Simple Man Politics

Wow so many screw ups and not enough hours in the day to accurately document them all. I must say that I am thankful to my President for one thing; he keeps me in subject matter to blog about, and there is so much to blog about to. I could blog about things like climate change or healthcare.

However today we are going to discuss our national defense, its budget, and the impact it will have on the US workforce and the economy. The reason for me going this route is that this will affect our country in more than one area. It also appears that most of these areas will suffer negatively if these policies are implemented.

National Defense:
In my opinion national defense is a very high priority to the United States in order to maintain our national sovereignty. Former President George Bush was a hawk on defense spending, realizing that in order for us to maintain our security and power around the world, we needed the latest in cutting edge technology to remain the lone super power in the globally.

Now we have an administration and congress that seems willing to give up our national security in order to pay for things like nationalized healthcare and global warming. One of these programs is financially impossible and the other one is an outright lie. I think we all know which I think is which.

Today Secretary of Defense Robert Gates proposed broad cuts in defense spending sparking debate and anger throughout both houses of congress. One of the most important examples of defense spending cuts that Gates broached was the F-22 Fighter program, which was designed to take the place of the F-16 program and some of the F-18 program as well.

The F-22 program is important because it replaces a fighter fleet that is nearly 20yrs old. The F-22 program was instituted under the Bush administration. The aircraft applies many of those cutting edge technologies that are necessary to maintain air superiority around the world. The loss of the F-22 program will seriously degrade our defensive and offensive capabilities during military operations.

Defense Budget:
The reason for making cuts to the defense budget involving new weapons programs such as the F-22 program and missile defense, which is another program on the chopping block is really quite simple. The administration and congress need to make these cuts to the defense budget in order to come up with the money to pay for social programs such as nationalized healthcare.

US Workforce and Economy:
The impact on our workforce if these programs are cut will be catastrophic. Cutting the F-22 program by itself will cost the US approximately 90,000 jobs. You can estimate job loss in the arena of missile defense at more than twice that number. There will also be massive job losses to peripheral businesses such as vendors and suppliers of materials that were required to sustain these tow programs alone. These are not the only defense program cuts on the chopping block either.

The impact on the economy especially with regard to the states that house defense manufacturing facilities will lose billions and perhaps even trillions of dollars in revenue and that is in the short term not just long term. You think unemployment is out of control, you just wait till these cuts happen. I can see unemployment up to at least 10% if this happens and that is a conservative estimate on my part.

That is all I have for you all right now, but I am sure there will be plenty to talk about tomorrow. Have a terrific evening my friends, CIAO4NOW!!!!!