The U.S. armed forces have been weakened by budget cuts and ideology

Commentary by James Shott

In recent years America’s military has experienced operational readiness issues. A good bit of this is due to budget cuts resulting from the 2013 sequestration, but some sources also blame philosophical ideas about the military within the Obama administration.

Sequestration, as explained by CNN at the time, is “a series of automatic, across-the-board cuts to government agencies, totaling $1.2 trillion over 10 years. The cuts would be split 50-50 between defense and domestic discretionary spending. More than $500 billion will be cut from the Defense Department and other national security agencies, with the rest cut on the domestic side…”

The Pentagon, under then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, planned to reach its mandated cuts through furloughs of hundreds of thousands of civilian workers in combat readiness training and weapons maintenance. He said at the time that the $46 billion in cuts the first year would significantly affect military readiness, and the longer the sequestration lasts, the deeper cuts that will be required to achieve the mandated savings.

Just how badly this has affected military readiness is demonstrated in a Fox News story earlier this month. The U.S. Air Force, the smallest of the four major armed services, has cut staff to the degree that many military personnel now work extra shifts performing administrative jobs previously performed by civilians.

These cuts have put the Air Force in the position of being short 4,000 service personnel to maintain its aircraft and 700 pilots to fly them. Personnel are now cannibalizing parts from planes no longer in service and stored at a desert site called "The Boneyard" and from planes on display in museums to repair active aircraft.

Master Sgt. Bruce Pfrommer, who has worked on B-1 bombers for more than 20 years, told Fox that at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, where the 28th Bomber Wing is located, only nine of the 20 bombers there can fly. Those aircraft are closing in on 10,000 flight hours each, compared to about 1,000 when Pfrommer started working on them 20 years ago.

"Our retention rates are pretty low. Airmen are tired and burnt out,” Staff Sgt. Tyler Miller, of the 28th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Ellsworth, told Fox. "When I first came in seven years ago, we had six people per aircraft — and the lowest man had six or seven years of experience," Miller said. "Today, you have three-man teams and each averages only three years of experience."

The Navy also has operational issues. A Government Accountability Office report issued earlier this month, titled “Navy’s Optimized Fleet Response Plan” (OFRP) discusses problems facing our sea-going service. While the report does not specifically mention sequestration budget cuts, the symptoms support this as a least part of the problem.

An excerpt from the OFRP tells us that:
• Over the past decade, high operational tempo has reduced the predictability of ship deployments for sailors and for the industrial base that supports ship repair and maintenance. For example, carrier strike group deployment lengths have increased from an average of 6.4 months between 2008 – 2011 and 8.2 months between 2012 – 2014, to 9 months for three carrier strike groups in 2015.
• Increased deployment lengths have resulted in declining ship conditions and materiel readiness, and in a maintenance backlog that has not been fully identified or resourced, according to Navy officials.
• The declining condition of ships has increased the duration of time that ships spend undergoing maintenance in the shipyards, which in turn compresses the time available in the schedule for training and operations.

In its 2016 assessment of the four major military branches, the Heritage Foundation shows how true Panetta’s prediction was. The assessment rated the Army as “weak,” and the Navy, Marines and Air Force as “marginal,” rating the U.S. military overall as “marginal.”

In addition to budget cuts, reports of military brass being displeased with President Obama’s policies also pose questions.

Writing in Politico in 2013 Rosa Brooks noted, “In my interviews, however, many senior military leaders complained of feeling baffled and shut out by a White House National Security Staff.”

“The NSS wants to run the show, day to day and minute to minute,” laments a former military official, “so they have no time—they’re almost incapable of strategic thinking.” Another recently retired senior general said, “I don’t understand the process by which the White House is making strategic or foreign-policy decisions. … There’s an appearance of consultation, but you know you won’t be listened to.”

The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution provides that the federal government “provide for the common defense.” But in Article Four, Section Four, it states specifically that the “United States shall guarantee to every State a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion.” No other power of the federal government shares that strong a requirement for performance.

No reasonable observer would contend that the federal government is obeying its Constitutional mandate to “provide for the common defense.”

How does the Commander in Chief plan to fix this?



Cross-posted from Observations

Americans have been sequestered by their elected public servants

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has produced an economic report using The Budget and Economic Outlook: FY 2013 to 2023 from the Congressional Budget Office that paints the true picture of the impact of the sequester on federal spending.

It has become standard practice in recent years for the federal government to spend more than a trillion dollars above what it takes in. In 2013 the budget deficit will be a little over $900 billion, adding nearly another trillion dollars to the national debt. According to Mercatus, the government planned to increase spending by $2.54 trillion through 2023. That represents an increase in government spending of 72 percent over ten years.

And then came the sequester, which President Barack Obama told us would wreak all sorts of havoc on the government and the nation, throwing tens of thousands of Americans out of work, and all manner of other horrors.

We were told that the sequester was a cut to government funding levels, but that was not true. The sequester wasn't cutting anything, merely reducing the amount of additional money government got each year over the previous year, so that over that 10-year period spending would only increase by $2.40 trillion. With the reductions in spending increases under the sequester, spending would still increase by 68 percent over ten years. Instead of spending an average of $540 billion more each year, government could only spend $400 billion more each year. What a hardship.

Putting this equation in dollar amounts that people can identify with, let's say that you earn $43,000 a year, -- the average wage in the U.S. -- and your employer told you that each year for the next ten years you would get paid $2,540 more than the previous year. But then the company had a financial crisis and was only able to pay you $2,400 more than last year, about 5.5 percent less. Would you have to sell your second car to make ends meet? Would you have to move to a less expensive home, or eat only bread and beans? Would your life really change at all because your pay raise was $140 less than you expected?

Actually, you could spend money on things just like you did the preceding year, and have money left over.

Returning to the federal situation, how could the government having $400 billion more to spend in FY 2013 than it had in FY 2012 cause such horrific results as those the president warned us about? Well, because those in the position to create horrific results decided to make the most of the situation, and create as much pain as possible.

And why would they do that? Quoting that famous socialist philosopher, former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste." In other words, use this situation to help you achieve your selfish goals by creating a lot of pain and blaming it on your political opponents.

And how would they do that? Well, when faced with two possible areas to spend less, where one was painful and the other wasn't -- such as not filling government positions opened through attrition (painless) or releasing illegal alien criminals back onto the streets (painful and dumb), these public servants choose to release illegal alien criminals. Of course, everyone with common sense recognizes that decision is stupid and dangerous, but common sense is unwelcome in this entirely political situation. What matters most to these malpracticing public servants is causing enough pain to get the people to clamor for relief from the painful decisions, and restore things to their pre-sequester status.

This is the path that Barack Obama and the other big spenders chose to try to reverse the sequester that was originally their brain child. It is revealing that the president refused to accept the authority to decide how best to accomplish spending a little less than originally envisioned, which was offered to him by U.S. Senators Pat Toomey (R-PA)  and James Inhofe (R-OK), who authored an alternative to give him discretion to allocate the sequester’s cuts largely as he sees fit. Mr. Obama, who never is responsible for anything bad, wanted no part of it, because then whatever pain couldn't be avoided would be his responsibility.

The president wants to blame new economic problems on the sequester. But the actual effects of the sequester are only to reduce budget increases by an amount small enough that competent managers could adequately and nearly painlessly deal with. But, of course, the president turned down that authority.

The real pain and suffering that occurs after the sequester took effect will have resulted primarily from decisions deliberately made to cause pain for no better reason than to allow the president and our other employees in government to create a situation that benefits them and their spending addiction.

This behavior is the antithesis of the ideal of public service and should earn every public servant who indulges in it a quick ejection from their job. Unfortunately, many Americans are more concerned with outcomes than with following an honorable process to achieve them.

Unemployment, droning citizens, and sequester scare-mongering

February's unemployment rate fell from 7.9 percent to 7.7 percent, and the Labor Department’s survey of households found that 170,000 more people were working. But there's a downside: the survey also found that, despite the number of working-age civilians increasing by 165,000, the labor force actually shrank in size instead of growing, and 130,000 fewer people were working or looking for work in February.

The employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) was unchanged at 58.6 percent, exactly the same as the rate in February of 2012, and an anemic four-tenths percent above the low mark in the summer of 2011. This compares with an EPOP of 63.0 percent in 2007 before the crisis struck.

The Labor Force Participation Rate at 63.5 percent was well below the 66-to-67 percent rate that was normal over the last 20 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data show workers remain discouraged and many are unable to find full time employment, or have given up trying.

The U-6 number under the BLS’ “Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization” includes persons who have given up looking for work, as well as the 7.7 percent who are unemployed. That number is 14.3 percent.

Compared with December 2007, when the recession officially began, there are 5.8 million fewer Americans working full time, and there are 2.8 million more working part time. Part-time workers, who usually work fewer than 35 hours a week, are still a minority of the work force, but their share is growing. When the recession began, 16.9 percent of those working usually worked part time. That share rose in 2008 and 2009 and has remained high since, and today stands at 19.2 percent.

This would not be so troubling if people were working fewer hours by choice. But that is not the case.

 * * * *

Isn't it interesting that the same administration that believes foreign terrorists should be brought into the U.S., given the same status in court as actual citizens, provided a defense attorney if they can't afford one, and put on trial as if they had merely shoplifted items at the local grocery store, would equivocate instead of forthrightly condemning the idea of potentially using a drone on U.S. soil to kill a U.S. citizen who was not posing an immediate threat, and do so with no more due process than that someone in the administration thought that person was a threat to the country.

Citizens are guaranteed protection from such third world practices by the 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; non-citizen terrorists -- actual and suspected -- have no such guarantees, and deserve none. This small point apparently escapes the notice of the Obama administration.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) had the good sense to force this issue to the fore by filibustering the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA Director in order to get the administration to furnish more information about its intentions. Some Democrats joined Sen. Paul in holding the administration accountable to the Constitutional protections afforded U.S. citizens.

Ultimately, Mr. Brennan was confirmed, but he took the oath of office by swearing not on a Bible, as is customary, but on a version of the U.S. Constitution that did not include the Bill of Rights.

* * * *

Two of the most prominent aspects of the sequester are the scare-mongering and duplicity of the Obama administration.

First, an example of the false predictions of catastrophe: “Starting tomorrow everybody here, all the folks who are cleaning the floors at the Capitol. Now that Congress has left, somebody’s going to be vacuuming and cleaning those floors and throwing out the garbage. They’re going to have less pay. The janitors, the security guards, they just got a pay cut, and they’ve got to figure out how to manage that. That’s real," President Obama said at a news conference on March 1.

Didn't happen, and was never going to happen.

And now, the duplicity: The Washington Times reported that "Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service official Charles Brown said he asked if he could try to spread out the sequester cuts in his region to minimize the impact, and he said he was told not to do anything that would lessen the dire impacts Congress had been warned of."

Mr. Brown was told in an email: "We have gone on record with a notification to Congress and whoever else that 'APHIS would eliminate assistance to producers in 24 states in managing wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless they provide funding to cover the costs.' So it is our opinion that however you manage that reduction, you need to make sure you are not contradicting what we said the impact would be."

The Armageddon President Obama has forecast could easily be averted by a simple bill in Congress to allow the president to decide what spending to cut and what not to cut, or to allow managers to manage their own budgets. But if the APHIS directive described above reflects the president's attitude, Mr. Obama wants the maximum pain from his boondoggle, and also wants to stay as far away as possible from responsibility for the misery his idea produces.

Breaking News: A new Washington blockbuster is set to debut Friday

By James H. Shott

From the people who raised your moral outrage with "Fast and Furious," drove your anger to fever pitch with "Negligence in Benghazi," and left you scratching your head with "Wasting Billions Again in Green Energyville," comes a new, even-bigger blockbuster that threatens to unleash mass chaos across the land: "The Attack of Sequestration!"

Sequestration is a predetermined set of mandatory cuts to defense and domestic spending totaling $965 billion over the next 10 years. The first round of $85 billon automatically takes effect March 1, unless our elected leaders, the stewards of our government, get busy this week.

There is a great deal of political Tomfoolery associated with this looming event, such as the myth that sequestration represents actual cuts to federal spending — it doesn't. The $965 billion total and the $85 billion for this year represent reductions only in budget increases, not cuts in spending. And even if Congress does not stop sequestration, the federal government will spend $2.14 trillion more in 2022 than it does today.

Then the idea that something so tiny in a federal budget so bloated as ours will be calamitous is just silly. The spending for 2013 is estimated at $3.55 trillion — which is $3,550 billion — and $85 billion is just pocket change. In fact, since the fiscal year is already nearly half over, the damage will be less than that.

And then there's President Obama's idiotic scare tactic that teachers, first responders and other important workers will be laid off. As all informed Americans know, school teachers, fire fighters and police officers are state and local employees, not federal workers, so their jobs won't be directly affected by the sequestration, although cutbacks in programs sending money to the states might have an impact.

Over a 10-year period sequestration would reduce proposed spending increases by about 2.5 percent. In practical terms, that means instead of having $100 to spend, government would only have $97.50, a tough situation, perhaps, but certainly not a catastrophe. And given the enormous and dangerous national debt facing us, it's a sacrifice our public servants will just have to cope with.

The president would have us believe that not only was sequestration the idea of Congressional Republicans, but that he was totally against its development. Both assertions are false. According to author Bob Woodward in his recent book "The Price of Politics," the origins of sequestration rest comfortably with then-White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew (he’s the guy Mr. Obama has nominated to run the economy at the Treasury Department) assisted by then-White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors, and was approved for presentation to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid by President Obama on July 27, 2011. Mr. Woodward referred to Lew and Nabors as "probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government," which explains a lot about why we are where we are.

This is no small point. The president has a penchant for laying the blame for his failures on the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress. He cannot run away from this one.

As for the president's strong opposition to the immensely flawed concept, here is what he said on the subject in November of 2011: “Already, some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts. My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts – domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off-ramps on this one.”

President Obama either has one of the worst memories of anyone to inhabit the office, or simply does not like the truth.

Clearly, even though the "cuts" the Obama sequestration imposes are too small, given the scope of our fiscal crisis, it is a clumsy tool that cuts spending indiscriminately. Typical of the administration's planning, it was poorly thought out, and was designed as a mechanism to bludgeon Republicans to agreeing to even more tax increases than they agreed to last year.

Because it is a rip saw where a surgical laser is needed, sequestration can do serious damage, but it does not have to. Department heads and military service chiefs should have full discretion to apply cuts where they will do the least harm, something that should not be difficult to accomplish by people dedicated to working to sensibly reduce over-spending.

Vast areas of waste and duplication have been well documented, and total at least twice the amount of this year's cuts. And there are truckloads of failed government programs and projects – like Head Start, putting a muzzle on the Environmental Protection Agency, and doing away with SWAT teams carrying out the work of the Department of Education, the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies that have no business using that kind of force.

Of course, this solution assumes that the elected leaders of our government start doing what is good for the country instead of what benefits them politically. And now is the time for the President of the United States to stop campaigning and finally show some real leadership.

 Cross-posted from Observations

Thoughts on the "Fiscal Cliff"

First my apologies, for these comments on the "fiscal cliff" will not be as complete as I would like.

Based on information from a financial advisor, I understand the "fiscal cliff" to consist of the following events:

• Expiration of general tax cuts, which will result in $255 billion revenue
• Expiration of payroll tax cuts, which will result in $112 billion revenue
• Sequestration hits which will cut $55 billion from the military budget (which could continue each year for 10 years), and cut $55 billion from non-defense spending in 2013
• Implementation of an Alternative Minimum Tax patch, which will increase revenues by $38 billion
• Implementation of PPACA (Obamacare) taxes on investments, which will generate $21 billion in revenue

This will result in a total of about $536 billion in additional revenue, or 3.5% of America's GDP, which will result in a negative GDP for early 2013--the "fiscal cliff."

I find it reprehensible that our national "leaders" are posturing as if they are our saviors from the "fiscal cliff" when they are the ones who created this problem.

Our "leaders" involved us in two wars, one (Iraq) most certainly a war of choice, on the cheap, meaning that the American people got tax breaks while the debts from the wars piled up.  It was as if we were being bribed to accept the wars, and now we are paying the price.  Anytime America chooses to go to war, the price of war needs to be immediately felt by the People so that we are more thoughtful about the wars we undertake in the future.  Now we see these wartime tax cuts going away--one component of the "fiscal cliff."

Our "leaders" passed Obamacare, another (unnecessary) component of the "fiscal cliff"...and a threat to our liberties.

Sequestration will happen because the budget supercommittee could not reach an agreement on how to cut $1.2 trillion deficit reduction package as per the Budget Control Act (August 2011). (source)  Another component of the "cliff."

And now we expect our "leaders" to do the right thing.  How can we when their behavior is to the contrary?  For example, the Senate has failed to pass a budget for the past four years.  This is clear dereliction of duty and Congress should either not receive their salaries until they pass a budget, or just go to jail.  And these are the people who will "save" us now?

Our current crisis has been generated by the national "leadership" on both sides of the aisle, not by some alien from another world.  They should be held accountable.  We need to go over this "fiscal cliff" and more so that the American people finally wake up and see our "leadership" for who they are and demand accountability.

It is clear by their actions that the people in all three branches of the government no longer represent We The People, but something else.  This drama being played out over the "fiscal cliff" obscures the real problem which is a true existential threat to our nation: our accelerating national debt.

--Against All Enemies

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Disclaimer: These opinions are solely my own, and do not reflect the opinions or official positions of any United States Government agency, organization or department.