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Tuesday, March 15, 2011
A Koch brothers thought.
When will the Koch brothers start public complaining in motion about senior military pensions, etc., bankrolling it as they appear to be doing regarding civilian public employee benefits?
I will bet Colin Powell's Pentagon pension payments exceed those from his stint as Secretary of State.
The joint chiefs has recently been a revolving door for pay boosts prior to retirement for the brass heavy senior ranks in our volunteer military.
With fewer grunts, and with the military academies as active as ever, the military is brass heavy beyond reason, and it costs taxpayers a bundle.
The enlisted ranks, any benefits such as VA access, they earned their benefits, boots on the ground in danger zones, and such. There's no grounds to dispute the small benefit costs the nation incurs that way.
But then the brass, that's another story entirely. For example, the insubordinate Gen. McChrystal, he will be pulling down a bundle while not having given suitable attention and respect to chain of command, i.e., that civilians control the military and the President was his commander in chief.
McChrystal's conduct was inexcusable. He was rightly sacked immediately upon Rolling Stone publishing regarding his insubordinate comments and attitude; and, good riddance.
Yet that's only an above the radar publicized example.
Without a draft enlisted ranks have decreased.
But the high brass has not kept a proportionate shrinkage pace.
And all these generals, there probably are more now in the ranks, than during World War II in its entirety. And admirals. Brass excesses down to the ranks of major and naval commander.
Consider the career of Leslie Groves, who headed the Manhattan Project (as general, he got the promotion with that project so that the remainder of the military would duly respect and expedite his requisitions and requirements). Prior, he arose after military academy through the officer ranks, Corps of Engineers. He was not a general, even while planning the development of bases and base expansion for the war effort and while heading the effort to build the Pentagon.
Building the thing was assigned to a Colonel. Col. Leslie Groves. Now it's full of generals, and if you can organize a good parade, you get to be a general. Again, Groves did not make general until he was assigned the bomb project leadership, with Oppenheimer as the scientific civilian head. Grove got the facilities built in the New Mexico outback.
But then there was less brass heaviness, less spending on senior rank positions.
So, Wisconsin is an example of Koch brother union-busting at its worse.
So, when will that dispicable pair take on the military and its far greater abusive fiscal excesses.
NEVER. They don't have the courage. End of story.
Their entire John Birch Society group of windbags lacks the courage and inclination to do anything but bash unions unfairly, or that appears to be the case.