Lets go over the cliff

General Discussion
561

Keith
You will only find break downs like this (second link) from those with an agenda…that I agree. But IMO, the lack of break down and transparency is also from those with an agenda, like govt. budgets. This leaves John Q alone to ferret something that make sense out of the minimal information given.

My main point has always been that It is incorrect to say that Medicare and SS are causing any increase in our debt. If it does, it does so by the design of the robbers…which include the DOD… The increase in our debt only occurs after they try to "cash in"the treasury securities. This I feel we can agree upon.

But, regardless, you did get something other then just my opinion or what I may have dreamed up. At least you know now that there are others who " dreamed" this notion up too; including the percent of tax monies going into the DOD budget. So, who doesn’t have an agenda ?

562

dag, We do agree on a lot of points. But we certainly have a much different perspective on things. As I said, I haven’t been able to separate the pepper from the fly sh…specks. I have read your links, and quite a few others, but everyone takes each expenditure and puts it into whatever slice of the pie chart they choose so that it fits their views. No one is out and out lying (I don’t think), but it does lead to a lot of confusion.

Let me tell you a little story here, its a true story but it gives an example of how screwed up the federal budget is. When I was in a squadron of F-14’s, we had a multipin connector get damaged. Now the support for the aircraft, and all things military is controlled through a process called ILS (integrated logistics and support). The ILS process had determined the Navy would only need one of these connecters every so many years, and we had not reached the proper number of years where this part would have been stocked.

So we had to order one, but to fund the order, we had to add it to our budget, which is a two year process. We would have had to wait two years before we could order it. We did add it to our budget for two years hence, which is part of the federal budget that must be approved by congress, but in the meantime, Grumman loaned us a connector borrowed from their production line. The last plane produced each year would have to borrow a connector from the next years aircraft in order to be delivered until eventually we got the connector ordered and we gave it to Grumman. Yes, that connector was a line item in the federal budget that year.

BTW, do you remember the MASH episode where the supply clerk would not issue the last something or other to Hawkeye because he did not want to be out of that item in case someone ordered it? It was funny on TV, but I actually had a conversation similar to that with a civilian supply clerk. It wasn’t as funny.

Rod Knox, FWIW, those golf courses are paid for out of the moral and recreation fund, whose money comes from the profits of the post exchanges. They are open for all military personal on an equal basis regardless of rank. Those offices and villa’s are not as lavish you you imagine either.

563

My intent was never to besmirch the integrity of those in our armed forceses. But, to be realistic, it is a country within a country. This coexisting branch is not a democracy, any more than a business is. And, it probably has a much closer relationship to it’s contractors then those it is suppose to serve.

Even if the golf courses are paid for from profits of the post exchanges, the stocking and what ever saleries, civilian and otherwise, as well as the buildings they are housed, comes straight from you know who. Everything fom the thousand dollar hammer to the example you gave is a sample of how convoluted the budget process is and how difficult it is to assign responsibility to problems they generate. I was in the armed service for a total of nine years and had a chance to get a scary glimps of what goes on. So everything you say is perfectly logical.

I just don’t want to throw money in one direction out of fear of what might happen at the expense of those who are in need or are suffering, here and now. The lies that people tell to take faces off the injustice that occurs with excessive military spending has to be brought to light.

My biggest regret in serving was…we never served the people who supported us, in non wartime as we should have. There are just so many games you can play in preparing for war when at some point, you must provide direct service to the public. IMO, our military is under used in that respect, and it costs us dearly.

564

Keith, the military budget is more twisted and convoluted than the IRS’s and I will assume that hiding graft, corruption and waste is the reason for the subterfuge. I know a lady whose husband bought a Harley and rationalized that it would pay for itself with its great fuel mileage. That’s the kind of thinking that supports the Pentagon’s budgets.

565

Rod, the military budget is really pretty transparent. The problem is its size, and by size, I am referring to the detail that creates so many line items, which in turn creates so many thousands of pages. If you don’t know exactly where to look, then trying to find something is the proverbial needle in the haystack. You either have that or you have just blocks of expenditures that cannot be tracked at all.

dag, the operating costs, including most of the salaries come from profits as well. There are a couple of oversight people that are in uniform assigned to the exchange that are paid for by the tax payer. You may be confusing the exchange with the commissary. They are now both part of the AAFES, but the commissary is not supposed to generate a profit, but only cover costs. Yes it is supported by taxpayers, or used to be. I don’t know how the system works anymore.

In the past, military pay was held so low that the exchange and commissary were about the only places people in uniform could afford to shop. Part of the changes in the military pay system where the military pay was supposed to match civilian pay was that the subsidies were cut to these stores and they were ordered to make their prices on par with civilian stores. As a retiree with full privileges to shop in these stores, I shop mostly at Costco and Walmart. I haven’t been in the commissary in over 20 years and I probably spend more at Costco every week than I spend in a year in the exchange.

As for the $1200 hammer, the reporter that made this public just overlooked the decimal point. Some how that did not make it into the headlines, it was a $12.00 hammer. The $10,000 toilet seat was not a toilet seat but a structural part of the aircraft that the toilet was attached to, The seat was an off the shelf seat that only cost a few bucks. That part didn’t make the headlines either.

As for serving the public, there are some pretty restrictive laws governing that. The main job of the military in peace time is to stand guard and train. The military are not allowed to be used for police work, except to police themselves. Many other services they could provide might/would cut into the business of local civilians, so except in extreme emergencies, they are not allowed to do much in that area.

566

NCO clubs were fine. The bands were good but the beer was “weak”.

“As for serving the public, there are some pretty restrictive laws governing that.”

The mission of the guard units are different. They are a joint function of the state and federal govt. I spent 7 years there after active duty and our training was federally funded.Though technically, we were responsible for the active duty flight line on ambulance duty when training, we were always on call to serve the community. We were in close proximity to an international airport which used much of our equipment and personal for emergencies and payed for federally as long as it was during training periods. Wish we did more of it.

During an ice storm, after nine days without power, we called the Army guard and their training personnel were happy as anything to come out where we lived, work along side us and clear away trees.

There are lots of cases where federally funded projects in our state with minimal state funding were carrying out by our units and others. Are there restictions ? Sure and lots of them…
But, that’s why I said…wish we could have done more. I felt more confident in my training then any civilian person doing the same job. Our equipment left nothing to be desired…and we had the same doctors.

567

Well I don’t know what units you were in but in most units I was in, you could get time off to volunteer in the community during emergencies as long as the needs of the Navy were met first. Most CO’s were happy to let their men and women do this as it brought good press.

568

I guess it can be described as transparent, keith. But I would guess that a majority of American adults is unable to comprehend the vastness of the military budget. A great many American men can recite the results of the last 4 weeks of professional football but few are aware that 40%+ of the “income tax” taken from their pay checks goes to the Pentagon. Football is much more important…

569

Uh,Keith this a bit off track,but why did they can the F-14s-Kevin

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I can only give you my opinion on this. IMO, the F-14 was handicapped from the beginning by one man at the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). NAVAIR’s function is to insure the smooth integration of weapons systems to the fleet. The “systems command” was as far as I know an Air Force concept that worked so well, the Navy adopted it.

It is mostly staffed by civilian experts and most of its functions are logistical. They coordinate the purchase, parts support, tools and support equipment and training to ensure success. Now, because they often do not understand the fleet environment which is crucial to the success of the project, there are a few fleet sailors assigned to this command from time to time as advisors. These advisors are often so instrumental to the projects success that when they retire off active duty, they are hired by NAVAIR, so they remain in their job for another 20+ years.

These guys are very influential and on some occasions, the make themselves a little empire. Now this is not just a military or NAVAIR phenomenon, read Lee Iococca’s book, he devoted a whole chapter to empire builders. Anyway, one of these guy’s was a jet mech in service. Now there are two kinds of jet engine mechanics in the Navy, probably the Air Force too but I don’t know that for sure. There are GE mechs and there are Pratt and Whitney (P&W) mechs. The jet mech at NAVAIR was a GE mech, he did not like P&W engines.

The F-14A was slated to get the PW F100 engine that the F-15 uses, but there were developmental problems with it, so he was able to effectively use these developmental problems to block them from the F-14. The F-14A got the old proven PW TF30 engine instead, heavier and less powerful, much less powerful.

The F-14 also had a state of the art (at the time) but not mil-spec weapons system. To cut this story short, he eventually got his way and when the F-14D was developed, in addition to the mil-spec weapons system, it got GE engines. Now the GE engines are good engines and provide a lot of power and weigh less than the PW TF30 engine, in fact they were a little better than the PW F100 engine, but it is physically shorter and bigger around. That moved its center of gravity forward by several feet.

All I can say is that after the D bird was introduced to the fleet (after I retired) there ware a lot of reports in the press of these planes crashing, mostly on takeoff. I know that planes do not tolerate a big change in their center of gravity very well, so I tend to think that the plane was just to unstable.

But there is this too, it was a very expensive plane to support. It took a lot of maintenance hours for every flight hour and it was difficult to maintain the full mission capable status goals required by the fleet. The F-18 was far less maintenance intensive and cheaper to maintain. It was also far less capable.

A new slightly larger version of the F-18 was in development that had almost all the capability of the F-14 as a long range interceptor and many more capabilities that the F-14 was not good at, like bombing. It really proved to be a more competitive alternative to the F-14. My surprise was how soon after its introduction, the F-14D was replaced. Usually a plane has about a 20 year life, anything less usually indicates serious problems.

The F-14a with its 100+ mile range Phoenix missile system was an awesome weapons system. If the bad guy crosses the line with his bombers carrying nuclear weapons, that is the system you want protecting you. The AAMRAM with its 40+ mile range is OK, but its too bad they didn’t figure out a way to put the Phoenix on the F-18. That combined with the speed and agility of the F-18 would be a suitable substitute.

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Keith
101 Fighter wing, Refueling Wing when the mission changed.

We were paid when we left for civilian ambulance duty off base. Maybe your work didn’t correspond to your training mission when you worked off base. We couldn’t do anything but ambulance or medic duty off base to still get credit for our training day. We logged our tasks when we returned. Examples included times while doing training when there was a possible crash landing situation at the international airport, and all Service Medical and Emergency personnel were on deck and present including all of our ambulance and base police crews doing training.

We made emergency blood transports, once as far away as a coastal hospital, 60 miles. We loved doing these things off base. . It was much better, more enjoyable and felt more worth while, then doing training on base. But, they were too few and far between or me.

When I worked the O.R. while on active duty, you always felt like you were contributing to the war effort. After the war, you needed to be involved more instead of training all the time.

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Not a lot of call in the civilian world for someone who can troubleshoot an air intercept radar system. I did other things as volunteer work though, just not job related exactly. I did teach CPR for the Red Cross which did give me credit towards my air warfare medal, go figure. It required a well rounded skill set.

573

Thanks Keith,thats what I lament -the loss of the platform to carry the Phoenix.That Hornet platform sure has a long and sordid history,its hard for me to believe this old basic airframe was so adaptable,Kelly Johnson said"if it looks good,it’ll fly good".The F-5 family has been with us for awhile,dont know who orginally designed it, but they sure had a winner.Funny afterthe light weight fighter comp went to the F-16,the Navy decided they liked the YF-17.
Dag,training may seem tautomer at times, but as the old adage goes"practice makes perfect" and of course correct response without having to think about helps in a high stress situation-Kevin

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The Navy is not comfortable with single engine aircraft landing on aircraft carriers. They do not want the F-35 for that reason and tried to make that clear during the development phase, but it is being forced on them. I guess he Air Force is finally getting revenge for having the Navy’s F-4 Phantom forced on them back in the MacNamara days.

“correct response without having to think”

Have to disagree with you on this, that can get you killed. The ability to think clearly in a high stress situation is far more important. example, the Navy does a lot of “General Quarters” drills both for battle and for any situation that might endanger the ship, like a fire on board. You train to follow a specific path to your GQ station so that you get there in minimum time and without interfering with anyone else getting to their GQ station. That has unfortunately cost lives when an occasional sailer will follow that path without thinking because that path took him through the danger zone.

Please excuse my current political uncorrectness in referring to the sailors as he, when I retired, women still did not serve on combat ships. This is not a political expression on my part, just a fact. The Navy has worked on getting sailors better trained to think in these situation so that he or she does not make a fatal mistake due to a specific over training.

575
The Navy is not comfortable with single engine aircraft landing on aircraft carriers. They do not want the F-35 for that reason and tried to make that clear during the development phase, but it is being forced on them.

About 10 years ago there was a Nova special about the F-35. The Navy objected…but after seeing the test results of the new engine they were using…they withdrew their objection. The GE engine is a lot more reliable then two engines…but they didn’t account for if one of the engines gets shot up.

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Well Keith no one is going to fuss about using the incorrect pronoun, you are right you can over train but you know everything goes to heck when the first shot is fired,IMO drilling helps discipline a bit,especially the the part about calm controlled firing,I guess discipline and drill can can mess things up a bit,like when the Blue Angels followed the leader into a crash.
Of course over water you want a little redundancy, I’ve heard tales about the P-47s coming home with a “Jug” shot off,with a turbine engine you are probaly not coming back with "Buckets " shedding so you are better off with two.-Kevin

577

There is no question whatsoever that drilling and practicing until the correct actions become second nature is crutial in war.

“Overtraining” has, however been recently more recognized as something to be aware of. When drones began to be used in strategic operations, the first “pilots” behind the joysticks were, in fact, actual pilots. But the military discovered that they had built-in responses to situations that adversely affected their ability to carry out missions with the drones, programmed-in responses and reactions that they’d learned while flying aircraft. The military now uses only nonpilots, specifically trained to “fly” UAVs. PBS had a recent special on UAVs and it was extemely interesting.

578

Kevin, drilling instills confidence and confidence is an important component in clear thinking. BTW, it was the Air Forces Thunderbirds that followed the leader into the ground. I have it on good authority that the lead pilots second to last word was Oh.

Mike, the F-35 is not the first single engine aircraft the Navy has accepted, forced or otherwise. The famous A-4 Skyhawk was beloved by pilots of the day and it was a single engine, as were the F-8 and A-7 Corsairs.

During times when single engine and dual engine aircraft operated from the same flight decks, the accident rate was the same for both. Despite the statistics, the Navy would still prefer two engines.

Kevin "with a turbine engine you are probaly not coming back with "Buckets " shedding so you are better off with two"

One squadron I was in had a plane (F-14A) coming on final when a rouge wave caused the rear of the ship to pitch sharply upward at the worse possible moment. The pilot nosed up almost 90° and the tail section, everything behind the landing gear, slammed into the round down. It destroyed teh cowling, smashed up both engines, ripped the afterburners off, one was sitting n the flight deck, the other went over the side. The plane bounced upward, and as the engines, which are under full power on approach was spooling down, the pilot got the plane to about 2500 feet and glided to a nearby island.

Three days later, the plane was flown back to the ship. The mechs flew to the island in the ships COD ( a cargo plane for carriers) with two new engines and got it up for the return flight. The F-14 was one tough airplane, I guess things like that are why Grumman Aircraft Company was often called Grumman Iron Works.

579
PBS had a recent special on UAVs and it was extemely interesting.

Yea…I saw that…Very good show.

580

Yeah, I saw it too. And I saw the show about the flyoff between the F-35 and the other competitor made by Boeing. I liked the competitor better myself.