patsfan13

The deficits and their impact on the economy jobs and wages are helping to keep the poor, poor.

False compassion to force poverty on people.

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"Some guys play in all-star games, some guys don't. I don't know who picks all those all-star teams. In all honesty, I don't know who picks the combine, for that matter," Belichick said. "How does (Miami-Ohio offensive lineman Brandon) Brooks not get invited to the combine? How did Vollmer not get invited to the combine? I don't know. We can't really worry about that. We just have to try to evaluate them the best we can."

reflexblue

Well i hope they kill that ridiculous spare F-35 engine that the military doesn't want. It would save about 4 billion. Boner and Cantor want it because the engines are made in their districts.

STFarmy

This is exactly why I think that any serious budget reform need to include a look at both entitlement and defense spending. Without even cutting anything specific offered by either, there is undoubtedly MILLIONS in waste and inefficient allocation. But, as a general rule, Ds wouldn't support entitlement reform, and Rs wouldn't support defense reform. So the whole job seems unlikely to get done unfortunately.

reflexblue

I'm a big supporter of the military, but at 700 billion its just to much. We don't need 11 carrier battle groups, bases in europe (let them defend them selves) or many bases in situated around the globe. We need to get together and hit some happy medium. Use what i call the Goldy Locks Principle, not to much not to little.

BelichickFan

I think we all agree but you need to get more serious than cutting one engine. Go to my "Cut $1T" thread and make some real cuts. Obama's silly high speed rail will cost 15 times the savings here. And that's doomed to be a money pit unless the tracks are planned extraordinarily well to get point to point access for the small number of tracks that would be both short enough to use rail (NY to CA takes way too long even at 200+ MPH) and would get enough use to stay afloat.

reflexblue

Its a start, we spend more on defence than the rest of the world combined. We could us a lot of that money here.

Patters

You know something PF, in recent weeks 2 emoloyees at mental health residential homes have been murdered by clients, one in Revere and one in Lynn. The kind of people who were killed are typically people who are in the process of turning their lives around. (I do not know for a fact the biographies of either victim, but I know people who have similar jobs.) They may have been abused, they have been alcoholics, they may have until now never aspired to a career, they probably do not have CORIs. They work taking care of mentally ill people in agencies that cannot afford more than an emergency buzzer by way of security.

They often work alone with 10 to 30 people. A few weeks ago, a residential program at my agency was in a real pinch and they needed someone to do night relief staff. I offered to do it (and they gave me the whopping rate of $11.07/hour, almost $2 more than they pay the regular night staff). I stayed with 25 people in a dry shelter--some were addicts, some had various mental illnesses, some were on probation (one I think form manslaughter). I was alone, but at least I'm a guy and a reasonably fit one.

My point is that if anything we need to spend more money on social services. Right now, we are barely maintaining these people. They will always be on the dole given the amount services we're currently providing them. There are at least 10s of 1000s of people like this, and I'm not exaggerating at all. Maybe there's room for savings among those people who are not seriously ill, but who are poor, but that money is needed elsewhere. I earn roughly 1/3rd of what I earned in technology, and after 3 years they'll match my 401K up to the first $500! These are not salaries that attract the best and the brightest or motivate and inspire people. These salaries need to be higher. We talk about the big wages that some people get, but there are a lot of people who get taxpayer dollars who earn bupkus!

The Brandon Five

Yeah, I'm all set with the welfare for Germany and France. It's a lot easier to offer all kinds of social benefits when you don't have to worry about defense. Their social programs were underwritten by the U.S. military.

Harry Boy

Imagine the help we could give to the poor and needy if only Obama would end these wars and close Gitmo like The Democrats wanted Bush to do, imagine all that money being diverted to the poor people, imagine how better things would be in America today if only Obama were his own man and stopped using "the Bush policy's".

Maybe Sarah or Ron Paul could end the wars and close Gitmo, maybe they could end the Illegal Alien Invasion also then all the money we pay to "take care" of the criminal illegal alien could go to THE POOR AMERICAN CITIZEN.

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

reflexblue

Its ludicrous to spend that much money, and a lot of it irresponsibly. What good is it to spend that kind of money when the infrastructure and people of the country are worse off. You could take a small chunk of that money and build a fence at the Mexican boarder. Buy more and better security for ports, harbors, and air ports etc. You live in the Springfield area, just look at the bridges over 91 they're falling apart. I think the military could squeak by on $600 Billion