U.S. 'Supercommittee' Failure; Stage Set for Defense Debate

Looks LAME to me:

U.S. 'Supercommittee' Announces Failure; Stage Set for Defense Debate
By KATE BRANNEN 21 Nov 2011

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=8328093&&s=TOP

"Even before the so-called congressional supercommittee announced Nov. 21 that it had failed to identify $1.2 trillion to reduce the federal deficit, defense hawks on Capitol Hill announced their intention to introduce legislation that would roll back the resulting defense cuts.

"I will be introducing legislation in the coming days to prevent cuts that will do catastrophic damage to our men and women in uniform and our national security," House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., said in a statement to reporters.

His staff emailed the statement at 3 p.m., two hours before the supercommittee co-chairs announced the panel's failure.

McKeon is not alone. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and other members of Congress say they too would work quickly to roll back the automatic spending cuts that would hit the Pentagon particularly hard.

"We are now working on a plan to minimize the impact of the sequester on the Department of Defense and to ensure that any cuts do not leave us with a hollow military," McCain said.

The White House has also said the defense cuts under sequestration go too far...."

As always much more at the URL jump. I could comment about US politicians but that would be LAME also.

Truly, Defense policymakers should not be scrambling at the last minute today in an attempt to counteract what should have been better prepared for at least 2-3 years ago. Whether naively, ignorantly or defiantly... staying the course this long without any apparent understanding or contingency for this inevitable contraction, is to blame. Very tragic and unnecessary. Sad to see this train wreck in slow motion. Hopefully some proactive - not over-reactive - lessons will be learned from this event. God speed.

So no spectacular fireworks and doomsday scenario with the SuperCommittee's failure.. just an opportunity for the politicians to kick the football around the last couple of months and get some publicity.. realizing that in the end there will be time to come up with a compromise.. even McCain gets to sound like a voice of reason after all his irresponsible whining about the 1 trillion$ F-35 program w/o making any effort to put it in context.

Just a heads up... What should be prepared for next, just my gut assessment, is contingency planning for a currently unexpected, additional budget cut to hit around FY17, maybe even as early as FY16, necessary to sustain fiscal policy (in part to offset underestimated social security liabilities) through 2022.

Threaten no pay for military again. That would be the 3rd or 4th time this year.

----Dateline June 16th, 2012----

Following the March 2012 hearings on the matter where 26 states and others argued for the complete reversal of Obamacare, the SCOTUS today released their ruling where they agreed, by a thin 5-4 margin, with the 26 and have ruled the entire program unconstitutional.

In a related news item, the SuperCommittee announced today that the savings from not having do deal with the unfunded burdens of Obamacare would alleviate any further SuperCommittee needed action and that last year's sequestration will be canceled.

We could solve most procurement woes if we modified some aspects of Goldwater Nichols, specifically those which mandate an equal share of defense funding to be divided between the Navy, Air Force, and Army. The current Air - Sea battle strategy does not envision a large scale land action, hence the Army's share could be scaled back, with the remainder distributed the Navy and Air Force. Let europeans pay for European security. I'd say the same for South Korea, but we maintain some strategic basing options there, and its too bad that Pinatubo destroyed Clark AB....

Mr. America walks into the local Ehlem auto dealership in downtown Washington DC. The sales rep walks up to him and the following conversation ensues:

Mr. America: “Hey, I’m interested in buying one of those new Lightning cars you’re building down in Texas. I hear you’re selling them for $60,000 each.”

Ehlem rep: “We’d be happy to sell one to you, but they’re actually $200,000 each.”

Mr. America: “Whoa! $200,000 versus $60,000! Isn’t that false advertising?”

Ehlem rep: “Not at all. Right now we have to recoup our investment. After we sell about 100,000 Lightnings the price will be down to about $90,000 each, and in twenty years after we’ve sold 200,000 of them, the price will be down to about $60,000 each. Of course, that’s in inflation adjusted 2002 dollars reflecting the MGCY price versus the AQUP price, and it doesn’t actually include an engine. So come back in twenty years and we’ll sell you a Lightning for $60,000.”

Mr. America: “I don’t know. My old Viper is falling apart, so is my wife’s Hornet, and that piece of junk Harrier that my daughter keeps crashing needs to be replaced. I kind of need the replacements now, but my credit cards are maxed out and the Bank of China won’t lend me any more money. I’m also supporting my retired folks, we’ve got huge medical bills, and the interest payments on my debt are killing me.”

Ehlem rep: “Sounds like we’ve got you over a barrel, since we know you won’t go to the foreign dealership down the street. That’ll be $200,000, or we’ll make you a deal and sell you five of them for a million bucks.”

Mr. America: “Yeah, guess so. I guess I’ll take one of the sporty XA models. My wife wanted one of those big XB models, because she keeps driving through salt water and needs to carry a lot of groceries, but maybe I’ll buy her a late model Hornet instead. My daughter can’t park worth a damn, so she wanted one of those XCs with the neat little automatic parking gizmo which lets her park in small spaces, but she’s already on probation for overspending, so she’ll have to wait for a couple of years.”

Ehlem rep: “So we’ve got a deal?”

Mr America: “Yeah, I don’t have any choice. I guess I’ll go home and just print up some money to pay for it.”

The customer leaves, and another customer with a strong foreign accent walks up to the sales rep.

Foreigner: “I vant to buyee a Lightyning forrr $60,000.”

Ehlem rep: “Sorry, we’ve got to sell 200,000 Lightnings over the next twenty years to be able to give you that price.”

Foreigner: “Hokay! You call me after you selly that many, and vee talk again!”

The foreigner walks out the door. The sales rep notices an Indian diplomat walking down the sidewalk holding brochures from the French and British dealerships down the street.

Ehlem rep: “Hey, instead of buying one of those pieces of junk, why not buy a Lightning? It’s got a great paint job that will make you invisible to police radar traps.”

Indian diplomat: “Indeed? And how much would this aircraft cost?”

Ehlem rep: “Only $60,000!”

Just some food for thought-

http://www.wfmz.com/Rand-Paul-Automatic ... index.html

This may surprise some people, but there will be no cuts in military spending because we're only cutting proposed increases. If we do nothing, military spending goes up 23% over 10 years. If we sequester the money, it will still go up 16%. So spending is still rising under any of these plans. In fact, if you look at both alternatives, spending is still going up. We're only cutting proposed increases in spending."

Why is this thread in the F-35 forum? It seems to me that the "automatic" cuts are not so automatic and everyone that is anyone who has spoken on record has already said the F-35 program is off limits. This thread and the other F-35 is going to be canceled because of "automatic" budget cuts should really be posted in the "Useless and Totally Unrealistic Political Conjecture and Troll Bait" category which can be found either at Elps "website" or at the Key Publishing forum. It seems that lately there are altogether to many trolls here and it's idiotic threads like this that attract them.

Complain to the moderators.