Category: Budget

Why We Need to Cut the Military Budget by at least 85%

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Because, whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican, having an “invade anywhere anytime” military is like giving a loaded revolver and amphetamines to a toddler:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, (I-Conn) a renowned hawk and one of the foremost champions of the invasion of Iraq, warned on Sunday that the United States faced “danger” unless it pre-emptively acts to curb the rise of terrorism in Yemen.

“Somebody in our government said to me in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, Iraq was yesterday’s war. Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war,” Lieberman said, during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday”. “That’s the danger we face.”

(emphasis mine)

The problem with having a military that is able to invade anywhere, anytime, for any reason, is that there are people, including Joe Lieberman and whoever, “Somebody in our government,” is with small brains, and even smaller penises, who will use military power with all the forethought of the aforementioned child on speed.

If you build the military, they will use it recklessly, to the detriment of both the nation and to the military itself.

The current “seabasing” concept being developed in the Pentagon is just the sort of “invasion in a box” that will make this even easier to do, and hence more likely.

The capabilities that we implement actually increase the military death toll, because they encourage insane strategies by the civilian and senior military leadership.

What’s more, they starve our economy, it will be costing in excess of $1 million a year per soldier in Afghanistan, and they starve the social safety net, killing our own citizens through lack of healthcare, and over the longer term, through a lack of investment in infrastructure and education.

H/t Attackerman.

RQ-170 Sentinel Revealed

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Click for full size


RQ-170


What are the fairings on top are for, maybe antennae?

So, I was wrong, when I suggested that there was no reason for the USAF to be flying a stealthy UAV in Afghanistan and that someone was Photoshopping a Burt Rutan project.

I was wrong.

The configuration is interesting, because while it is clearly low observable, the location of the exhaust is fairly conventional, rather than discharging on top of the wing, which implies that, despite it clearly being a LO design, it’s not a “LO is the be all and end all of the design” vehicle like the F-117 and B-2 are.

The USAF has now admitted to fielding the RQ-170 Sentinel UAV in Afghanistan as well as the fact that it was developed at Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks.

It appears to have been developed in response to the diplomatic brouhaha that resulted from the interception and forced landing of an EP-3 at the beginning of the Bush Administration.

It should be noted that the RQ designation means that it is unarmed, (paid subscription required) and the linked article also gives a reason for the USAF to deploy a radar evading UAV to Afghanistan:

“Don’t get enamored with current conditions,” [Air Force deputy chief of staff for ISR, Lt. Gen. Dave] Deptula cautions. “We don’t know what the future will bring.” While operations in Afghanistan will be “more complex than ever,” the future is “not only going to be about irregular warfare.”

Beyond 2011, the Air Force’s first priority and the destination of the next dollar to be spent “if I were king for a day,” Deptula says, “would be for long-range [reconnaissance and] precision strike. That’s the number-one need.
The “black” Sentinel was seen in 2007 at Kandahar, Afghanistan. Two photographs surfaced this year via the Secret Defense Blog.

“We cannot move into a future without a platform that allows [us] to project power long distances and to meet advanced threats in a fashion that gives us an advantage that no other nation has,” he notes. “We can’t walk away from that capability.

It’s all about the Benjamins. The USAF is deploying this to Afghanistan because they think that it will help them in their budget fights against other services.

I Really Want to Live in the UK

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Well, we now have the details on Alistair Darling’s proposal to tax bonuses in the UK, and it looks very good: It’s a 50% tax on all bonuses in the banking industry in excess of £25,000.00 ($40,700).

What is interesting is that this is not a tax on income, but a tax on the bonus reserves themselves, so it avoids the human rights:

Instead of legislating for a levy on individual bankers, the Treasury has focused on the simpler and potentially legally safer route of taxing the bonus pool used by banks for staff compensation.

The recipient of such a bonus would still have to pay personal income tax, so, if he would normally have received a bonus of £100K, he would get a bonus of £50K, and that would be subject to taxation by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. (see also here)

It disincentivizes the huge bonus awards, and it fills a significant hole in the UK budget, raising £550 million this year, and £3 billion in the future.

In any case, Bloomberg decided to waste a reporter’s day by making him write a story about how it probably won’t happen in the United States.

Well, duh, banks here are largely succeeding in gutting financial reform here.

Make them pay their fair share of taxes? Fuggedaboudit!

Its a Death Trap, It’s a Suicide Rap*

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Ah, yes, the “centrists” in the Senate. They are what Obi Wan Kenobi was speaking of when he said, “Never will you find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”‡

Their latest “gift” to the rest of us? They are proposing a commission in order to create a back door way to defund Social Security and Medicare.

In this case, it’s Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, (DINO-ND) along with Senatior Judd Gregg (R-NH):

The commission’s main goal would be to figure out what the country needs to do to get its budget back on a more balanced track.

Specifically, the commission would suggest ways to curb spending growth — especially in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — and to boost tax revenue.

There is a simple solution: You just raise the maximum income taken for social security, and let it cover everything that is remuneration, and it’s solvent forever.

In fact, it’s solvent enough that it can fix the medicare funding issue too.

Of note is how this committee is structured, with 18 members, 8 of each party appointed by Congress, and 2 appointed by the White House, and that it would require that at least 14 of the 18 members approve any report, which would be submitted to Congress for an up or down vote.

So, for any tax increase, you would need at least ½ of the Republicans to approve, and you won’t get one.

It’s a Trojan horse, and should be left outside the gates.

It fills the gap, and then some, while

*Apologies to the Boss. It’s a line from Born to Run†
†That’s Bruce Springsteen to those of you who are musically illiterate.
‡Star Wars, you remember that? It was a minor film released in 1977 by the director of THX-1138.

Pelosi Comes Out in Favor of Tobin Tax

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Hopefully, this will give Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner the vapors:

A proposed tax on financial transactions “has a great deal of merit” and would help Congress raise needed revenue, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday.

“I believe that the transaction tax still has a great deal of merit,” Pelosi said at a news conference.

The tax would have a “really minimal impact on the transaction, but a tremendous impact on helping us meet our needs,” Pelosi said.

Timmeh….Suck….on…This…

Honestly, I expect Obama to oppose this fiercely in private, though I am not sure what he will do in public.

Wrong!

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Nancy Pelosi is now saying that any financial transaction tax must be internationally agreed on:

Any tax imposed on financial transactions would have to take effect internationally to keep Wall Street jobs and related business from moving overseas, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday.

“It would have to be an international rule, not just a U.S. rule,” Pelosi said at a news conference. “We couldn’t do it alone, we’d have to do it as an international initiative.”

This is wrong on a number of levels:

  • There is already such a tax in the UK, and it has been there for years, and London’s “The Street” still rivals Wall Street.
  • The US had a tax on stock purchases well into the 1960s, and it did not chase investors over seas.
  • The idea that much of the financial industry would go elsewhere is a bad thing is simply misguided. Above a certain proportion of GDP, it becomes a source of parasitic loss, and detracts from our economic well-being.
  • If we wait for international consensus, it will never happen.

I’m just saying.

1937 All Over Again

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This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we’ll be lucky to live through it.

Barack Obama and His Stupid Minions™ are looking at budget cuts to reduce the deficit.

Dude, we are in a liquidity trap, take your foot off the accelerator now, and we are all toast.

You are talking about doing what Roosevelt did in 1937, and it will get very ugly if you do.

Don’t make me call out Freddie Dalton Thompson on you….Oops…too late.

The real lesson of the last stimulus package is to ignore the “moderates”, who will make a cut just to make a cut, and include tax cuts, which offer the smallest bang for the buck.

Bad News for the Cyberterrorism Protection Racket

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A while back This Sunday, 60 Minutes did a piece on how hackers created a massive blackout in Brazil.

Only it wasn’t any sort of computer problem, it was poorly maintained power lines, where soot (carbon is conductive) created short circuits which took down the line:

Brazil’s independent systems operator group later confirmed that the failure of a 345-kilovolt line “was provoked by pollution in the chain of insulators due to deposits of soot” (.pdf). And the National Agency for Electric Energy, Brazil’s energy regulatory agency, concluded its own investigation in January 2009 and fined Furnas $3.27 million (.pdf) for failing to maintain the high-voltage insulators on its transmission towers.

Also look at their additional links:

So, as it stands right now, the only people claiming this have no proof, but are likely to get contracts, if they are private, or additional government money, if they are public.

The issue here is the vulnerability of the grid, see the 2003 blackout, and the problem is that since privatizing electric utilities, they have skimped on infrastructure, leaving no margin for error.

What Atrios Said

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As Atrios notes, the idea that some “moderate Democrats” are pushing for, a Bipartisan commission to propose spending cuts and tax hikes, is really, really, Really, REALLY stupid.

First, there are no Republicans on the national level who will support any new taxes, and second, look at the “Democrats” who are supporting this.

According to the article, a “group of 10 senators — nine moderate Democrats and an independent,” so and so the article definitively fingers the following people:

  • Senator Evan Bayh
  • Senator Kent Conrad
  • Senator Joe Lieberman (Not explicitly named in the article, but note the quote, it sure as hell ain’t Bernie Sanders.)

MY comment, if you are serious about cutting the deficit, place a Tobin Tax on financial transactions, you raise money, reduce the deficit, reduce speculation for its own sake, and punish the banks.

That’s a win-win-win-win scenario.

Congress Passes Limits on Military Aid to Pakistan

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Basically, after the clusterf%$# that was support for Pervez Musharraf and His Evil Minions™ by George W. Bush and His Evil Minions™, where military aid to Pakistan went to parts unknown, Congress has placed restrictions on military aid to ensure that it will go to fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda, and not to building up the military for a war with India…And yes, maybe it will reduce graft a bit too:

Military payments to Pakistan must be in the interests of U.S. national security and mustn’t “affect the balance of power in the region,” according to a provision attached to the defense authorization bill passed yesterday by the Senate.

The restriction comes as the Pakistani army continues its biggest offensive against militants in the northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan, where 28,000 soldiers have been deployed to fight guerrillas blamed for 80 percent of terrorist attacks in the country.

It’s about fracking time that we made it clear to Pakistan that we would not be supporting another useless and bloody war with India.

F136 Alternate JSF Engine Update

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So, the House-Senate Conference Committee agreed to fund the F136 alternate engine for the JSF, despite a qualified veto threat from the White House.

By qualified, I mean that “sources in the WH” have said that they would “recommend a veto,” if the engine were funded, which is quite different from the flat out statement that Obama would veto anything with the F-22 white elephant Raptor.

While the weak veto threat is one of the reasons that supporters of the alternate engine have gained momentum, there is also the fact that Pratt & Whitney is doing back-flips on cost and schedule in order to try to kill the RR/GE F136 engine, which reinforces the idea that they see a real threat their profit model for the F135 engine.

Additionally, the idea that the program managers can squeeze P&W just as hard if there is no competitor out in the wings is plainly ludicrous, and the F100/F110 “engine war” of the 1980s clearly shows that.

The reason that the DoD is fighting the alternate engine at this point, is because they really want the JSF, and even a small amount of money, even if it pays ten fold dividends further out, may push the JSF further down the delay/cost escalation/procurement cuts cycle.

Ashton Carter* pretty much says that flat out when he says that, “The crux of the analysis is that the additional upfront costs of a second engine are very clear and very real and the possible savings associated with a hypothesized competition in the future are much harder to estimate.”

That being said, the development of the F-136 is not going perfectly. The manufacturers just had to halt testing following the discovery of damage to the turbine, described as “nicks and dings”.

F136 Saga Continues

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Well, the Senate Appropriations Committee cut funding for the F136 alternate engine for the JSF, though the committee chair, Daniel Inouye (D-HI) has made it clear that he wants it back when the conference report comes out.

In any case, it’s clear that the White House’s opposition to continuing work on an alternate engine is soft, as the discussions between the Pentagon and GE/Rolls on a firm fixed price for the engine, are continuing, and GE is promising a, “formal unsolicited Fixed Price offer,” in the next week or so.

I’m not sure if the DoD is seriously looking at proposals, of if they are just trying to browbeat Pratt & Whitney though.

They Can’t Do Any Worse Than the Banks

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Noted bond blogger Accrued Interest has penned an analysis where he says that, “Having the Govt. Mandate Pay Packages is a Stomach Churning Concept.”

While I agree that the idea of the government determining pay rates in a private industry is worrisome, there are a couple of important things to note:

  • It ain’t a private industry, it’s owned by the government. With the amount of money that the taxpayer has shoveled into the banking system, both through direct payments, Federal Reserve facilities, and the bailout of AIG, these institutions are as free market as the Tennessee Valley Authority.
  • How could the government do any worse than the banks?

Yes, there is that first sphincter tightening moment when you read the lede, but then you realize that the alternative is handing those chimpanzees in the banking industry an M-2 .50 caliber machine gun and a couple of belts of ammunition.

BTW, I would note that having a government office mandade pay is not my preferred solution.

My preferred solution would be through the tax code, because the government collects taxes pretty well, just ask Al Capone, along with some changes in shareholder rights laws:

  • Higher marginal tax rate, which makes the mega payouts less valuable
    • I’d like this additional money to go to an insurance fund to cover future bubbles, but if someone believes that this would happen, they have the political acumen of Little Orphan Annie.
  • Eliminate the deductiblity of wages above those of the President, plus an equal bonus
    • This also has the effect of taxing overpaying for prima donna athletes, which is a plus in my book
  • It is currently illegal for shareholders to hold binding votes on executive remuneration. Make it legal for shareholders to do so if they choose. I’d use the above Presidential wage line as a limit, since having shareholders voting on the salary of Willie the mail boy is nuts.
    • Note that I am not requiring requiring a binding shareholder vote, just allowing it.
  • I would also add a Tobin Tax on financial transactions on the order of ¼% on all financial transactions, which would serve to damp down some of the more destructive speculation and the massive front-running masquerading as “high frequency trading”.
    • I’d like to see this go to the above mentioned insurance fund, but the Little Orphan Annie comment still applies.

Note that, except for eliminating a specific prohibition on shareholder’s rights, these are all tax changes, and their administration, though not the politics of their being enacted, are simple and straightforward.

House Passes the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA)

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It passed on a 253-171 vote.

The bill ends the subsidies that the federal government provides to for profit institutions to make student loans, and has that same federal government make the loans.

As Gail Collins notes:

It would simplify the federally guaranteed loan system, save an estimated $87 billion over 10 years and use that money to increase aid to low-income students, improve community colleges and raise standards for early childhood education.

Let us stop here and recall how the current loan system works:

  1. Federal government provides private banks with capital.
  2. Federal government pays private banks a subsidy to lend that capital to students.
  3. Federal government guarantees said loans so the banks don’t have any risk.

And now, the proposed reform:

  1. The federal government makes the loans.

Wow. You really do wonder why nobody came up with this idea before.

If you need to know what is wrong with the Republicans, you need go no further than the idea that the Federal government should use taxpayer money to prop up big executive paychecks.

H/t Steve Benen.

Adventures in Wankitude

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The latest spin on the attendance at the “912” demonstration from the wingnuts, which implies that they thought that the attendance was anemic, was that the Washington DC Metro was simply unprepared for accommodating “massive” influx of passengers.

You know, less than 80,000 riders on a system that accommodates over 900,000 riders a day is not a big surge.

More telling, however, is that one of the loudest voices complaining about the quality of service is Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX-8), who voted against additional funding to the DC Metro earlier this year.

Votes against funding the Metro, then complains that it lacks adequate resources.

[on edit]
Yes, the Republicans are literally demanding that Barack Obama make the trains run on time.

The Return of the Fixed-Price Development Contract

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Case in point, the next iteration of the Small Diameter Bomb, the SDB II, will be have a fixed price development contract.

This represents a welcome change in philosophy:

The theory is that technologies should be mature enough (technology readiness level 6, or tested in an operationally relevant environment, in Pentagon parlance) to enable accurate cost and schedule estimates by industry bidders competing for a development contract. This approach shifts more responsibility to contractors to keep their proposal promises. For the Pentagon, however, there is also risk. Requirements must be well-articulated and not altered in order to reap the benefits of a fixed-price contract. Once change orders are requested, leverage over contract price is lost.

I would actually go further, and make cost and schedule unalterable requirements statutorily, and prohibit, and possibly criminalize, any effort made by contractors and procurement personnel from changing this.

The article notes that this change is, “Raising questions among some industry executives about how much risk they will have to assume as they compete for Defense Dept. business,” but this is not surprising.

Defense contracting under Bush and His Evil Minions™ was an exercise in all reward, no risk, for defense contractors, which resulted in skyrocketing costs, horrendous schedule slips, and a dearth of solutions for the Marines and soldiers on the ground.