Facts are a b!tch, aren’t they, Tommy boy?

What goes around comes around. And it couldn’t have happened to a more appropriate libtard.

GayPatriot – doing the work the MSM used to do.

Regards,
Peter H.

The military-industrial complex of Eisenhower’s meaning was an iron triangle which would have been better named the military-industrial-Congressional district triangle. But even then Eisenhower’s warning does not account for Jack Murtha.

Murtha has robbed the defense budget for his district. This is from the Wall Street Journal:

One beneficiary is New Jersey-based DRS Technologies Inc., a multibillion-dollar maker of military electronics. The company entered Mr. Murtha’s district a decade ago when it bought a small cable assembler. Since then, the congressman has helped fund nearly $400 million in contracts for the local DRS unit, building data-display terminals installed in Navy destroyers and submarines.

The Pentagon didn’t ask for many of these contracts in its annual budget requests. Mr. Murtha assured the work would be done in his district by earmarking part of the program to DRS.

Paired with prime contractor Lockheed Martin Corp., the DRS unit helped build more than 4,000 display terminals in the past decade, some costing as much as $240,000 each. A former Murtha staffer, Paul Magliocchetti, helped get the funding through Mr. Murtha’s committee. He was paid $3.2 million by DRS over the period for his lobbying efforts, federal records show. Since 1989, Mr. Magliocchetti and executives of Lockheed and DRS have given more than $377,000 to Murtha campaign committees.

Mr. Magliocchetti, who has built a lobbying business winning Murtha earmarks for dozens of companies, won’t discuss his work. “No comment,” he says. “I’m just a former staffer.” A spokesman for DRS, Richard Goldberg, also wouldn’t comment on Mr. Murtha. “We have a world-class manufacturing facility in Johnstown, and a skilled, reliable work force,” he said. A Murtha spokesman says the program has saved money for the Navy by using commercial, off-the-shelf components.

Military officers and agency officials sometimes gripe about congressional orders to spend money on projects they didn’t ask for. But the Pentagon tends to go along with Congress to facilitate earmarks, keeping lawmakers happy and ensuring political support for other military programs. T. Michael Mosely, the Air Force chief of staff and a featured guest at this summer’s Murtha breakfast, shrugs off the issue. Congressional earmarks for local projects have been in the military budget “for at least 200 years,” he says.

Congressional oversight is often a sham. When you cut the military by 10% it is the common fool’s assumption that the admirals will get smaller cars and the $600 dollar hammers will be canceled. But the fact is, that cutting the budget is no easier than base closings. There are political fingers in every nook and cranny of military spending.

Obama promised to keep lobbyists out and then appointed some of the biggest whales in the lobbyist tank. If (and I doubt he will do it) he cuts the military, it will be Congressional district by Congressional district. And the Murthas will try to grab the appropriation from some losing district rather than watch it disappear. Congress is made up of jackals and hyenas. They constantly circle the military budget. Why would they waste their time trying to feed off the little stuff?

However, much of the waste is actually foisted on the military by members of Congress who grab Congressional district pork through military spending in exchange for other support of various defense projects. The Pentagon is fully staffed with folks who “coordinate” spending with members of Congress. Not long ago, the USN built a huge pier facility in Rhode Island. It is great for cruise ships and the likes, but the Navy no longer uses the port. How better to get urban upgrades than to get it budgeted as part of “national security?”

I was involved with the military for 25 years, am a life member in the Air Force Association and consider myself very pro-military.

If the service secretaries, Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Staff put aside service rivalries, took to heart Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex and carefully and honestly took a sharp scapel to the Pentagon’s budget, ten percent could be cut without any significant impact on our military’s training, readiness and morale.

It would help a lot if a couple of the services stopped pouring billions into some weapons systems that are never going to work — and if, miracle of miracles, they did work they’d be useless fighting Islamic radicals who hide in caves.

Meh. Same ol’, same ol’…

“Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter. ”

Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507.

[Yoda] You must… *feeeeeeeelll* the Change and the Hope… between you.. the tree… Obama… the rock… yes… even Daschle.

[Obi-wan] This is a dangerous time for you. You can feel the Change and the Hope… but you cannot control it.