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Banned
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Originally Posted by Charlatan
It appears the laws are in place. Why aren't they being enforced?
Is there something else going on here?
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I know you lean towards thinking I'm overly fond of "conspiracy theories", but I'll risk giving you my "take" to attempt to answer your question.
No one could downgrade the civilian and military components of government, in the short span of six years, at such greatly increased borrowing and spending levels, except by intent:
26 years ago, there was at least a fifteen year federal plan, in place and designed to dramatically lower US dependence on petroleum imports.
I detailed in these posts,
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...7&postcount=47
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...2&postcount=49
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...23&postcount=2
...the Reagan administration's almost immediate steps, upon taking office, to dismantle the program, crony-ize it, and prematurely privatize it. There was also a push to abolish the cabinet level department of energy. The poor and delayed appointments at the Synfuel Corp. were not unlike the rushed appointment by Bush of now indicted Bernard Kerik as directore of the Dept. of Homeland Security.
<h3>From this, six years ago: </h3>
09/30/2001 .. <a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm">$5,807,463,412,200.06</a>
To this debt level, today:
<a href="http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np">$ 9,125,236,872,835.68</a>
Quote:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...&postcount=111
ace....isn't it about the trend? The trend was reversed for the only time in the 30year period from 1970....from debt increasing at :
09/30/1993 .. $4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 .. $4,064,620,655,521.66 from: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/r...t/histdebt.htm
..... $346 billion, YOY....by the end of the last GHW Bush budget.....DOWN to $18 billion....YOY.... between 9/30/99 and 9/30/00.
...the bulk of the increase here:
09/30/2001 .. $5,807,463,412,200.06 YOY increase= $133 billion
09/30/2000 .. $5,674,178,209,886.86
....was the result of the retroactive, 2001 tax cut.
I don't understand the comparison that you just tried to post. Don't you see any negative in a trend that ramps up from increasing federal debt from $18 billion, YOY...to $420 billion...just two years later....then to mid $500's....and it just stays there....at that high level.....and is spun as declining, when it isn't....by the officials directly responisble for it happening.....
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and the complaint about government was:
Quote:
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/1999...nce_light.aspx
The Changing Shape of Government
Governance, Bureaucracy, Executive Branch, Civil Service
Paul C. Light, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Governance Studies
February 1999
....<h3>Without discounting the significant downsizing that has occurred</h3>, only one of the two ingredients for a leaner, more efficient government is in place. The girth of government—measured by the total number of federal employees—may be shrinking, but its height—measured by the management tiers between the top and bottom—continues to climb. Every year fewer front-line employees are reporting upward through what appears to be an ever-lengthening chain of command.
The Girth of Government
There is no question that the girth of government is shrinking. The proof is in the federal phone books and employment files.......
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We are where we find ourselves now, and it shouldn't be a surprise. They hate government, they have no faith in it's potential, only in exploiting and
downgrading it's effectivenes, always at a higher cost than before.
[quote] http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...an#post2342862
...and I'm seeing a number of posters on this forum posting opinions that "government doesn't work", and we need Ron Paul to.....
So, is there a disconnect? Isn't the reason it looks like government "doesn't work", a result of an intenional movement to demonize the idea of government working?
Quote:
...."The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'" .....
-Ronald Reagan
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<h3>Or, do you have the correct take on things. I'm "too partisan", or the government needs to be reduced in size to the point that it performs only security functions, the courts, and the military, under the reforms of Ron Paul?</h3>
Doesn't anybody else see that what is happening directly parallels what Grover Norquist said the republican agenda was?
Quote:
http://www.rollingstone.com/national...he-government/
7/18/07, 1:49 pm EST
Trust in People or the Government?
I like a good debate so here goes day two of <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/index.php/2007/07/17/let-new-orleans-rebuild-itself/#comments">NA Daily vs. The Paul Patrol:</a>
[Day one started <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/index.php/2007/07/17/ron-paul/">here</a>]...
...It’s true that many individuals and some companies were better prepared to offer relief than our socalled first responders at FEMA. But why was that the case?
That’s where the dark metastasis of anti-government ideology that I’ve been talking about came into play. Under Republican leadership, FEMA was downgraded in the federal pecking order, staffed with cronies, and had its budget slashed.
In short: <h3>A formerly robust arm of the government with real power to save lives was degraded and gangrene-ized by small government ideologues.</h3> The government’s failures during Katrina, to my mind, are not an argument for smaller, more limited government, they’re the horrific side effect of such arguments implemented as policy.
Here’s the argument marshaled very succinctly at the time of the disaster by recently retired Massachusetts congressman <a href="http://www.house.gov/list/press/ma05_meehan/NR050902Katrina.html">Marty Meehan</a>:
<i>The reality is that this country is woefully unprepared to respond to a major disaster in this country because FEMA has been systematically dismantled over the past five years by incompetent leaders, anti-government ideology, budget cuts, and bureaucratic red tape.
FEMA’s current problems essentially began with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which demoted FEMA from cabinet-level status and reduced it to one of 22 organizations under the umbrella of the Secretary of Homeland Security. Next, its mission was reprioritized and its budget cut, taking the emphasis off of responding to natural disasters while the upper ranks of management were filled by patronage hires, five out of eight having had no emergency preparedness experience. At the same time, FEMA’s professional staff was becoming increasingly demoralized. By this week, nine out of ten regional director positions were vacant as were three out of five disaster response director positions. This brain drain left an agency without the proper leadership, resources, or influence in government to cope with a major catastrophe.
Responsibility, however, does not rest solely with the Bush Administration. This Congress has been a willing co-conspirator in the degradation of FEMA’s capabilities.
Since 2001, many federal disaster mitigation programs have fallen to budgetary pressures. FEMA’s Project Impact, a model mitigation program, has been canceled outright. Federal funding of post-disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster has been cut in half, and now communities across the country must compete for pre-disaster mitigation dollars.
In 2003, Congress approved a White House proposal to cut FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program in half. Previously, the federal government was committed to invest 15 percent of the recovery costs of a disaster in mitigating future problems. Under the Bush formula, only 7.5 percent are given. Experts say that such post-disaster mitigation efforts are the best way to minimize future losses.
In 2004 alone, Congress cut FEMA’s budget by $170 million.
FEMA is not the only agency to feel the effects of budget cuts. Bush’s 2005 budget proposal called for a 13 percent reduction in the Army Corps of Engineers’ budget, down to $4 billion from $4.6 billion in fiscal 2004 and the New Orleans Corp of Engineers was to experience the largest cuts in its history of $71.2 million. This is the very agency who was responsible for the New Orleans levee system. Assistant Secretary of the Army Michael Parker was even fired for accusing the Bush Administration of failing to adequately fund the Corp of Engineers before Katrina struck. </i>
Walker, I hope that addresses your question. I don’t fault the individuals and organizations who attempted to aid their countrymen post Katrina. It’s shameful that their help was rebuffed. But I trace the failings of FEMA directly to the ideology encapsulated in Reagan’s famous joke that the most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
-- Tim Dickinson
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Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/us/20army.html
By DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: March 20, 2007
FORT POLK, La., March 14 — <h3>For decades, the Army has kept a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division on round-the-clock alert, poised to respond to a crisis anywhere in 18 to 72 hours.</h3>
Today, the so-called ready brigade is no longer so ready. Its soldiers are not fully trained, much of its equipment is elsewhere, and for the past two weeks the unit has been far from the cargo aircraft it would need in an emergency.
Instead of waiting on standby, the First Brigade of the 82nd Airborne is deep in the swampy backwoods of this vast Army training installation, preparing to go to Iraq. Army officials concede that the unit is not capable of getting at least an initial force of several hundred to a war zone within 18 hours, a standard once considered inviolate.
The declining readiness of the brigade is just one measure of the toll that four years in Iraq — and more than five years in Afghanistan — have taken on the United States military. Since President Bush ordered reinforcements to Iraq and Afghanistan in January, roughly half of the Army’s 43 active-duty combat brigades are now deployed overseas, Army officials said. A brigade has about 3,500 soldiers.
Pentagon officials worry that among the just over 20 Army brigades left in the United States or at Army bases in Europe and Asia, none has enough equipment and manpower to be sent quickly into combat, except for an armored unit stationed permanently in South Korea, several senior Army officers said.....
Quote:
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2007/06...loys-overseas/
As Hurricane Season Starts, Entire 82nd Airborne Redeploys Overseas
Jon Ponder | Jun. 11, 2007
....Earlier this year, with recruitment tanking and its forces strapped down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army’s famed 82nd Airborne Division was forced to disband one of its best known missions, the “division ready brigade” — a contingent of troops on stand-by at all times ready to deploy anywhere in the world within 18 hours.
The 82nd’s ready brigade has been an integral part of the United States’ relief preparations for domestic disasters such as hurricanes for years. But now, as the 2007 hurricane season begins, the entire 82nd Division is leaving United States for the first time since it was deployed to Iraq in 1990 as part of Operation Desert Storm — and none of its divisions will return until September, when the season is over:
<i>When a jet lifts off Sunday at Pope Air Force Base with the commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team and the last load of his 3,300 paratroopers aboard, the 82nd Airborne Division will notch one more hard-earned mark in a history so often described as “storied.”
For only the second time since World War II, all of the division’s combat infantry brigades will be at war. Other 82nd units are deployed also, bringing the total overseas to nearly 17,000 paratroopers.</i>
One of the most memorable successful stateside deployments of the 82nd’s ready brigade was to South Florida in response to the Hurricane Andrew disaster in August 1992. The 82nd provided food, shelter and medical attention in the region for 30 days.
In 2005, however, Pres. George Bush’s incredible six-day delay after Katrina before sending the 82nd’s ready brigade to New Orleans was the worst of a cluster of bad decisions that came out of the White House. It was this failure of leadership that finally woke many Americans up to the depth of the president’s incompetence.
On Monday, August 30, 2005, the day after Katrina’s storm surge breached the levies and flooded New Orleans’ low-lying neighborhoods, the 82nd was put on alert at Fort Bragg, N.C., for deployment into the region:
<i>[A] battalion would have been ready to move as early as Tuesday, said Major Gen. Bill Caldwell, commander of the 82nd .
“We could have immediately responded within 18 hours,” he said. “We could have come here, had we been asked, at any point.”</i>
As the days dragged on in New Orleans — while thousands of people were stranded in the Superdome, dozens were rescued off roofs and others drowning in the flooded streets — millions of Americans watching the disaster on television were wondering — Where is the 82nd?
It wasn’t until six days after Katrina struck, at 10 o’clock Saturday morning, September 3, that the 82nd was called into New Orleans. Even then, Pres. Bush made the announcement to the media before he or anyone in his government officially notified commanders of the 82nd’s ready brigade.
The 2006 storm season was comparatively mild, but now as the 2007 season gets underway, the American South faces its first hurricane season without the 82nd Airborne on alert and ready to move in if the unthinkable happens — again.
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Last edited by host; 11-23-2007 at 02:48 AM..
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