[quote]derek wrote:
What tax rate would make you happy? Maybe 60%? How about 80%?[/quote]
Unfortunately the tax rate doesn’t matter when all the government blows it on are pork barrel projects for powerful senators.
I do think the rich (meaning the super rich) should be taxed far more than the average person, but I have no faith in the government to spend it right anyway, so who honestly gives two shits anymore…
Oh age and cynicism, how you fuck with me…
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
derek wrote:
What tax rate would make you happy? Maybe 60%? How about 80%?
Unfortunately the tax rate doesn’t matter when all the government blows it on are pork barrel projects for powerful senators.
I do think the rich (meaning the super rich) should be taxed far more than the average person, but I have no faith in the government to spend it right anyway, so who honestly gives two shits anymore…
Oh age and cynicism, how you fuck with me…[/quote]
I agree! Hopefully you read my post a few above this one. No faith in the Fed spending like we have to to get by.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
derek wrote:
What tax rate would make you happy? Maybe 60%? How about 80%?
Unfortunately the tax rate doesn’t matter when all the government blows it on are pork barrel projects for powerful senators.
I do think the rich (meaning the super rich) should be taxed far more than the average person, but I have no faith in the government to spend it right anyway, so who honestly gives two shits anymore…
Oh age and cynicism, how you fuck with me…[/quote]
Nice
While I don’t trust the “source” this is the kind of thing that we should have already:
The New York senator, who leads early polls of Democratic contenders for the party’s nomination, said she would put together a package of proposals designed to ensure troops have all the equipment they need when they’re deployed, to ensure they receive proper health care, and to provide for families.
“I am here to say the buck does stop with this president and if he doesn’t take responsibility, I can assure you that the next president will,” the Democratic senator said Thursday
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070308/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_military
This thread at military.com is right on target for the lack of funding to take care of our wounded service personnel:
http://forums.military.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/672198221/m/9280001611001
Take a look.
“The only excuse we get is that there is no money for repairs. I’m not a political man, but I would like to know where the money is going”
“Where is the money going… Good question. Maybe you could start by asking this Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient.” CNN.com - Audit: U.S. lost track of $9 billion in Iraq funds - Jan 30, 2005
Even with ?Enron-style? accounting the White House itself admitted last year that the VA was under funded by $2.6 billion?"
“WHY are the politicians, who are responsible for not providing enough money to the VA trying to play the blame game on the military. Its the house and Senate who votes on military appropriations. Ultimately, the buck should stop with them.”
“the same politicans who are now jumping over thereselves to be the first one to burn the brass at Walter Reed are the same ones that have cut the VA benefits and have taken so much funding away from the hosptial. Politics.”
another fine example of how our VA takes care of our own:
"VA hospital turned away suicidal vet, family says
Although he earned two purple hearts for fighting in Iraq, Marine Jonathan Schulze was rejected by a Minnesota VA hospital when he needed urgent treatment.
Schulze was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by his family physician. He was prescribed Ambien, Valium, and Paxil, but they didn’t help. When Schulze began to feel suicidal, he turned to the VA hospital in St. Cloud, Minnesota, about an hour outside Minneapolis.
His father and stepmother both insist they heard Schulze tell the intake nurse he was “suicidal.” But instead of admitting him, the hospital told Schulze to go home and call back the next day.
The family says it was told the social worker who screens PTSD patients was too busy to see him. When Schulze called back the next day, his stepmom says she listened as he told the social worker he felt suicidal. The hospital then responded by telling him he was Number 26 on the waiting list for one of 12 PTSD patient beds. In other words, he’d need to wait at least two weeks before he could get treatment.
Is that any way to respond to a Iraqi Veteran who is telling you he’s suicidal? And why, with the U.S. fighting two wars in the Middle East, are there only 12 beds reserved at this hospital for PTSD patients? The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs expects one in five veterans will need to be treated for PTSD."
Found this over at Smallwarscouncil:
Statement from StratFor regarding state of the Army
Anyone have any thoughts or comments on this statement from the latest Stratfor Intel Report?
“…the United States simply lacks capability in the Army. In many ways, the U.S. Army is in revolt against the Bush administration. Army officers at all levels (less so the Marines) are using the term “broken” to refer to the condition of the force and are in revolt against the administration – not because of its goals, but because of its failure to provide needed resources nearly six years after 9/11. This revolt is breaking very much into the public domain, and that will further cripple the credibility of the Bush administration.”
-StratFor Intelligence Report 03/13/07
Marines, others clamor for new armored trucks
Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., supports the Marines’ request and has proposed an amendment to add $1.5 billion in emergency funds this year to buy the vehicles for all the services. The commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Conway, said in a letter to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace, that they can reduce casualties by 80%.
“The American public would embrace this in a heartbeat” if they understood the vehicles’ safety record relative to Humvees, Biden said. The vehicles’ V-shaped hulls deflect the force of roadside bombs; Humvees’ flat bottoms take the brunt of blasts.
The military needs $4 billion this year and $4.4 billion in 2008 to pay for the 7,774 armored vehicles it needs, Biden said. The $1.5 billion he’s seeking now would allow 2,500 of the vehicles to be deployed by the end of the year.
Homemade bombs known as improvised explosive devices cause 70% of U.S. casualties in Iraq, Pentagon records show. However, no Marines have died in attacks on the armored vehicles the military calls “mine-resistant ambush-protected” vehicles, or MRAPs.
Demand for the vehicles from field commanders has soared since last year. In their first urgent request, the Marines asked for 185 vehicles in May 2006. By November, the Army, Marines and Navy were seeking 4,060. It’s now 7,774.
If authorized, contractors could produce 1,200 of the vehicles per month by December, Conway’s letter says. The Marines want 3,700 of them, while the Army is seeking 2,500; the Navy, Air Force and Special Operations Command have requested the rest.
The Pentagon has been reluctant to acknowledge the need for more of the vehicles because it has downplayed the costs of the war, Biden said. First, the Pentagon responded slowly to shortages of body armor, he said. Then it was armored vehicles and recently it was the poor conditions for soldiers recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, he said.
Finally! I’ve seen basal skull fractures before and they aren’t pretty. Hopefully these will add enough protection to the area to prevent major nerve damage. My own neck is messed up from congenital and overuse injuries and it sucks. I’d hate to experience what a piece of shrapnel could do to your cervical nerves. Our guys need the best protection out there.
Marines to get protective neck pads
Marine Corps Systems Command has received approval to purchase neck-protecting body armor upgrades, which the Army began fielding Feb. 28, according to SysCom?s spokesman.
Capt. Jeff Landis said the Marine Corps was cleared hot to order 75,000 of the “nape pads,” which attach to the back of a Marine’s helmet and hang over the exposed part of the neck.
Landis said SysCom doesn’t yet know how much the pads will cost, when they will be fielded, or which units will receive them first.
The Army is fielding 430,000 nape pads, according to a Feb. 28 press release.
Shows up 6 weeks later after everything has been sorted out for a photo op. Couldn’t get it into the schedule? A real leader would have rewritten the fucking schedule,jumped on his fucking Marine Corps helicopter and got his ass over there five and one half weeks ago.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/30/bush.walterreed.ap/index.html
Just keeps getting better and better:
A volunteer Army reflects the most central and sacred vow that citizens make to one another: soldiers protect and defend the country; in return, the country promises to give them the tools they need to complete their mission and honor their service, whatever the outcome. It was Bush, on the eve of the 2000 election, who promised “to all of our men and women in uniform and to their parents and to their families, help is on the way.” Besides putting Powell at State, the President reinforced his Administration with two former Defense Secretaries: Vice President Dick Cheney and, in the job for a second time, Donald Rumsfeld.
So it is no small irony that today’s U.S. Army finds itself under the greatest strain in a generation. The Pentagon made that clear April 2 when it announced that two Army units will soon return to Iraq without even a year at home, compared with the two years units have traditionally enjoyed. One is headed back after 47 days short of a year, the other 81. “This is the first time we’ve had a voluntary Army on an extended deployment,” says Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who advises his old service. “A lot of canaries are dropping dead in the mine.”
The main consequences of a tightly stretched Army is that men and women are being sent into combat with less training, shorter breaks and disintegrating equipment. When those stories get out, they make it harder to retain soldiers and recruit them in the first place. “For us, it’s just another series of never-ending deployments, and for many, including me, there is only one answer to that?show me the door out,” wrote an officer in a private e-mail to Congressman Steve Rothman of New Jersey.
Army equipment is wearing out even faster than Army troops. Gear and weapons are usually left in the war zone to be used by newly arriving troops. That grinds the equipment into scrap up to 10 times as fast as in peacetime. The lack of guns and armor back home has a boomerang effect: many of the troops training in the U.S. are not familiar with what they’ll have to depend on once they arrive in Iraq.
A volunteer Army reflects the most central and sacred vow that citizens make to one another: soldiers protect and defend the country; in return, the country promises to give them the tools they need to complete their mission and honor their service, whatever the outcome. It was Bush, on the eve of the 2000 election, who promised “to all of our men and women in uniform and to their parents and to their families, help is on the way.” Besides putting Powell at State, the President reinforced his Administration with two former Defense Secretaries: Vice President Dick Cheney and, in the job for a second time, Donald Rumsfeld.
So it is no small irony that today’s U.S. Army finds itself under the greatest strain in a generation. The Pentagon made that clear April 2 when it announced that two Army units will soon return to Iraq without even a year at home, compared with the two years units have traditionally enjoyed. One is headed back after 47 days short of a year, the other 81. “This is the first time we’ve had a voluntary Army on an extended deployment,” says Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who advises his old service. “A lot of canaries are dropping dead in the mine.”
The main consequences of a tightly stretched Army is that men and women are being sent into combat with less training, shorter breaks and disintegrating equipment. When those stories get out, they make it harder to retain soldiers and recruit them in the first place. “For us, it’s just another series of never-ending deployments, and for many, including me, there is only one answer to that?show me the door out,” wrote an officer in a private e-mail to Congressman Steve Rothman of New Jersey.
Army equipment is wearing out even faster than Army troops. Gear and weapons are usually left in the war zone to be used by newly arriving troops. That grinds the equipment into scrap up to 10 times as fast as in peacetime. The lack of guns and armor back home has a boomerang effect: many of the troops training in the U.S. are not familiar with what they’ll have to depend on once they arrive in Iraq.
For the first time in decades, the Army’s “ready brigade”?a unit of the famed 82nd Airborne Division primed to parachute into a hot spot anywhere in the world within 72 hours?is a luxury the U.S. Army cannot afford
Those deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan more than once?170,000 so far?have a 50% increase in acute combat stress over those who have been deployed only once. And that stress is what contributes to post-traumatic stress disorder, according to an Army study. “Their wives are saying, I know you’re proud of what you’re doing, but we’ve got to get out of here,” says Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star general.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1606888,00.html?xid=site-cnn-partner
Another example of problems to come. How much is it going to cost in both dollars and human suffering to “treat” these vets and reintegrate them into society?
Yes, please explain to us why you get the largest bonuses in D.C. for screwing up our veteran’s care needs by about 1 BILLION dollars…
Yes, buy the weapons our troops need. Difficult to understand?
a routine acquisition notice March 23, a U.S. Special Forces battalion based in Okinawa announced that it is buying 84 upper receiver assemblies for the HK416 to modify their M4 carbines. The M4 fires using a system that redirects gas from the expended round to eject it and reload another. The 416 and SCAR use a gas-operated piston that physically pushes the bolt back to eject the round and load another.
Carbon buildup from the M4’s gas system has plagued the rifle for years, resulting in some close calls with Soldiers in combat whose rifles jammed at critical moments.
According to the solicitation for the new upper receiver assemblies, the 416 “allows Soldiers to replace the existing M4 upper receiver with an HK proprietary gas system that does not introduce propellant gases and the associated carbon fouling back into the weapon’s interior. This reduces operator cleaning time, and increases the reliability of the M4 Carbine, particularly in an environment in which sand and dust are prevalent.”
Yet the Army has still declined to buy anything other than the M4 for its regular troops, requesting about $100 million in the 2007 wartime supplemental to buy M4s for its Soldiers.
Even the Corps, as lean and mean an organization as there is, is hard pressed to keep up with supplying the tip of the spear with what they need to get job done:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070525/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/marines_critical_gear
the bogging power of bureaucracy strikes again…
[quote]Grimnuruk wrote:
"How well do we care for our wounded and impaired when they come home? For a country amid what President Bush calls a “long war,” the question has profound moral implications. We send young Americans to the world’s most unruly places to execute our national policies. About 50,000 service members so far have been banged up or burned, suffered disease, lost limbs or sacrificed something less tangible inside them. Schulze is an extreme example but not an isolated one, and such stories are raising concerns that the country is failing to meet its most basic obligations to those who fight our wars.
The question of after-action care also has strategic consequences. Iraq marks the first drawn-out campaign we’ve fought with an all-volunteer military. In practice, that means far fewer Americans are taking part in this war (12 percent of the total population participated in World War II, 2 percent in Vietnam and less than half of 1 percent in Iraq and Afghanistan). Already, the war has made it harder for the military to recruit new soldiers and more expensive to retain the ones it has. If we fall down in the attention we provide them, who’s to say volunteers will continue coming forward?"
[/quote]
It is scary stuff, dude. I am a 30% disabled vet and all my health care is covered by the VA for any medical problem. The VA has issues but I would say VA health care is better than any private health care I have ever had, and GW is responsible for that fact. I really don’t trust democrats on this issue at all. If you look at the Clinton years and VA spending, it is horrible.
[quote]derek wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I know many more people that work harder than the average millionaire who can barely afford to live so what is your point?
So that’s the rich peoples fault?
You want them to pay what, 50% of thier income in taxes? We’re already close. Now what?
[/quote]
I commend their spirit and work ethic, but we have to look at how many resources the rich use. If it is more than the non-rich, than they should be honored to contribute back to society what they have taken…with force. Think about it. Do corporations use the police to protect their business. Do corporations rely on roads to transport their goods. Do corporations rely on electricy from co-ops. Do the rich rely on the military to protect more of theirs than the man who makes 30,000 per year.
Will the wealthy starve if they are taxed at a higher rate, or will they have to live in a smaller house?
