Heckuva of a job georgie
Nov. 21st, 2007 09:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumThe President is being his usual self.
That is, he wants what he wants and if he can't have it; he's going to blame you.
This time he's planning to screw the troops, and their families, to show how heartless, and unpatriotic, and not supportive of the war the Democrats are.
How... by using his discretion to lay off, just before the holidays, some 15,000 people working on military bases. Why?
Because the Congress had the temerity to put a timeline into one of his supplemtental funding requests. Those "requests" are have been a great piece of theater. A way to 1: Keep the war out of the budget (so he can show how "fiscally responsible" he is) 2: Routinely beat up on the Democrats, when they question the smallest item; no matter if it has nothing to do with the war. 3: Show how powerless the Democrats are when faced with his swaggering ways (because they have, to date, basically rolled over; every time).
Forget the fact that using supplemental funding is wrong (in 2002/2003, yeah. Even if the decision to go to war in Iraq was made in 2001, there was no way to predict the initial costs, and Afghanistan was sort of the same. By 2004, Afghanistan's basic costs ought to have been on the books, and Iraq too. Things like the "surge" are suplemental, but the cost of Anaconda, or Speicher... nope), and that he could avoid such things as Congress using his repeated trips to ask for an increase his allowance to point out what he should do to earn it, by just putting the war in the budget. Heck, we went in the hole for every other war, what makes him think the American People wouldn't do it for this one?
But back to the subject at hand.
I don't know who wrote this little playlet for him, but it's stupid.
1: His standing in the polls is at least as low as Nixon's was.
2: He has the money to keep the war going. Congress even allowed him to move funds from other DoD pots to cover shortfalls.
3: This will affect troop morale, in ways a delay in funding won't.
4: That affect on morale is more likely than not, to cost military voters for the Republicans next time around.
The last two are interesting. A large number of the employees who are going to be laid off, are spouses of soldiers. This is Christmas he is talking about hitting them in the pocketbook. Increasting the homse-side worry for deployed toops, and the quality of life for those stateside.
So those guys are more likely to be pissed at Bush, than anyone else (a lot of the resentment, in the rank and file, to Clinton was the effects of the BRAC reductions, which were approved under Bush pere, but implemented under Clinton).
The army is also more group-minded than a lot of other people who get screwed in a tactical layoff. The grips, the set-dressers and caterers who aren't being hurt by the writers' strike aren't going to identify so strongly with the grips, the set-dressers and caterers who are.
Not so in the army. The sqaud leaders, buddies and families of guys who are struggling, as the Holidays come around are going to carry a bit of a grudge too.
Army sentiment has been shifting, the Republican Party (per polls in Stars and Stripes, and the Gannett Army/Marines/Navy/Air Force Times) has been losing it's predominant place in the minds of the services. This ain't gonna help.
That is, he wants what he wants and if he can't have it; he's going to blame you.
This time he's planning to screw the troops, and their families, to show how heartless, and unpatriotic, and not supportive of the war the Democrats are.
How... by using his discretion to lay off, just before the holidays, some 15,000 people working on military bases. Why?
Because the Congress had the temerity to put a timeline into one of his supplemtental funding requests. Those "requests" are have been a great piece of theater. A way to 1: Keep the war out of the budget (so he can show how "fiscally responsible" he is) 2: Routinely beat up on the Democrats, when they question the smallest item; no matter if it has nothing to do with the war. 3: Show how powerless the Democrats are when faced with his swaggering ways (because they have, to date, basically rolled over; every time).
Forget the fact that using supplemental funding is wrong (in 2002/2003, yeah. Even if the decision to go to war in Iraq was made in 2001, there was no way to predict the initial costs, and Afghanistan was sort of the same. By 2004, Afghanistan's basic costs ought to have been on the books, and Iraq too. Things like the "surge" are suplemental, but the cost of Anaconda, or Speicher... nope), and that he could avoid such things as Congress using his repeated trips to ask for an increase his allowance to point out what he should do to earn it, by just putting the war in the budget. Heck, we went in the hole for every other war, what makes him think the American People wouldn't do it for this one?
But back to the subject at hand.
I don't know who wrote this little playlet for him, but it's stupid.
1: His standing in the polls is at least as low as Nixon's was.
2: He has the money to keep the war going. Congress even allowed him to move funds from other DoD pots to cover shortfalls.
3: This will affect troop morale, in ways a delay in funding won't.
4: That affect on morale is more likely than not, to cost military voters for the Republicans next time around.
The last two are interesting. A large number of the employees who are going to be laid off, are spouses of soldiers. This is Christmas he is talking about hitting them in the pocketbook. Increasting the homse-side worry for deployed toops, and the quality of life for those stateside.
So those guys are more likely to be pissed at Bush, than anyone else (a lot of the resentment, in the rank and file, to Clinton was the effects of the BRAC reductions, which were approved under Bush pere, but implemented under Clinton).
The army is also more group-minded than a lot of other people who get screwed in a tactical layoff. The grips, the set-dressers and caterers who aren't being hurt by the writers' strike aren't going to identify so strongly with the grips, the set-dressers and caterers who are.
Not so in the army. The sqaud leaders, buddies and families of guys who are struggling, as the Holidays come around are going to carry a bit of a grudge too.
Army sentiment has been shifting, the Republican Party (per polls in Stars and Stripes, and the Gannett Army/Marines/Navy/Air Force Times) has been losing it's predominant place in the minds of the services. This ain't gonna help.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 06:41 pm (UTC)But I'm skeptical about this, in that I think it might have been policy for a while, and this is just getting played up.