yet?

[Nadaka]

Has this actually been voted on yet?

it should have been at 1pm eastern, so about an hour ago. But I don't have the best access to up to the minute news while I am at work.

[RedKing]

Not yet. They're debating it in both chambers as we speak type. Haven't seen anything yet as to when the actual vote is scheduled for.

EDIT: Actually, uh...no, the House is piddling about with some bill to amend the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (H. Res 384). WTF??
Looks like the Senate is still debating. Ah, and as this is a Senate bill (S.627), it has to pass there before going to the House.

This thing has until midnight tomorrow night to hit the President's desk to avoid default. They're still going to be awfully close, especially if some group of people gets the bright idea to try and filibuster. Oh man, the Byzantine things that could potentially be going on.....

DOUBLE EDIT: Okay, I pulled up a stream of CSPAN's Senate coverage, and they're debating it but the ticker at the bottom says "Waiting on House to Vote on Raising Debt Ceiling". So I pulled up a stream of the House, and sure as shit, they're finishing up voting on a tiny-ass technical correction to a nine year old bill. And it's almost a straight party vote, with the Rs thus winning the day. Wait...no, they're not voting on the amendment, they're voting on whether to vote on the amendment. Now that that passed, they're actually voting on the amendment. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

[Lord Shonus]

(why hello there spare jet engine factory in John Boehner's back yard that even the Pentagon wants to close).

This is actually extremely common. The Navy had to hold on to obsolete moneypit battlewagons for decades because Congress insisted on keeping them for fire-support in the event of an assault on hostile shores.

[Bauglir]

The worst part? If this passes I'll have to change my resumé back.

[RedKing]

(why hello there spare jet engine factory in John Boehner's back yard that even the Pentagon wants to close).

This is actually extremely common. The Navy had to hold on to obsolete moneypit battlewagons for decades because Congress insisted on keeping them for fire-support in the event of an assault on hostile shores.

Granted, an Iowa-class BB can muster some serious damn fire support. But point is taken. A better example might have been the F-22 Raptor, wherein the President *and* the Secretary of Defense said, "No. We don't WANT any more of these. They're a boondoggle. Don't make us order more," and this was when the Dems held both chambers, and it STILL nearly got extended, because Raptor parts are apparently made in like 100+ different House districts (and was quite possibly designed that way by Lockheed Martin for that very reason).

[Phmcw]

Guys, cut the fucking military spending and put that money into education and NASA.
Too big an army will bleed you dry for one, and your army is so high tech you apparently can't afford to use it. Without these war you probably wouldn't have to raise the debt ceiling, and you're fighting fucking paramilitary.

[Lord Shonus]

That and the F-23 (which is massively overbudget but cannot be cancelled due to international orders) are also good examples, but those, at least, are top-of-the-line, massively deadly aircraft who's only flaw is that they're far too good for the job, when new models of F-15 and F-16 fighters would do the job that needs doing far more cheaply. The battleships best illustrated my point because they not only cost ten times what a moderns ship would to run, but require a massive industry to support them that has no other use because of their WWII-era design.

[mainiac]

I don't think the battleships are the best example.  While they aren't cheap to keep around, they are holdovers from WWII and have been mothballed in the past.  A much better example is the 5 Nimitz class aircraft carriers we've built since the cold war ended, on top of the five we already had.  Anyone know why we even need two of those things, let alone ten?

[Duuvian]

Hah, no wonder it costs what, 2 million/billion? for a Raptor if you have to make the parts in twenty different states and ship them somewhere for assembly. That's outrageous and I have to wonder why no one figured that out when it was important. The bosses must have had their employees by the choke collar at the news agencies then.