The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

Troop levels are being cut. Civilians are being furloughed. Planes are being grounded. Ships are being docked. But the Pentagon's top ranks are thriving.
Over the past 10 years, as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan raged, the U.S. military's enlisted ranks shrank, while the officer corps – particularly the general and flag officer ranks – and the bureaucracy supporting these top commanders, grew immensely.

Earlier this month Third Way released a report on this trend, reaching a disquieting conclusion – the U.S. military is more top-heavy than it has ever been. While I, and others, have documented this trend before, it's only gotten worse. The U.S. military now has an officer-to-enlisted personnel ratio that's at an all-time high; this imbalance will only worsen with the recent announcement of further reductions to the force.

In hopes of slashing some of this bloat, last week Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel ordered a 20 percent reduction to top military brass and their staffs. However, Hagel offered no details and indicated that cuts won't begin until 2015.

Unfortunately, the Pentagon has a poor track record of following through on plans to trim its top ranks.

In 2010, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called for eliminating more than 100 general and flag officer positions as part of his Efficiency Initiatives. Despite this clear plan and Pentagon assurances that "we did cut generals," the top ranks remain largely intact. In those ranks, as with the rest of the force, it's the lower ranks that bear the burden while the top ranks are spared.

When you compare Gates' plan with the most recent data available on the number of general and flag officers, the conclusion is clear – the Pentagon isn't adhering to Gates' Efficiency Initiatives. While the number of these officers on DoD's payroll has dropped since Gates' announcement, the vast majority of those cut are one-stars – in fact, more one-stars have been cut than Gates recommended. However, reductions to the top ranks are lagging far behind Gates' plan. As a result, the Pentagon still has 37 four-star general and flag officers, or G/FOs, on its payroll, which is more four-stars than served during World War II – when the military had nearly 10 times as many enlisted personnel.

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This bloat at the top has had a trickle-down effect that hinders troops and wastes money.

A May 2013 GAO analysis found that the number of support staff at DoD's Combatant Command headquarters grew "by about 50 percent from fiscal years 2001 through 2012." This has created added distance between commanders and warfighters. "In some cases the gap between me and an action officer may be as high as 30 layers," Gates once stated, resulting in a "bureaucracy which has the fine motor skills of a dinosaur."

A top-heavy military also has serious financial costs. Despite a declining defense budget, generals and admirals continue to live like kings, living in mansions and surrounding themselves with entourages that would make Jay-Z envious. In fact, according to a recent Los Angeles Times report, there are "hundreds of high-priced homes in the Pentagon inventory." Just operating and maintaining  these homes can exceed $100,000 annually; some homes, like those on prime waterfront real estate at D.C.'s Fort McNair, cost around $1 million to renovate.

While lifestyle costs may be colorfully wasteful, they're small potatoes compared to headquarters support costs, which GAO found had more than doubled from fiscal year 2007 ($459 million) to fiscal year 2012 ($1.06 billion).

Fortunately, there are some very simple solutions. First, as Reps. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., and Keith Ellison, D-Mich., recently proposed, Gates' Efficiency Initiatives should be fully implemented. Second, caps on the total number of general and flag officers, should be reinstated and tied to the size of the force. The top ranks shouldn't grow while the force shrinks.

With declining defense budgets, we need to trim the fat at the top, creating a leaner and more effective military. The front-line should not be sacrificed to spare the back office.

There have been several highly visible times when the military has requested to NOT have a particular weapon system, and Congress rammed it down their throat anyway.  Newt Gingrich was really big on this, since he needed to keep "his" $4 + billion a year coming to Cobb County during his regime....

Funny how it's almost always the biggest whiners who are the source of the largest portion of pork.

How much did you get?  :P

Rep. Jim Bridenstein voted against a $50 billion aid package for hurricane relief on the east coast.

I seem to remember some turd of an attachment to that aid package.

And yet when pressed about federal relief for Oklahoma tornado victims LAST year, all the Oklahoma senators and reps were adamant that we should get it.

Hypocrisy at its finest.  I guess we deserve who we voted for.   :-\

And yet when pressed about federal relief for Oklahoma tornado victims LAST year, all the Oklahoma senators and reps were adamant that we should get it.

Hypocrisy at its finest.  I guess we deserve who we voted for.   :-\

How's this for chutzpah. Both U.S. senators from Oklahoma, Sen. James Inhofe and Sen. Tom Coburn in January voted against the supplemental appropriations bill to the FEMA disaster relief fund that was targeted to provide relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy that tore into New York and New Jersey.

Inhofe called the Sandy appropriations bill a "slush fund" because it included infrastructure spending and funds for projects aimed at future disasters beyond Sandy.

Coburn voted against the Sandy relief fund because it wasn't offset by budget savings elsewhere.

Now comes the monster tornado that ripped through Moore, Oklahoma on Monday killing some 20 children and adults, leveling homes, an elementary school and other buildings with 200 mile an hour winds and Coburn said in a statement, "As a ranking member of the Senate committee that oversees FEMA, I can assure Oklahomans that any and all available aid will be delivered without delay".

As for Inhofe he "vowed" that the Moore Tornado victims wouldn't abuse federal aid as he said occurred in the aftermath of Sandy, (as if the victims of Sandy in New York and New Jersey weren't deserving of relief [as now Oklahomans will be] in the aftermath of the Moore Tornado).

Let's face it; these two yahoos are only concerned when disaster strikes their constituents and to hell with the victims beyond Oklahoma.

It's as if there are two Americas, "our good people in Oklahoma who are deserving of relief aid while those "Yankees" up north are just profligate moochers looking to abuse relief effort funds and certainly aren't deserving of relief.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Hypocrisy-from-Oklahoma-Se-by-Dave-Lefcourt-130522-702.html

Tom Coburn: Tornado Relief Bill Unnecessary, 'Washington Creating A Crisis' To 'Advantage Themselves'

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) fired back Thursday at those who have criticized him for demanding that any disaster aid package for Oklahoma tornado victims include offsets, or matching spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. The money is already available to help his constituents, Coburn argued, suggesting that lawmakers only want to pass an unpaid-for disaster aid package so they can tuck other unrelated items in it to benefit their home states.

"It's just typical Washington B.S.," Coburn said during an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "There's $11.6 billion sitting in a bank account waiting to help people in Oklahoma ... It's a crass political game because I was being asked these questions before we even pulled the dead people out of the rubble."

Coburn, one of the most fiscally conservative lawmakers in Congress, is right about $11.6 billion being available. But it's not because he had anything to do with it. Congress approved $18.5 billion for disaster relief for 2013, with most of those funds -- $11.5 billion -- approved after Hurricane Sandy. Coburn vocally opposed both packages, but lawmakers decided then none of that emergency aid should be subject to offsets. The amount of money left in that fund is at about $11.6 billion, which means it can be pulled to respond to the Oklahoma storm -- without offsets.

Coburn then went on in the MSNBC interview to suggest that "most of the property damage" from the tornadoes was "insured." The senator claimed it would "be a 200, 250, maybe 300 million dollar cost to the federal government out of the FEMA fund" and accused Washington of "creating a crisis when none exists so they can advantage themselves."

The tornado that struck Moore, Okla., this week, killing at least 24, is estimated to have left more than $2 billion of damage in its path.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/23/tom-coburn-tornado-relief_n_3324948.html

We trotted down this road at the time.  It was nothing more than partisan media hacks trying to make something out of nothing.  The Sandy bill contained all sorts of non-related items like road repair funding for the Virgin Islands and other expenditures for items not even close to the hurricane zone.

Tell me this isn’t inflammatory BS

There is also a difference between a dumpster load of special spending and asking for aid from previously established funds.  Coburn correctly noted that even though total damage estimates were in the range of $2 billion, a large portion of that were insured losses which would be paid for by insurance companies with the actual need from the feds for the under-insured and infrastructure in the range of $200 to $300 million.  In other words no need for a special bill with a bunch of un-related projects in California or “future mitigation” projects for Del Rio, Texas.

My point is that it goes to the NIMBY thought processes of those in Congress.  If it didn't happen in my back yard, tough smile.  People make it sound like democrats spend more than republicans.  At least republicans would like people to think that.  How about that Iraq war that miraculously got kept off the books?

You boys sure can't stay on topic...

Military spending is out of control and we need a President and Congress with the balls to reign it in.

If we truly asked voters if they if they would accept a large tax decrease in exchange for a 10% reduction in military spending, they would support it. Instead we argue about small budget items like unemployment and food stamps.

So the military lost $8.5 trillion since 1998. Okay. That's only a portion of their budget. Meanwhile, the projected 10 year cost for Obamacare is around $2 trillion.

Why is it okay to spend or lose trillions of dollars for a military that can kill someone on the far side of the planet within minutes or hours, yet it's somehow wrong to save lives of our fellow citizens? This isn't a monetary question. It's a moral one.

So the military lost $8.5 trillion since 1998. Okay. That's only a portion of their budget. Meanwhile, the projected 10 year cost for Obamacare is around $2 trillion.

Why is it okay to spend or lose trillions of dollars for a military that can kill someone on the far side of the planet within minutes or hours, yet it's somehow wrong to save lives of our fellow citizens? This isn't a monetary question. It's a moral one.

Put The Pentagon on a diet.  Make them sort out on their own what is essential and what isn’t.  That’s what has happened with other departments in the sequester.  Problem is, no one in Congress or executive branch has the balls to do it for the reasons I explained above.

We are essentially at peace right now. We are not engaged in any major war and there seems to be less tension world-wide right now than there has been in my lifetime.

Now is the time to ask the Pentagon to take the same cuts as every other part of our federal government.

I don’t know that I necessarily agree about their being less tension.  For certain, we have done quite a bit to thin the ranks of foreign terrorist groups the last 12 years.  But, there’s always another asshat hiding behind the next rock looking to start his own jihad and plenty of religious fundamentalists ready to join the next cause.

As far as your comment on timing I agree.  The reason it likely won’t happen is because no one wants to be accused of having “cut defense to the bone” when the next call to action happens.  It will happen, we just don’t know when.  We like being the world’s top cop because it keeps The Pentagon relevant and a priority in the budget.  Remember, Clinton was largely blamed for troops being ill-equipped at the start of the Iraqi and Afghani conflicts because he had thinned down the military under his watch.

Understand, I don’t approve of this logic, I’m simply pointing out why this continues.  It won’t change until we get representatives and leaders who are willing to do what is best for the country instead of worrying what is in their best self-interest.  To that end, I’m not sure how we can make that happen other than term limits but that’s apparently a dead concept.

Until we get congressmen and women in the government who aren't afraid to turn down lobby moneyrelated to lobbyist of from the military contractors, then it will be the same ole same ole.  I keep saying this...K Street residents need outta government or else the status quo remains.

Until we get congressmen and women in the government who aren't afraid to turn down lobby money from the military contractors, then it will be the same ole same ole.  I keep saying this...K Street residents rodents need outta government or else the status quo remains.

Fixed your quote for improved accuracy.

That’s the other sticky issue on Pentagon spending.  It adds up to really good paying jobs in many home districts.  The double-speak about government spending being evil put forth by GOP members sounds pretty hollow when they keep heaping more money into military budgets.

I believe the administration would also be reluctant on any major cut-backs right now as that would be a blow on economic growth.  Like it or not, military spending is a large driver in our economy.

Let's make something else.

All those companies making billion dollar fighter jets can make fuel efficient passenger aircraft. All the companies making billion dollars war ships can make passenger cruise and ferry boats.

Spend the same amount but make stuff we can use or sell.

Did you ever hear of Zebco fishing reels? They were a defense contractor who made timers for bombs. Zero Hour Bomb Company.

They converted their factory and workforce to making fishing reels.

Did you ever hear of Zebco fishing reels? They were a defense contractor who made timers for bombs. Zero Hour Bomb Company.

They converted their factory and workforce to making fishing reels.

If the government spent that money to provide aircraft to domestic carriers or new cruise ships for Carnival, it would be derided as more corporate welfare.

Did you ever hear of Zebco fishing reels? They were a defense contractor who made timers for bombs. Zero Hour Bomb Company.

They converted their factory and workforce to making fishing reels.

Many of those military contractors do produce vehicles and components for civilian transportation.  One nice spill over from DoD spending that I enjoy is GPS technology.  I've got it in my phone, I use it on my bikes.  The civilian transportation system relies heavily on it.

Speaking only for myself, my main problem with corporate welfare is not the inherent idea.