El Cid said:
About the 40K jobs... here's a deafening blow to your little theory. Kerry wants to add 40K jobs by cutting EVERY military members pay. Not cutting by reducing our current pay but by reducing the cost of living adjustments. I don't know about you but telling an E-2 that he will just have to get by next year on the same amount of pay with constantly rising inflation rates is wrong. He also wants to cut the military's budget... so we'll add 40K jobs + cut cost of living adjustments + cut the military's budget = decreased readiness + disgruntled service members.
How's that for bursting your silence? 46driver, N866DA?
Have a source for that? Because on the contrary, everything I can find about what Kerry wants to do with the military seems to involve improving benefits for servicemembers and their families, ie protecting Impact Aid (which helps fund DoD schools and which Bush has tried to cut), making the Family Separation Allowance permanent, increasing the Death Gratuity for families of those killed in combat zones, reimbursing the families that had to buy body armor for their soldiers in Iraq, etc. That sounds to me like taking good care of servicemembers and their families, not just the defense contractors, who are well taken care of no matter what party controls the White House.
After what Bush has done to the military, nothing Kerry does could possibly be worse. So far, nobody has responded to my mention of Bush's record with the military.
I took a look at those slideshows and what can I say, they're typical campaign material. No different from the Democrats whispering about the "rumors" that George W was AWOL when he was supposed to be in Alabama with the guard. Personally, I find it hard to believe that John Kerry would "self-inflict" gunshot wounds (even if they were in the extremities like arm, and leg, which is where he was wounded), just to get Purple Hearts and someday be President of the United States. I don't agree with everything he said when he came back from Vietnam, but at least John Kerry went over there and served. When his country called, he answered, unlike some other people.
About the tax slideshow, well, I guess people's opinion about Bush's tax cut comes down to how they view economics. Like I said, I'm a Republican. I'm all for cutting taxes. But in this case, I think it's wrong for two reasons. First of all, we are at war. Americans are sacrificing their lives abroad, and the American people should be making sacrifices at home too. Bush could have used the unity and goodwill of 9/11 toward this purpose with absolutely no political fallout. He chose not to. Second, we're running record budget deficits. No big deal to Bush and his people, but when our generation (those of us that are college age right now) is running this country, we are going to have a crushing federal indebtedness problem. For all the things I hated about Clinton, you have to give him the fact that he balanced the budget. Balancing the budget, not running up the national debt, is the best way to economic prosperity.
All that said, for me, service is above politics. I'm going full speed ahead into the Marines, no matter who is elected, no matter what happens.
