No one has mentioned how much funding has been cut THIS fiscal year? They're cutting more next year, and the year after...

I work budget/accounting for the Air Force. Almost every single program on the base I'm currently stationed at has been cut. Some by more than 50% from their FY11 numbers. We're starting to be a lot more frugal with our money. TDYs have been hit DRAMATICALLY. No more "conferences" in Hawaii and Germany. Hell, some units have cut every conference TDY. There were units that asked for $200K to fund them for FY12 and only received $75K. That's it. They have to make it work. This is common throughout the AF. I don't know about the other services, but we're learning to do lot more with very little.

Plus, manning is being cut. Speaking for the AF, they lowered the higher tenure for almost every rank a couple months ago. This is forcing lots of members out of the service. We're cutting the dead weight. Those idiot 15-year staffs that can't make Tech in 15 years are gone. I know they're starting to not let a lot of Army kids re-enlist if they have any infractions on their record.

Yeah, we've spent a lot in the past, but we took a big hit this FY and got a reality check of what it's going to be like for now on. It makes my job a lot harder when we can't fund everything we "need" and only spend money on items and programs that are "mission critical". Daily, I have to look my commander in the face and tell him "no". We can't, and won't, pay for that. It's, well, weird.

 

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The reason why this U.S. is broke:

Every politician in Washington and in every state capital believes any money resulting from a cut or surplus is money they can use to fund something else frivolous and wasteful.

 

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we have a military that if you were to take 10 next largest countries and combine them we still spend more money then the 10. those 10 countries combined have more landmass and more people yet we spend that much more then those 10.


That is the problem. Not saying we shouldn't have a military. Just saying look at the chart and you can see how we need to be spending much less on it.

 

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You know who else pays taxes? The Troops! The US Military is the only job in our country where we have to pay our own salary lolz. Could you imagine if you had to give your boss 15% of what you earned just so he could pay you?

I always love when clueless idoits spout off that Tax payers pay the troops... the troops are taxpayers too. Would you prefer that none of them got paid? Do you think anyone would volunteer to join the military if they weren't going to get paid? Would you rather we have a system like China where you are forced to join the military and go get shot for nothing?

Our taxes pay the military payroll in order to keep it an all volunteer force. That way us real men can go and defend the country and stuff while those of you too afraid to stand up for it can sip your coffee and whine and cry about all the stuff we do.

 

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Btw Sith since you obviously weren't bright enough to do the research... Those 135 countries we have troops in... all of them have one thing in common. They have a US Embassy or Ambassador. And where there is an Embassy or Ambassador... There are Marines.

 

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If you look at where we only have permanent military bases, yep the list is much shorter:
http://benefits.military.com/misc/installations/Browse_Location.jsp

Bahrain
Belgium
Cuba
Diego Garcia
Germany
Greece
Iceland
Italy
Japan
Korea
Netherlands
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Saudi Arabia
South Korea
Spain
Turkey
UK

Obviously that list doesn't include places where we are currently involved in military actions (Afghanistan, etc.)

 

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of that huge list you posted, i got to perform service in the countries I left remaining.

 

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Although most of these locations are in the continental United States, 96 of them are in U.S. territories around the globe, and 702 of them are in foreign countries. But as Chalmers Johnson has documented, the figure of 702 foreign military installations is too low, for it does not include installations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, and Uzbekistan. Johnson estimates that an honest count would be closer to 1,000.

The number of countries that the United States has a presence in is staggering. According the U.S. Department of State's list of "Independent States in the World," there are 192 countries in the world, all of which, except Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, have diplomatic relations with the United States. All of these countries except one (Vatican City) are members of the United Nations. According to the Department of Defense publication, "Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country," the United States has troops in 135 countries. Here is the list:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance8.html

 

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You do realize that in the vast majority of those countries that the "troops" they are counting are US Marines stationed at embassies. Of course you probably don't realize that because you took the blog at face value.

 

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Don't be dumb I offered a solution once. Make me your ruler and we would have a giant pizza and beer party for everyone.