New GOP, old ideas?

After the beating the GOP took in November, PJ media offered some advice for the party leadership.

Here are two of their ideas and my comment on them:

4) Investigate the possibility of reducing American forces in Germany: While NATO served an honorable and crucial role in winning the Cold War, the chances of another war in Central Europe are currently very low. Drawing down American troops to a “trip-wire” force could save up to $20 billion [3].

5) Consolidate and eliminate departments: There is also precedent for this. In the 1950s and the 1990s, programs that were duplicative were combined to save money (both decades saw balanced budgets). One possible department to consolidate would be the Department of Energy (whose budget was $27 billion last year [4]). Many of this department’s functions can be handled by other cabinet agencies. For example, regulation of oil and gas drilling can be done by the Environmental Protection Agency. Grants in the alternative energy field can be processed by the Commerce Department. Drilling permits can be handled by the Department of the Interior. And so on.
…
8) Make sure your members speak the language of the national interest: The 2012 CNN exit poll showed that Democrats were 38% of the voters, Republicans 32%, and independents 29%. So, any policy that comes across as appealing only to the Republican base isn’t likely to rally the nation as a whole. The good thing about “reform” themes is that they cross party lines, and especially appeal to independents.

9) National Guard/FEMA upgrade: The nation has repeatedly been hit by natural (hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.) and man-made (9/11) disasters over the last generation. More extensive training for the National Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency would seem to be a wise investment.

Why are US forces still in Europe? And don’t say it’s because of the middle east. Pull our forces out of Europe and leave a skeleton force to keep bases in Germany maintained. PATRIOT missiles, tankers and support units could be left in Germany. Navy ships, an infantry brigade and other units could rotate out on an as needed basis. Move the dependents home would save a vast amount of money. Make Germany a one year unaccompanied tour for most service members. Consolidate all the commands into one Joint Service Command and retire all the field grades who just sit in an office and drink coffee.

The National Guard needs to stop being the red-headed stepchild of the DoD. Upgrade their equipment and training. As the Active Duty force draws down, offer incentives to servicemembers to join the Guard. Newer vehicles and aircraft would help the Guard because they have a state mission AND are the strategic reserve of the DoD. No Rachel Maddow, they are not the unit at sit in the armory until a disaster strikes. If we’re going to use them, treat them well.

The education department should go back under Health and Human Services.  The Department of Homeland Security should either go away or be reformed after a long hard look at how it does business.  The silly “firewall” between departments could get the once over.  The FBI and CIA should share data on terrorists.

The Democrats have set themselves up as the party of “free stuff”.  We need to point out that under all their horseshit there is no pony.  Hold the “reality based” community to reality.  Point out that California and Detroit are disasters.

We need to show off the GOP governors and the states they are running. Show that our glasses are clean before we point out the turds in the liberals punchbowl.

Military pay and benefits

One again there are calls to “reform” military pay. I’ve said on this blog before that our service members don’t get paid enough. No we’re not europe; defense spending is not breaking the bank it’s actually smaller now. But many still attack our bennies.

Some bloggers, like In from the Cold, have struck back.

We have a powerful ally:

Col. Mike Hayden, USAF (Ret), deputy director, MOAA Government Relations
“Statements that rising personnel costs are “unaffordable”…“out of control”…”unsustainable”… and “will impact readiness” are geared to make headlines, alarm the reader, and (not infrequently) generate support for pursuing additional studies.

“If personnel costs continue growing at that rate and the overall defense budget remains flat with inflation,” CSBA authors hyperbolized, “military personnel costs will consume the entire defense budget by 2039.”

Elsewhere, they acknowledged that will never happen. But the quote was seized and repeated by reporters, pundits, bureaucrats and other “analysts.” E.g., James Kitfield did so in the July 2012 National Journal.

Is there any chance personnel costs will consume the entire defense budget by 2039? Of course not.

Before examining the personnel share, let’s first consider that the defense budget has consumed a progressively smaller share of federal outlays over the last 50 years”

The Military Officer’s Association of America is made up of people who’ve fought America’s wars. Company level commanders who’ve had to deal with military families. The Association of the United States Army echoes the call to help soldiers get better pay.

There are many leftist dirtbags who insist that the military revert to the Regan/Carter era of pay.

Pay freezes and benefit cuts would cause the Army to bleed numbers. Soldiers on food stamps, NCO’s and officers leaving, morale nosediving and enlistment down. The left wants that, I don’t.

How about we cut the think tanks and the pay of Congressmen who say stupid things instead?

Here and now

Two youtube videos to chew on:

Yes some NYT editorial from a law professor states the “reasons” to give up on the constitution and overthrow the law of the land.

When the law and public opinion don’t go their way, this is the left, (╯°□°)╯︵,,.┻━┻._.,

Bill Whittle states the obvious:

┬─┬ノ( º _ ºノ) Now the article is over, let me put it back up.

R.I.P. Gen. Schwartzkopf

Godspeed General!

Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf Dead: World Remembers ‘Stormin Norman’: ABCNews.

“Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf, KCB (/ˈʃwɔrtskɒf/;[1] August 22, 1934 – December 27, 2012) was a United States Army general who, while he served as Commander of U.S. Central Command, was commander of coalition forces in the Persian Gulf War.”
– Wikipeida

Lens

The left and it’s partners in the media see the world through a Marxist-leftist lens. An Afghan policewoman has “mental illness and was driven to suicidal despair by poverty” but an American criminal has ” hundreds of bullets for a military-style assault rifle and handguns”. Um, both shitheads had “military style” weapons. All weapons are “military style” in fact. Unions conspire to drive up prices and pass that on to consumers at the expense of jobs. Politicians, not wanting to appear heartless, give public sector unions whatever they want. The costs get passed on to us all.

Screw up, don’t get fired, get paid and go back to work, even if your screwups cost lives. Wave around a banned rifle magazine and act shocked when police investigate you for violating the ban. Of course gun deaths have been going down for years, but that violates the narrative.

Meanwhile, as the world burns, a Democratic congressman proposes raising taxes when challenged on the “fiscal cliff.”

The left thinks name calling and class warfare will rule the day. It’s not about “compromise”, it’s about compromising opposition to win. Marx viewed all of history as haves vs. have-nots. The 60′s left viewed America as the enemy and violent dissent the way to power. “Tea Party?” “NRA?” According to the left they are products of the 1% and fake.

Meanwhile the left resorts to name calling and dancing on graves to promote gun control.

Real Americans don’t live with bodyguards, or in McMansions. Most businesses are SMALL, most gun owners obey the law. Rich people give to charity in record numbers as opposed to the prius-driving “I kisses a dolphin” crowd that expect the government to pay their student loans.

And they wonder why they are losing.

Merry Holidaze!

Merry Christmas interwebs!

Remember that for your nice cozy Christmas, many men and women have given up theirs to stand for freedom.

“Sen. Bob Dole delivered a touching salute to his long-time colleague and fellow World War II veteran Sen. Daniel Inouye as he lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda.”

–
Twitchy, picture via:Outsidethebeltway.com

And have a happy new year!

Fiscal Cliff

So zerohedge.com published this:

“We realize that this is a painful topic in a country in which the issue of welfare benefits, and cutting (or not) the spending side of the fiscal cliff, have become the two most sensitive social topics. Alas, none of that changes the matrix of incentives for most Americans who find themselves in a comparable situation: either being on the left side of minimum US wage, and relying on benefits, or move to the right side at far greater personal investment of work, and energy, and… have the same disposable income at the end of the day. “

Check out the whole article at the link.

Given that the US of A is broke, what’s going on in politics? Naked protesters want more gov’ment cheese, the Democrats want to play chess and the GOP wants to play dumb and the GOP still wants to give lots of sugar subsidies. The Democrats are not the progressive party they are the stompy hooves party.

We need a fiscal deal.

We as a country can’t afford a military presence in Europe, a tank/APC that’s 80 tons, a welfare state that pays people to sit there and buy Iphones and the farm subsides need to go.

The problem is as old as time: people want to eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner but whine when their waistline expands.

As Insty says, if something can’t go on forever, it won’t.

Either we fix the budget and drive away from the fiscal cliff, or the Democrats will have ruined the economy and the country. They will own it. Bush is not in office, the military is shrinking (so much for the “permanent war economy”). The huge recession, the jobless rate? THEIR. FAULT.

Like Europe, the Democrats promised free stuff and easy living. When it goes south, they will sling blame and attempt to “fix it” with taxes and b.s. economics. Some in the GOP will attempt to do the same. Porkbarrel politicians will still rob peter to pay paul, even in the face of doom.

If the GOP can’t stop them, we need a new GOP (or a new party entirely).

Hot Crew! : Carrie Fisher

Carrie Frances Fisher (born October 21, 1956) is an American actress, novelist, screenwriter, and performance artist. She is best known for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy and for voicing Angela in Family Guy. She is also known for her bestselling novel Postcards from the Edge and screenplay for a film of the same name, and her autobiographical one-woman play, Wishful Drinking, and the non-fiction book she based on it.

Ah every geek remembers his first big nerd crush…

No, we are not Europe

“Sweden has the population of North Carolina, no real linguistic or religious diversity, no experience of chattel slavery or mass immigration (and the children of recent immigrants in Sweden, incidentally, tend to have much higher poverty rates than the native-born), and a culture of Lutheran thrift and prudence that endures even though Lutheranism itself is on life support. America is and always has been a country of much greater diversity and wider cultural extremes, “
–Can We Be Sweden?, Ross Douthat, New York Times.com. Via Insty

“Bush didn’t create the conditions that led to the crash; he inherited them from Bill Clinton, and a large cast of thousands all played their own parts. Republican policies had no role in the crash; and the Democrats’ policies would have had no role, either.”
– “Another place where Republicans keep failing”, Noemie Emery, Washingtonexaminer.com

Most of the US Federal Budget goes to that govm’ent cheese.

Even Sweden or Europe can’t afford to be the European Welfare state:

“But while austerity tears at the funeral industry — and some say the social fabric of the country — it has been a boon for science. Donating a body has become such a popular alternative to the cost of a funeral that some medical schools complain they do not have enough refrigerators to store all of them…”
–Economic Crisis Leaves Hard-Hit Spaniards Scrimping on Funerals, NYT.com

“According to Swedish Statistics, unemployment in May 2011 was 7.9% in the general population and 25.9% amongst 15-25 year olds.”–Wikipeida

U.S. unemployment is at 7.9 percent. What does it all mean?

It means that while some might blame the Cold War, Iraq War, the DoD, Regan, the Bush Presidents, it’s the quest for a socialist state and the welfare state that’s got this country in the shape it’s in. Both parties got Uncle Sam in the housing business. The result was good money was sent to bad loans. We knew this was coming: articles, teevee shows, talking heads talking about the end of cheap money.

We did nothing. George W. Bush tried, but the Congress stopped him.

It would be nice to give a house to everyone. It would be nice to have a guaranteed income. One of my college buddies liked to rant that “in Europe, you were guaranteed an income of $20K a year no matter what.” I wish I could see him now.

The US floated Europe during the Cold War. While American GI’s stood guard, Europeans partied, or in Sweden’s case, stayed neutral. Communism fell, pulling the rug out from under the socialist lie. We were promised a “peace dividend”, that went away with the conflict of the 90′s and 9/11.

But still the advocates of govm’ent cheeze pressed on. From LBJ and his War on Poverty to the Community Reinvestment Act of the Clinton-Era, politicians promised something for nothing. And in times of crisis the cry of “Free stuff!” gets louder. Our economic problems will only get worse as more people and special interests ask for more government money. With money comes power and with power comes attempts at control.

Sadly government control and government money distort the economy. High taxes drain the economy, backing loans mean more bad loans get made. Government steps in to “regulate” things and now we have the mess we are in. Government expanding to meet the needs of an expanding government.

Instapudit says that the answer is no, we can’t be Sweden. We can’t be France in the 70′s, Europe in the 90′s or Japan in the 80′s. No matter how much liberals try to turn the USA into Europe 2.0. All of those economies were founded on lies (and helped by American military and economic might). Some have recovered, others are spiraling downward.

We need to look to an American solution. If people want Sweden, they should move to Sweden.

No more Twinkies :(

Thanks liberals. Somehow the military or rich Republicans will be blamed.