40 Members of Congress Don't Want Cuts to Army?

Odierno: More troops in Afghanistan may get pink slips
Stars and Stripes
By Jon Harper
Published: September 20, 2014

(Here are the highlights)

Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ariz., said in a written statement in July. “It’s deplorable the Obama administration would treat them this way.”

Hmm, can only guess that he was AWOL when the Congress passed sequestration when they couldn't pass a budget ahead of that.

Active duty Army end strength is slated to drop from 510,000 troops this year to 490,000 in 2015. Defense officials expect it to go down to about 450,000 by 2019. If lawmakers don’t put an end to budget cutbacks known as sequestration, which are scheduled to go back into effect in 2016, the force level could fall to 420,000.

Congress comes up with the Bills and Congress controls the money. When do politicians understand the rest of the country has grown very tired of hearing it isn't their fault?

Odierno blamed lawmakers for soldiers losing their jobs. He told reporters that he recently received about 40 letters from members of Congress asking him not to cut soldiers from bases in their districts.
read more of this here

Sequestration cuts put 550 Army Majors out of service

Army to Force out 550 Majors; Some in Afghanistan
Associated Press
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
WASHINGTON — Aug 1, 2014

The Army says it will soon notify 550 majors that they must leave the service by next spring as part of a budget-driven downsizing of the service.

Some of those soldiers will get the bad news while they are on the front lines in Afghanistan.

Gen. John Campbell says notifying troops on the warfront that they are out of a job is difficult. But he says some could join the National Guard or the Army Reserve.
read more here

Sequestration Continues to Shrink Armed Forces

What is happening with our military?

Some Army captains prepping to leave, majors to be alerted
Fort Hood Sentinel
By Dave Larsen, Chief, Command Information
JULY 24, 2014
NEWS

As the Army looks to reduce its force to 490,000 by the end of fiscal year 2015 and 450,000 by the end of FY ’17, a military personnel official from Fort Hood said Tuesday that 213 captains within III Corps were recently identified by the Army Officer Separation Board to transition from the service in the coming months.

At Fort Hood, 91 captains were affected by the OSB, according to Jay Whitaker, the senior military personnel officer, or G1, with Fort Hood’s Mission Support Element.

Why is it happening?

As noted repeatedly over the past several months by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, force reductions are based on the Army’s budget.

If sequestration continues, however, there is a possibility that the Armywide personnel end-strength could go as low at 420,000, to include additional reductions in brigade combat teams.

Enough said!

Lt. colonel writes plea to help 'pink slip' soldiers

She is right. There is no political will to fix what sequestration did to the military. Why? Because the President gets to blame Congress and Congress gets to blame him. The House sure isn't interested in doing anything other than complaining about how bad things are as they hope no one notices they are behind all of it.

Commentary: Lt. colonel writes plea to help 'pink slip' soldiers
Army Times
By Lt. Col. Amanda Rossi
Jul. 14, 2014
[Editor’s note: The following is a letter to the editor.]

The reduction in force in the Army ranks has historical precedence. The Army grows to fight a war and when the war is over — the Army shrinks. This is no different than what occurred after the First Gulf War and others, except now we are turning our service members out into a less-than-ideal economy that does not seem prepared to absorb them within the labor market.

It isn’t just young officers that will be thanked for their service and asked to leave. Noncommissioned officers will be told to do the same. Young troops with young families will struggle to find pay and benefits equal to that of what they have enjoyed in the military. It’s going to be hard for many.

The drawdown is going to happen and is happening. There’s no political will to reverse the decision. There’s not likely to be any substantive political outrage over sending pink slips to the battlefield. Clearly no one considered the effects of the doubling down of transitioning from the battlefield to home while simultaneously transitioning from Soldier to civilian. We did a poor job of preparing our troops and their families for the reality of what was to come. Now all we are left with is how well we take care of our transitioning troops. We need to get at least that much right.
read more here

Passage of defense authorization bill will create winners, losers

Passage of defense authorization bill will create winners, losers
Stars and Stripes
By Leo Shane III
Published: December 19, 2013

WASHINGTON -- After a long, lurching journey, the annual defense authorization bill appears poised to become law in the next few days. The final version is a stripped-down measure of sweeping issues lawmakers hoped to tackle, but still contains plenty of interest for servicemembers and their families.

Winner: Sex assault prosecutions


The massive overhaul of the military justice system that many advocates wanted isn’t in the final legislation, but the bill does include a host of new provisions designed to protect military sex assault victims. Among them: removing commanders ability to overturn jury convictions, requiring a dishonorable discharge for sex assault offenders and more legal assistance for victims.
read more here

Senate provision would speed cutbacks of officers and Army, Marine enlisted

Senate plan would speed personnel cuts
Senate provision would speed cutbacks of officers and Army, Marine enlisted
Army Times
Rick Maze
Dec. 4, 2013

Gillibrand’s plan does not change the Defense Department’s goal of an active-duty force of 1.32 million service members in 2018, about 73,000 fewer than in 2013. Defense plans called for the Army to drop to 490,000 active-duty soldiers and the Marine Corps to drop to 182,1000, reductions of 64,000 for the Army and 15,000 from the Marine Corps from pre-9/11 levels.

The military services could get smaller faster under Pentagon proposals that have the support of a key senator.

One proposal would expand the pool of active-duty officers eligible for selective early retirement, making O-5s eligible for involuntary retirement after being passed over for promotion just once.

A second proposal would increase potential personnel cuts being made in the Army and Marine Corps by modifying drawdown limits imposed by Congress.

The Army would be allowed to cut active-duty soldiers by 25,000 a year, 10,000 more than allowed under current law, while the Marine Corps could cut up to 7,500 Marines a year, 2,500 more than now allowed.

The two changes are supported by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee’s personnel panel. She offered the changes as amendments to S 1197, the Senate’s version of the 2014 defense authorization bill.

The House never took up these Pentagon proposals because they were sent to Congress after the House passed its version of the defense bill in June.

For the moment, the fate of the proposals hinges on whether the Senate can pass its massive defense policy bill, aides said.
read more here

Military training changed over sequestration budget cuts

Military alters training to deal with budget woes
Associated Press
By BRETT BARROUQUERE and SUSANNE M. SCHAFER
Posted: Nov 24, 2013

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) - The skies above Shaw Air Force Base in central South Carolina and the fields across Fort Campbell on the Tennessee-Kentucky line have been a bit quieter in recent months.

Budget cuts to the military have forced installations around the country to alter training exercises and daily routines to save money. For airmen and pilots, that means fewer flights. For soldiers and Marines, it means fewer drills or delaying them until a deployment nears.

The automatic budget cuts, known as sequestration, come as the military is in the midst of a drawdown in Afghanistan and shrinking its overall size.

The Army has retooled training regimens to focus on soldiers deploying to Afghanistan and Korea - those who will be in hostile areas soonest, said George Wright, a civilian Army spokesman in Washington. The Army curtailed training to smaller units of eight to 14 soldiers each -the squad level - for 80 percent of the fighting force in fiscal year 2013 and canceled seven Brigade Combat Team training center rotations.

In cases where only part of a brigade is deploying from Fort Campbell, some soldiers are being pushed into field training while others are held back until their departure date draws nearer, spokesman Bob Jenkins said.
read more here

Congress putting military lives in danger with cuts

Tell your member of Congress stop screwing around with our troops!

Service chiefs: Spending cuts equal troop casualties
Army Times
By Andrew Tilghman
Staff writer
November 7, 2013
Army

The Pentagon’s top brass ratcheted up their rhetoric Thursday with a unified message to Congress: Defense spending cuts will mean more troop casualties.

At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, all four service chiefs said the impact of the budget reductions known as sequestration will mean a smaller force that receives less training, resulting in greater risk to troops in the event of large-scale combat deployments.

“If we get too small, then our ability to protect our own force is at risk,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno told lawmakers.

Military leaders have to balance an instinct to keep force levels high with a need to prevent a so-called hollow force that is poorly trained or ill-equipped. At current spending levels, the Army faces the prospect of leaner training along with slowing or canceling new hardware programs such as the ground combat vehicle, armed aerial scout, aviation upgrades, unmanned aerial vehicles and the modernization of air defenses, Odierno said.

“We will not be able to train them for the mission they’re going to have to do. We will have to send them without the proper training — and actually maybe [without] proper equipment. ... So that always relates to potentially higher casualties,” Odierno said.

Marine Corps

“We are headed towards a force in not too many years that will be hollow back home and not ready to deploy,” Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos said. “And if they do deploy, they will enter harm’s way, we’ll end up with more casualties.”

Specifically, Amos said the Corps can no longer afford its longstanding target size of 186,800 Marines and will have to shrink its force to about 174,000. At that level, he said, Marines will be unable to meet expectations under the Defense Department’s current national security strategy.

Navy

Lawmakers heard a similar warning from Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations.

“You have to be there with confident and proficient people. And if they’re not confident and proficient, then you’re talking more casualties,” Greenert said. “We will be slipping behind in capability, reduced force structure and reduced contingency response.”

Air Force

The Air Force is facing the prospect of cutting 25,000 airmen, or about 7 percent of its force, and also about 550 aircraft, or about 9 percent of its inventory, Welsh said.

The Air Force will be “forced to divest entire fleets of aircraft. We can’t do it by cutting a few aircraft from each fleet,” Welsh said, a veiled reference to the A-10, a popular tactical fighter that has provided close-air support to ground troops throughout the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Read more here. I'd post more but I'm too busy screaming!

Tea Party Cruz caused shutdown then complains?

Tea Party Cruz caused shutdown then complains?
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 14, 2013

The government shutdown when the Tea Party reps took control and now they are upset. Seriously? Protesting in Washington after they got what they wanted? Talk about sore winners.

Cruz, Palin joined protesters at WWII Memorial but while they complain about the memorials being shut down and a bunch of their supporters tried to pretend the veterans really matter more than politics, you need to know what didn't manage to get them to protests before this.

Background on the Tea Party comes with what they posted online. They didn't think of what the government actually does when they wanted to destroy what the government does.

King of the government raiders is up for grabs. First we have Paul Ryan the man with the control of the US budget. He is the reason we haven't had a budget passed by the House that could pass the Senate or avoid a veto. Paul Ryan never thought about veterans very much. Ryan wanted to cut the VA budget taking off 1.3 million veterans and he forgot to put the money in to take care of veterans out of the another budget. Nice job!

Then we have Ted Cruz. He is responsible for the government shutdown but he ended up in Washington DC with a protest that was supposed to be about the war memorials being shutdown, by the government shutdown Cruz and Ryan caused in the first place. Did this actually make sense to the people listening to him?

Getting off the track here because I am ready to pop my cork and not in a good way.

Putting on a show at the memorials was a publicity stunt and noting more. It was supposed to be "a million" people showing up to protest the government shutdown but while they took down barriers to put them in front of the White House, they left behind the disabled WWII veterans at their memorial.

Protesters then made their way to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial before converging at the White House shortly before noon.

With that said lets look at what else they have been not prompted to protest, or even mention.

First what they caused with sequestration because they couldn't put together a budget thanks to Paul Ryan.

February 2013 before the shutdown,

The Defense Department intends to notify Congress on Wednesday of a plan to furlough nearly 800,000 civilian employees one day each week beginning in April, a defense official said Tuesday.

Federal law requires the Pentagon to warn Congress of furloughs at least 45 days in advance, and other regulations require direct notification of employees at least 30 days in advance.

Cutting workdays and pay will happen if Congress does not find a way to avert budget cuts known as “sequestration,” which are scheduled to kick in March 1 and cut $500 billion out of the Pentagon budget over the coming decade. Military leaders have warned of constricted operations, reduced weapons buys and eventually, reduced end strength for the services.

American Legion Commander "Washington is failing troops and veterans"
Army veteran James Koutz of Boonville, Ind., national commander of the American Legion, criticized politicians for using the defense budget and service members as pawns in a battle over deficit reduction and spending priorities.

He also objected to attempts to increase out-of-pocket Tricare costs for retirees and opposed a recent Pentagon move to create a new medal for drone operators that ranks higher in precedence than some medals awarded to combat troops on the ground.

Army plans $92 million in cuts at West Point

Fort Hood Families Take Part In Army's Online Fiscal Cliff Chat

The three main topics were impact on soldier training, civilian furloughs, and how they could affect programs and services to military families.

"I'm concerned about retirement pay," says Tamma Ruth.

After 23 years as an Army wife, Tamma is intently tuning into the buzz over automatic spending cuts.

She says, "My husband has served, and been in Iraq, and been in harm's way for a long time, and I think he deserves to have his full military retirement."

As thousands of civilian medical workers are furloughed because of the “sequester,” patients will be sent to private doctors at public expense to receive timely medical care, according to the military medical officials.

“This will result in increased medical care costs to the DOD (Department of Defense) and American taxpayers,” says an Army Public Affairs statement released this week.

DOD cuts meal tickets for combat wounded at Walter Reed Hospital The decision forces amputees and troops receiving long-term care to trek nearly a half-mile across the Walter Reed campus to a temporary “food trailer,” instead of the facility down the hall from their rooms, Fox reported.

Then by May it got worse when they cut staff at military hospitals.

Hospital officials say the furloughs affect 2,392 caregivers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. That’s 94% of the civilian staff there.

Officials say 1,163 caregivers at Fort Belvoir’s hospital in Virginia are being furloughed, affecting 85% of its civilian staff.

I can keep going on and on but the most obvious thing that stands out is this protest in Washington was a publicity stunt the press fell for. Had they really cared, they would have had a massive protest in Washington when all of this started to slam veterans, their families and the troops. The truth is so much more uglier than they have led the public to believe.

As for Ted Cruz, we know what he pulled off and the rest the Republicans fell in line to make sure they didn't have to work for a living. Part of their jobs is to fund all the programs they already approved and no, they don't get to just forget that even though they try to.

So while Cruz decided to go to the memorials and blame everyone but himself and the Tea Party that planned for all of this, the veterans got left behind the same way they were left behind so that Cruz could protest at the White House because he didn't get his own way.

Is there any reason left to wonder why the American people are fed up with everyone in Washington? Talk about fixing anything with another temporary fix for weeks will just have us right back here again. Sequestration didn't work because as repulsive as these cuts were, the Tea Party was happy so nothing got fixed. It all just got worse much like it will get worse if they do not finally do the right thing. If this isn't enough to convince you then add this to all of the above. It is from VoteVets in September of 2013 before the government shutdown.

Congress "Farm Bill" cut 170,000 veterans off from food stamps and "a Department of Agriculture study last year found that over 5,000 active duty service members receive food assistance. And, in the same year of the study, over $100,000 in food aid was used on military bases."

Federal grants represented 39.4 percent of Texas’ state revenue in 2011

Federal spending cuts build across Texas
Dallas Morning News
Scott Burns
Published: 12 October 2013

Gregory Cody was psyched this summer to negotiate a $1.3 million contract for airfield work at Fort Hood in Killeen.

But last month, he learned the project was canceled because of federal spending cuts.

“We had been waiting and it didn’t get funded,” said Cody, whose Dallas-based GCC Enterprises Inc. provides construction management. “I had some people where that was their project for the year, and now I have to find other work for them.”

Automatic federal spending cuts began March 1 after Congress couldn’t agree on how to cut the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

The automatic budget cuts will slash budget authority by $109 billion for each year through 2021, but the fiscal cliff deal reached in December reduced the required cuts for the 2013 fiscal year to $85 billion. Cuts have continued into fiscal 2014, which began Oct. 1, because a deal to cut the deficit wasn’t reached.

To make matters worse, a partial federal government shutdown began two weeks ago as Congress bickered over the budget and funding for Obamacare, halting the flow of funds, contracts and information and increasing a sense of anxiety about the nation’s fiscal and economic policies.

“It’s an air of uncertainty with your customers because [the federal government] doesn’t have concrete plans on what their budgets are and what their projects will be,” Cody said. The Pew Charitable Trusts ranks Texas among the five states most vulnerable to spending cuts to federal grants and changes to federal spending on contracts, salaries and wages.

Pew estimates that federal grants represented 39.4 percent of Texas’ state revenue in 2011, based on the latest census data available. Of that, grants subject to automatic spending cuts made up 8 percent of Texas revenue in 2010. (Both percentages were higher than the national average.)
read more here

Congress’s failure to pass legislation to fund the government three years in

Congress’s failure to pass legislation to fund the government three years in
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 12, 2013

Like most Americans I woke up this morning, did my normal routine but on this 12th day of the government shutdown, it made more sense to just go back to bed and pull the covers over my head especially after turning on the news. Astonishing as it is, it seems as if every reporter has forgotten that this shutdown came after sequestration.

From The White House

Due to Congress’s failure to pass legislation to fund the government, the information on this web site may not be up to date. Some submissions may not be processed, and we may not be able to respond to your inquiries.

What Is the Sequester? Why Now?

In the last few years, President Obama and both parties in Congress have worked together to reduce our deficit by more than $2.5 trillion through a combination of spending cuts and increased tax rates.

In 2011, Congress passed a law saying that if they couldn’t agree on a plan to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion — including the $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction lawmakers in both parties have already accomplished over the last few years — about $1 trillion in automatic, arbitrary and across the board budget cuts would start to take effect in 2013.

“The whole design of these arbitrary cuts was to make them so unattractive and unappealing that Democrats and Republicans would actually get together and find a good compromise of sensible cuts as well as closing tax loopholes and so forth. And so this was all designed to say we can't do these bad cuts; let’s do something smarter. That was the whole point of this so-called sequestration." —PRESIDENT OBAMA

Unfortunately, Congress hasn’t compromised, and as a consequence, harmful cuts — known as the sequester — begin March 1.

These cuts will jeopardize our military readiness and eviscerate job-creating investments in education and energy and medical research, and don’t take into account whether they eliminate some bloated program that has outlived its usefulness, or cut a vital service that Americans depend on every single day.

The Congress had plenty of time to actually prevent this. They had plenty of time to fix it and make it right for the people they just hurt. That wasn't good enough for them. Instead of apologizing to the American people for not doing their jobs, they demanded more suffering from us.

Poll: Just 25 Percent Think Their Own Member Of Congress Deserves Reelection
Huffington Post
Emily Swanson
October 11, 2013

Only one-quarter of Americans think that their own member of Congress should be reelected, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll. That's a sharp departure from similar polls conducted before the government shutdown.

In the new survey, 25 percent of respondents said they believe the member of Congress from their district deserves to be reelected, while 47 percent said they did not. Another 27 percent said they weren't sure.

In a Gallup poll conducted last November, 59 percent said their own representative deserved reelection, while only 30 percent said he or she did not. Since Gallup began tracking the question in 1991, the percentage of Americans saying their own representative didn't deserve another term has never been higher than 40 percent.
read more here

These people were elected by their districts but they are paid by the federal government, in other words, by the tax payers of the whole country. That is the way our democracy works. It doesn't matter if we agree with them or not, we pay them to do a job. It is their job to represent the people they got the votes from but it is also their job to work with the others also elected to do a job for their districts. It is not supposed to be about working to defeat the President or the agenda he laid out and won an election by the majority of the whole nation. He is the only one that has been elected that way.

When he was elected the first time, Republican members of House and Senate said their job was to defeat him. Didn't matter what it would do to the American people. We were not their priority.
The only way for that to happen was if they destroyed the nation. They did but the American people were smarter and voted for Obama again. His agenda won and their agenda failed.

So now we watch the country being destroyed by people elected to take care of the whole nation so hell bent on "getting re-elected" they made sure the country no longer functioned. Everyone gets hurt by this. What makes it worse is the military and our veterans, the very people that managed to work together to stay alive in combat for the sake of one another, are the first to suffer.

It isn't just about being paid for what their service to the nation cost them in terms of wounds and disabilities. It isn't about the hardships they all faced so they could be sent into combat or the fact their families faced hardships as well. It is about the fact members of congress did not put the nation first and let it all go to hell because a few members thought they won something. The something they thought they won was destroying every branch of the government no matter who got hurt in the end.

First they said it was about ending Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, that finally tried to do something about letting us live a better quality of life because more were able to go to a doctor. They didn't try to fix it. They just wanted it gone. The voters said they wanted it and re-elected Obama.

Members of congress then kept telling us how we were against it. Ok, then did they notice there was an election where the majority said they agreed with it?

That wasn't good enough so the House kept holding votes on ending it. They didn't get their own way over 40 times later when they were not doing their jobs on everything else.

Then came sequestration because they couldn't pass a budget for the rest of the country.

Still not good enough for them, they wanted more cuts and ending ACA that was passed by the House and the Senate along with being validated by the Supreme Court.

Still not good enough they wanted to just shut down the government. Then they gave up trying to defund Obamacare at the same time they demanded to talk about more cuts.

The only cuts the American people want right now is for them to cut the bullshit while getting paid to do the jobs they haven't wanted to do all these years later.

We're tried to suffering while they talk about what they won't do and what they want.

When someone says they want to burn down a house, do you sit and talk about? Do you ask them if they want to use matches or a lighter? So why did we give them lighter fluid?

Fort Hood furloughs end early

Fort Hood furloughs end early
Civilians go back to work, services mostly restored this week
Killeen Daily Herald
Rose L Thayer
Herald staff writer
August 18, 2013

FORT HOOD — After six weeks of furloughs, Jackie Lund is ready to get back to her full-time work schedule.

“I got used to having that extra day off, but my paycheck came around and it was like sticker shock,” said the cashier at Fort Hood’s Warrior Way Commissary.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Aug. 6 the furlough of the department’s estimated 800,000 civilian employees would end early — with each employee being furloughed six days instead of the 11 announced May 14. Monday marks the end of the furloughs for most of the 6,000 civilians working at Fort Hood, and services are expected to return to 97 percent capability, said Andy Bird, Fort Hood’s deputy garrison commander.
read more here

President Obama on the sequester hitting veterans

This is the last in the series of the speech he gave yesterday at the DAV convention. If you only heard part of what he said, that would depend on who wants to spin it the way they want to. This is the whole part of that speech.
 

Furloughed secretary and Marine husband hit lottery

Pensacola Naval Air Station secretary, Marine husband hit lottery jackpot
Aug. 9, 2013
By Troy Moon
The Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal

PENSACOLA, FLA. — A civil service worker who has felt the sting of federal furloughs and her Marine Corps husband won’t have to work “paycheck to paycheck” anymore after winning $1 million in Wednesday’s $448.4 million Powerball jackpot.

Melissa Weinmann, 43, purchased three $2 Powerball entries at a local Circle K store Tuesday night.

Her third ticket had the five correct numbers: 5-25-30-58-59, but didn’t have the Powerball number, which was 32.

Three winning tickets for the entire $448.4 million Powerball jackpot were sold in New Jersey and Minnesota.
read more here

Hundreds of Fort Bragg furloughed workers lining up at food drive

Hundreds of Fort Bragg furloughed workers lining up at food drive
The Fayetteville Observer, N.C.
By Ali Rockett
Published: August 9, 2013

SPRING LAKE, N.C. — Hundreds of furloughed workers from Fort Bragg breathed a little easier Thursday knowing their kitchen pantries would be stocked — at least for now.

The Local 1770 of the American Federation of Government Employees handed out 20,000 pounds of food in four hours at Lillian Black Elementary School to help offset the financial blow of the mandatory unpaid days off necessitated by a $37 billion Department of Defense budget reduction.

Renee Scroggins, wife of a furloughed fire inspector and mother of two, carried away a cooler filled with meat, fresh produce, canned and dried goods, cereal and dessert.

She said she's been shocked, and blessed, by the community's help during her family's time of need.
read more here

Thanks to congress wounded do without at military hospitals

House GOP voted to repeal Obamacare for 40th time this week. Now they are threatening to shut down the government if they do not get their own way. Didn't matter to them the people of this country voted for what the majority wanted since the majority of the whole nation votes for President and districts vote for their Senators and Representatives in the House. While they are wasting time on ending health insurance reform they are avoiding doing the right thing for the sake of the wounded they created by sending troops into Iraq and Afghanistan. Nothing matters to these people anymore if it does not hit them where they live.

Case in point is when the air traffic controllers and the TSA were holding up flights they had to take. It was a matter of a couple of days before they ended that trouble. When it comes to the troops wounded in our name, they stick two fingers in their ears and hold the middle on straight up in the air.

Military hospitals shrinking services to meet spending cuts
USA TODAY
Gregg Zoroya
August 3, 2013

Because of staff furloughs, patients are asked to practice more patience in getting health care needs met.

Patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and other premier military hospitals are being sent to private doctors and having surgery and other treatment delayed because of furloughs to medical personnel, according to interviews and internal documents.

"Please show (patients) the utmost understanding and care while we are asking them to accept longer wait times and in some cases, curtailed or limited services," Rear Adm. Alton Stocks, hospital commander, told staff in a July 12 message.

A "colleagues" memo issued in recent days says inpatient beds are in "critically short supply" because of furloughs of civilian staff triggered by federal spending cuts known as sequestration.

The memo encourages "dispositions/discharges as soon as possible." Hospital spokesperson Sandy Dean explained this direction, saying, "We are are encouraging health care providers to be more efficient when handling their paperwork instead of writing discharge orders later in the day ... no patient has been or will be discharged before it is medically appropriate."

With cases of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems at an all-time high, Dean says civilian caregivers in the hospital's in-patient mental health section are furloughed, reducing beds there from 28 to 22.
read more here

PS or BS, Congress gets tax payer funded health insurance!

Hagel announces deep cuts at the top

Is this how the Republican Party ends? Stop and think about something. They have always been known as the party that cares more about the military and now it seems they have already lost the contractors with all these cuts. (They sure managed to do something as soon as the FAA was making their flights harder to get home.) It looks as if they just may lose the military brass as well.

The GOP controls the House. They also have hogtied the Dems in the Senate forcing the super majority rule over every bill. Do they really think everyone in the military and contractors have been blind to this? After all the stunt of sequester has hit everyone involved with the military. They have shown they really don't care about average people and now this may be the end of them as a party. Hopefully level headed Republicans will return to take over the offices of these fools and remember they have a duty to the whole country since they are paid by the whole country, as well as the people in their districts.

Hagel announces deep cuts at the top, but follow-through often elusive
Stars and Stripes
By Chris Carroll
Published: July 17, 2013

WASHINGTON — With combat winding down, troop numbers dropping and budget uncertainty mounting, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s announcement Tuesday that he plans to cut thousands of positions in Pentagon headquarters staffs may have made a splash, but defense experts said it will take a steady exercise of will on Hagel’s part to ensure it happens.

During a visit to Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Fla., Hagel said he would direct staffing cuts of 20 percent in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff and in the headquarters of the service branches.

The cuts will be implemented in the 2015-2019 budgets, and could save up to $2 billion, Pentagon press secretary George Little said. Cuts of that magnitude aren’t an answer to sequestration cuts that could quash $500 billion in planned Pentagon spending over a decade. Little said the reduction plan — which arose from the a recent strategy and management review ordered by Hagel — will happen even if Congress passes a budget that de-triggers sequestration.

read more here

National Guard leaders expect furloughs to erode readiness

National Guard leaders expect furloughs to erode readiness
Omaha.com
By Steve Liewer
World-Herald staff writer
July 15, 2013

Picture your average Defense Department employee furloughed this week by the government sequester. You probably have in mind someone in a skirt or slacks, not camouflage and boots.

Which is why it's something of a surprise that 1,100 uniformed members of the Iowa National Guard and 580 from the Nebraska Guard are among 48,300 Guard employees nationally who are idled by the furloughs.

The workers are called dual-status military technicians. They are full-time federal employees and members of the units they serve. Their jobs are to organize, administer, train and maintain the Guard forces so the units are ready for short-notice call-up if there is a disaster or war.

“Somebody's got to be in to keep the lights on and be ready when the traditional Guard comes in to drill,” said Rick Breitenfeldt, a Nebraska native who is now a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C. “They're the people who are there, for the most part, day in and day out.”
read more here

Governor Scott wants National Guard cuts reconsidered

Scott wants National Guard cuts reconsidered
NBC
Posted: Jul 09, 2013

The shrinking federal budget is forcing cuts in the Florida National Guard, and Monday was the first day of the new cuts.

From now until September, about one thousand full time staffers will be forced to take off each Monday – eleven days in total.

This results in a 20 percent pay cut.

The biggest impact will be on equipment.

"Were anticipating 6,000 pieces of equipment that have come back from deployment that this is going to have an impact on their readiness," said Seargeant First Class Jay Hudson.

The decision comes directly in the thick of hurricane season – when disaster relief efforts are heavily relied on.

Now Governor Rick Scott is asking President Obama to reconsider.
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Pay cut for DOD employees, but Gophers get land grant?

Military spending millions to protect gophers, while workers go on furlough
FoxNews.com
By Dan Springer
Published July 12, 2013

A total of 650,000 civilian employees are now being furloughed at U.S. military bases in response to sequester cuts -- but the Department of Defense is still spending millions to protect fuzzy critters.

Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) in Washington state just received a $3.5 million department grant to purchase land around the base in an effort to protect the Mazama pocket gopher, a species that has not even been listed as endangered or threatened.

The expense is not sitting well with furloughed workers.

"That really makes me mad that they would do that," said Matt Hines, one of 10,000 civilian employees forced to take a 20 percent pay cut. "I'm all for saving animals, but at what cost?"
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