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FYI Air Force Museum cutbacks


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Take out a lot of pork from spending, like $10 million to study mating habits of snails. Stop building new runways for private airports that have very little business and maybe cut Air Force one's flying to twice a month instead of twice a week. Plenty of areas that can be cut without messing with the defense budget. And reopen the White House tours for the public and cut back on vacations.

Frank

ATL

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Simple solutions to the looming SS and Medicare shortfalls:

If you lifted the salary cap on Social Security and Medicare (currently you only pay SS tax on the first $110k of income), you could keep them fully funded until 2070. If you increased the social security tax by 1% over a decade (0.1% per year, you will keep them fully funded for the next 150 years!)

I can more than afford that, and would gladly pay it to keep these programs vested and alive for the future.

Edited by wookieefood
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Hamilton is expensive from what I hear and I've also heard you cant get close enough to the touch most of the aircraft, such as the lancaster.

Well, maybe you can't touch it during the airshow, but you sure as heck can get right up to it at the Museum during the winter. I do every year at the Hamilton model show, which is in the museum. And if you REALLY want to have fun, only a small cost of $2,000 per person will get you a 1 hour ride in the lancaster in the summer months.

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Plenty of areas that can be cut without messing with the defense budget.

Just out of curiosity, since we are spending an order of magnitude more than any other nation for defense - why would we not want to "mess" with the military's budget?

Iraq is done. We'll be out of Afghanistan in a couple of years. Despite the really scary talk from N Korea, I don't expect to see them invading Hawaii anytime soon. Plenty of bloated DoD programs that can be cut. Plenty of personnel reductions and base closures to save even more money.

I know talk like this won't go over well on a fan boy website like ARC but let's keep it real. The military is long overdue for some major reductions and after they occur, we will still be the most heavily defended nation on the planet.

Or as you put it, we can eliminate the snail study and cut back on Air Force One flight hours. That should make up the shortfall quite easily.

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Iraq is done. We'll be out of Afghanistan in a couple of years. Despite the really scary talk from N Korea, I don't expect to see them invading Hawaii anytime soon. Plenty of bloated DoD programs that can be cut. Plenty of personnel reductions and base closures to save even more money...

Brilliant! So that way we can give the people who use to have jobs money through social welfare and unemployment systems instead AND cut back on our defensive capabilities at the same time. Then we can have MORE people not working and less people paying for them.

and that scary talk? nahhh...don't worry about that. I'm sure it's nothing. I mean it's not like anyone ever attacked Hawaii before at a time when we had cut our military. It'd never happen...again.

Bill

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Contrary to popular belief, the US Department of Defense has NEVER maintained a "war budget." When the DoD gets its budget, it is spent in 3 major categories: acquisition, personnel, and operations & maintenance. Very little of that money is discretionary.

A war budget, is not part of the DOD's Budget, there is a good reason for that. Tho, the DOD does have a nice little piggy bank/ Funds put aside that could be looked at as a war budget.

The AF at large took such a huge hit to its flying hour program (in order to cut the percentage of the remaining annual budget....remember, we're already halfway through the fiscal year)

They got 5 percent more for half that fiscal year you write of, then their Budget asked for. The other half was "supposed" to be cut by 3 percent.

Do the Math.

I'm quite certain English is not your second language.

LOL. As luck would have it The Bastardized/sloppy version you think is English, is, in fact, my second Language.

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The real issue is that people want everything, but don't want to pay for it. Ask any tea partier, or any normal person what specific program they want the government to cut and they will all give you the same answer: _____________ and give you a blank stare while they think for a minute or two.

Most of our financial problems can be fixed by very simple solutions, but the lobbyists and corporations who control the politicians are getting insanely rich off of gridlock so that is what we have now. If we want our republic back, we have to take it back.

robot squirrels...

robo-squirrel.png

Edited by zerosystem
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Take out a lot of pork from spending, like $10 million to study mating habits of snails. Stop building new runways for private airports that have very little business and maybe cut Air Force one's flying to twice a month instead of twice a week. Plenty of areas that can be cut without messing with the defense budget. And reopen the White House tours for the public and cut back on vacations.

Frank

ATL

I would really like to know where the FAA funded a private airport. A some years back the small town airport that I worked at was put up for sale by the city council because "we don't want to support some millionaire's hobby (actual quote from a city councilman, completely ignoring the fact the mayors bass boat, trailer and pickup cost more than 75% of the planes based at that airport). The very next meeting of the city council a couple of gentlemen from the "Friendly" Aviation Administration showed up and explained that yes the city could sell the airport, But, as they had used FAA funding to purchase the land, upgrade to a paved runway and other airport facilities over the years, the city would be expected to refund all the monies the FAA had spent on the airport since it's inception plus all the interest the monies would have made over those years. Needless to say, that particular city still owns the airport!

Edited by Hawk10
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and that scary talk? nahhh...don't worry about that. I'm sure it's nothing. I mean it's not like anyone ever attacked Hawaii before at a time when we had cut our military. It'd never happen...again.

Bill

Good point. Those scary NK's are just biding their time until we make a token cut to our bloated defense budget. I can't wait to see the photos of Dear Leader Kim walking around Waikiki beach in a speedo, handing out medals to his victorious invasion force.

Even if we cut the defense budget 25%, we'd still be the most heavily armed nation on the planet. You have nothing to worry about Bill.

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Even if we cut the defense budget 25%, we'd still be the most heavily armed nation on the planet. You have nothing to worry about Bill.

The most heavily armed AND TASKED military on the planet. People sometimes think that our military has been used strickly for the defense of our country where the truth of the matter is, we haven't had to actually militarily "defend" our nation since the cold war (if much then). IF the military was used just to defend the territory of the U.S. then yes, I'd agree with you that we have more than enough to accomplish this task. But that's just a fraction of what we ask of our forces. And if you ask them, they'll tell you that if much more comes up, (like a war with some small Asian island) then we will be stretching our man power pretty thin. Dangerously thin for the men that have to fight it. Especially when you consider that we fight our battles with a high standard of at least trying to not hurt innocent people. If we were engaged in all out war where it was "level any place where we're fighting", sure we could walk away in no time flat. But that's not what we do.

Bill

Edited by niart17
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The most heavily armed AND TASKED military on the planet. People sometimes think that our military has been used strickly for the defense of our country where the truth of the matter is, we haven't had to actually militarily "defend" our nation since the cold war (if much then). IF the military was used just to defend the territory of the U.S. then yes, I'd agree with you that we have more than enough to accomplish this task. But that's just a fraction of what we ask of our forces. And if you ask them, they'll tell you that if much more comes up, (like a war with some small Asian island) then we will be stretching our man power pretty thin. Dangerously thin for the men that have to fight it. Especially when you consider that we fight our battles with a high standard of at least trying to not hurt innocent people. If we were engaged in all out war where it was "level any place where we're fighting", sure we could walk away in no time flat. But that's not what we do.

Bill

Again a good point. So it sounds like we actually need to increase spending so we can ensure that the US will remain the worlds' police force. All the while, our allies are able to spend only a fraction of what we spend on defense, secure in the knowledge that the US will come to their aid in the event of any future armed conflict.

Maybe that is the why the rest of the developed world has "luxuries" like modern transportation systems, high speed rail, functional highways, effective education systems, etc, while the US is looking more and more like a second-world nation.

Hey, at least we got us some kick-a** fighter planes!

"Don't mess with the US"

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Again a good point. So it sounds like we actually need to increase spending so we can ensure that the US will remain the worlds' police force. All the while, our allies are able to spend only a fraction of what we spend on defense, secure in the knowledge that the US will come to their aid in the event of any future armed conflict.

Maybe that is the why the rest of the developed world has "luxuries" like modern transportation systems, high speed rail, functional highways, effective education systems, etc, while the US is looking more and more like a second-world nation.

Hey, at least we got us some kick-a** fighter planes!

"Don't mess with the US"

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing the merits of what we currently do with our military. Should we be a "Global Force for Good" as much as we currently are and try to be "peacekeepers" everywhere? I don't know. But I do know that if we ARE to continue to ask the military to pull these missions, it is not fair to tell then you have to do it with less people and equipment. That's my point.

And not to get too political, but the problems with some of the "luxuries" you've listed have little to do with funding, it's more to do with policies and practices. We could easily have the best of ALL of those systems, with a smaller budget even. But policies, the performance of those policies and the effeciencies of the system are what most of the problems are. Not blaming either "party" there, they are all to blame. The fact that the government could even be a problem with those systems IS the problem IMHO. Too much envolvment where they don't belong.

But still, as of today I still wouldn't rather live anywhere else in the world than here. We still are the model of freedom. How much longer we stay that way is in question more and more daily, but so far we're doing ok.

Bill

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and that scary talk? nahhh...don't worry about that. I'm sure it's nothing. I mean it's not like anyone ever attacked Hawaii before at a time when we had cut our military. It'd never happen...again.

The US was in the midst of a massive military buildup when Pearl Harbor was attacked; eleven Essex-class carriers, six Iowa-class battleships, and five Montana-class battleships, and numerous smaller ships had been ordered in the previous year alone.

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing the merits of what we currently do with our military. Should we be a "Global Force for Good" as much as we currently are and try to be "peacekeepers" everywhere? I don't know. But I do know that if we ARE to continue to ask the military to pull these missions, it is not fair to tell then you have to do it with less people and equipment. That's my point.

And not to get too political, but the problems with some of the "luxuries" you've listed have little to do with funding, it's more to do with policies and practices. We could easily have the best of ALL of those systems, with a smaller budget even. But policies, the performance of those policies and the effeciencies of the system are what most of the problems are. Not blaming either "party" there, they are all to blame. The fact that the government could even be a problem with those systems IS the problem IMHO. Too much envolvment where they don't belong.

But still, as of today I still wouldn't rather live anywhere else in the world than here. We still are the model of freedom. How much longer we stay that way is in question more and more daily, but so far we're doing ok.

Bill

Have to say, I agree w/ you 100% on the above.

Don't think we should be involved all over the world but if our elected leaders decide to do so, we have an obligation to ensure the troops have everything required to do the job. Still would argue that we could cut a significant amount AND keep a cutting edge military but that's probably a topic for a dedicated thread (which would more than likely be locked down in a short time anyway).

Regards,

John

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The US was in the midst of a massive military buildup when Pearl Harbor was attacked; eleven Essex-class carriers, six Iowa-class battleships, and five Montana-class battleships, and numerous smaller ships had been ordered in the previous year alone.

True, but we were still ill prepared for a two front war with the forces we had at the time. Hence the massive build-up and draft after Pearl Harbor. You do realize that had our carriers been where they were planned on being, we may have lost a HUGE portion of our navy in just one attack? And back then it wasn't a stretch for a company such as Ford or Goodyear or whatever to convert over and start producing weapons using whatever available workforce we had. These days I don't think it would be quite as smooth as it was back then. I doubt very seriously Ford could modify their facilities to start producing F-16's let alone F-22's and/or tanks, missles whatever. Some would say we wouldn't need to, we're so much more advanced than everyone else as it is. Maybe we are, maybe we aren't. But I wouldn't want to have to find out we brought the proverbial knife to a gunfight AFTER the battles started.

Anyway, this is WAAAAAY off topic and I appologize to the OP. I just got caught up in the discussion because it is an interesting subject. What is enough in todays world?

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