NYTimes Editorial

[psrogers]

An article from today's NYTimes, from a famous economist- he's more liberal than most, which isn't saying much.


OP-ED COLUMNIST
Support the Troops
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: November 11, 2003


Yesterday's absurd conspiracy theory about the Bush administration has a way of turning into today's conventional wisdom. Remember when people were ridiculed for claiming that Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, eager to fight a war, were hyping the threat from Iraq?

Anyway, many analysts now acknowledge that the administration never had any intention of pursuing a conventionally responsible fiscal policy. Rather, its tax cuts were always intended as a way of implementing the radical strategy known as "starve the beast," which views budget deficits as a good thing, a way to squeeze government spending. Did I mention that the administration is planning another long-run tax cut next year?

Advocates of the starve-the-beast strategy tend to talk abstractly about "big government." But in fact, squeezing government spending almost always means cutting back or eliminating services people actually want (though not necessarily programs worth their cost). And since it's Veterans Day, let's talk about how the big squeeze on spending may be alienating a surprising group: the nation's soldiers.

One of George W. Bush's major campaign themes in 2000 was his promise to improve the lives of America's soldiers — and military votes were crucial to his success. But these days some of the harshest criticisms of the Bush administration come from publications aimed at a military audience.

For example, last week the magazine Army Times ran a story with the headline "An Act of `Betrayal,' " and the subtitle "In the midst of war, key family benefits face cuts." The article went on to assert that there has been "a string of actions by the Bush administration to cut or hold down growth in pay and benefits, including basic pay, combat pay, health-care benefits and the death gratuity paid to survivors of troops who die on active duty."

At one level, this pattern of cuts is standard operating procedure. Just about every apparent promise of financial generosity this administration has made (other than those involving tax cuts for top brackets and corporate contracts) has turned out to be nonoperational. No Child Left Behind got left behind — or at least left without funds. AmeriCorps got praised in the State of the Union address, then left high and dry in the budget that followed. New York's firefighters and policemen got a photo-op with the president, but very little money. For that matter, it's clear that New York will never see the full $20 billion it was promised for rebuilding. Why shouldn't soldiers find themselves subject to the same kind of bait and switch?

Yet one might have expected the administration to treat the military differently, if only as a matter of sheer political calculation. After all, the military needs some mollifying: the Iraq war has turned increasingly nightmarish, and deference toward the administration is visibly eroding. Even Pfc. Jessica Lynch has, to her credit, balked at playing her scripted role.

So what's going on? One answer is that once you've instilled a Scrooge mentality throughout the government, it's hard to be selective. But I also suspect that a government of, by and for the economic elite is having trouble overcoming its basic lack of empathy with the working-class men and women who make up our armed forces.

Some say that Representative George Nethercutt's remark that progress in Iraq is a more important story than deaths of American soldiers was redeemed by his postscript, "which, heaven forbid, is awful." Your call. But it's hard to deny the stunning insensitivity of President Bush's remarks back on July 2: "There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring 'em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation." Those are the words of a man who can't imagine himself or anyone close to him actually being in the line of fire.

The question is whether the military will start to feel taken for granted. Publications like Army Times are obviously going off the reservation. Retired military officers, like Gen. Anthony Zinni — formerly President Bush's envoy to the Middle East — have started to offer harsh, indeed unprintable, assessments of administration policies. If this disillusionment spreads to the rank and file, the politics of 2004 may be very different from what anyone expects.

 

[kimphil]

Who cares what some Princeton economist has to say--I want to know what Michael Moore or Sean Penn think!

 

[TNWhiskey]

Man what are you's all talkin' 'bout...I not sho who M.Mor or S.Penn-y are but my man that's because I be smackin' duh ho's, bouncing on 24's, and collectin' da BLING BLING...

All that matters is what's on MTV right???

Don't even waste your time responding to what some Ivy league windbag has to say...they're cut from the same mold...Control the masses to pad your own pocket and further your own control by being able to buy their lives/votes.

 

[kimphil]

Ivy league windbag? You mean like our President GW Bush, or his father GHW Bush?

 

[Daedalus]

I'm not in the military (yet) but my Army officer friend has said the same thing Patmack said, concerning raises. He is not complaining.
Also the whole tax cuts for the rich is the party line of the democrats and kimphil. When one of (or most of) Bush's policies turn out for the best the dems just dig back to the 80's and pull something out like "tax cuts for:" I have heard democrats on the news (elected ones) who keep quoting these numbers they pulled from nowhere like the tax cuts were for the wealthiest: 1% 5% 20 %, middle class, and keep changing their minds. The child tax credit went to people with children. For instance I do not have any children and I didn't get a dime. I'm not complaining, but I am pointing out that the tax cut was blind as far as the wealth of the people who received it. In fact the more kids you have, the less money you tend to have: rich people don't have many kids.
Bush's popularity has been declining I think, because of the media attention of the casualties in Iraq. I'm not saying that attention should not be paid, my point is that I believe Bush is doing an all around good job.

Now on the economy:
It seems to be doing better, surprise surprise? What are the democrats going to complain about when everything keeps getting better? Will they realize maybe they were wrong and all become republicans? I doubt it (I’m kidding)

I don’t think that the pres is perfect, he has made mistakes, but I don’t see a better dem candidate up there. Personally I would have voted for McCain, had he made it to the rep nomination.

 

[TNWhiskey]

Yes kimphil you're learning...I'm partisan to no party I vote who'll help ME the most...since I'm pro military and agree on Republican fiscal policy that makes George W. Bush my President. I also think he's more 'real' and 'moral' than most politicians...but nonetheless at the end of the day he's still trying to control the masses and buy votes...That's politics and until we have an independent or a major third party Presidential candidate it will be business as usual...

 

[kimphil]

Well first, I should congratulate whomever created this thread for reading the NY Times. I just assumed that Room5047 and myself were the only readers of the NY Times, and everyone else got their news from Entertainment Tonight since the members of this board only seem concerned with what Hollywood actors or other celebrities have to say about the War/economy/politics. As amazing as it may seem, there are smart people without Hollywood movie credits who don't agree with the President. What a surprise!

Daedalus, you still talking about that child tax credit thing? I surpised that you want to bring up the issue tax policy/economics since you've made it clear how little you understand the complexities of these issues.

I've never doubted the economy would improve. With Fed rates at historic lows, along with massive deficits and war pumping stimulus into the economy, what other issue will people have to vote on? Maybe the War, perhaps? That's really not an issue since we know how well that's going (not a "long, hard slog").

As far as compensation is concerned, asking an active duty officer or NCO whether he of she is well paid is deceptive-- of course he/she is well paid. Officers in the military have salaries competitive with what civilians make.

An enormous part of the $87 billion supplemental goes to the pay of soldiers. It make sense that the administration wants to cut that. The Pentagon is also closing some base commissaries and schools to save money. This might not make you too happy if you have a family you're trying to support.

Also, there also plenty of people complaining about compensation and lack of money for troops in Iraq. They just don't show those reports on ET.

Quoted from Newsweek

Nov. 17 issue —  What should you put in a letter to your spouse serving in Iraq? The conventional wisdom, says Janet Mooney of South Charleston, W.Va., is “to put a shiny face on everything we tell them, so the guys feel better—but I don’t believe in that.”

MOONEY’S THEORY IS that soldiers like her husband, Patrick, a West Virginia state trooper whose National Guard unit called him up in February, “want to feel like they’re a part of what’s happening here.” So along with accounts of their daughter Caitlin’s 10th birthday, Janet felt she had to inform Pat about the death of her father and of Pat’s grandmother, about the clothes dryer’s catching fire and the trip to Cape Cod on which she lost her wedding ring. That way, she says, her husband “feels —like he’s still included” in the family life he left so abruptly—and Mooney doesn’t have to keep it to herself when the basement floods and she slips and breaks two ribs.

Perhaps not every soldier’s domestic life has been as eventful as Mooney’s over the past nine months. But as a 37-year-old father called out of civilian life to serve an extended tour overseas, he is representative of a fifth of the American troops serving in Iraq. They are members of the Army Reserves or the states’ Army National Guard—driving trucks, piloting helicopters or manning checkpoints in the most dangerous place in the world for Americans right now. And as the holidays approach—followed by the first anniversary of their mobilizations—their families are growing increasingly impatient. Until recently, Shumeka Peters’s daughter Laila would smile and say “Dada!” when she saw a picture of her father, Jamie, who was called up in February, when she was just 5 months old. Now, though, she throws the picture down and cries “No!”—feeling deserted by someone she hardly had time to know.

The reservists run many of the same risks as the regular troops they support, but they pay a different price. For an active-duty soldier, foreign deployment is an expected risk, and carries benefits in pay and promotions to offset the hardships. But for reservists, this is an unexpected detour in lives and careers whose course had seemed quite predictable just a year ago. For their employers, losing a worker to a call-up can be anything from a nuisance to a potential disaster, in the case of small businesses or professional practices. Dan Mills, a member of the Michigan National Guard who was about to start a vacation with his wife and daughters at Disney World last winter and instead found himself on his way to Iraq with 48 hours’ notice, says: “Nobody thinks when they sign up that they’ll be going to war.”
        And few imagined they could be called to serve as long as a year overseas, broken up by (at most) one two-week home leave. Counting time for training, outfitting and demobilizing, this often means as much as 16 months away from home, earning military salaries that may not come close to their civilian pay. And under the Pentagon’s “stop-loss” policy, a reservist sent to Iraq must stay on duty until his entire unit is sent home——even if his enlistment expires in the meantime. (Currently, active-duty soldiers can muster out whenever their terms are up.) Two days before she was to leave the Army Reserves in February, with her paperwork all done, Leslie Crawford of Provo, Utah, was ordered into a new unit that was on its way to Iraq—where she still is, according to her sister, Lisa. “She says she feels like a POW of her own country,” Lisa says.

It is the perceived disparity of treatment between reservists and active-duty personnel that draws the anger of many families at home. “Why are reservists there for 16 months and some active-duty guys for six months?” demands Candance Robison of Texas, whose husband, Mike, has been away from home since February. Of course, active-duty troops did most of the fighting in the invasion. But there’s plenty of danger to go around for reservists, and they’re facing it, in some cases, without the same equipment provided to regular units. Joe and Suzanne Werfelman of Sciota, Pa., were shocked to hear from their son, Richard, a 23-year-old law student called up by his military-police unit, that he had been issued a protective vest without the “plates” that stop automatic-rifle rounds. They bought and shipped the plates themselves, at a cost of $660. And as for benefits, both active and reserve troops who put in 20 years are eligible for a pension—but unlike active-duty soldiers, the reservists have to wait until the age of 60 to start collecting it. “I told my wife, I’m investing all this time, I’d do better investing in mutual funds,” says Johnny Arias, a 16-year veteran of the New Mexico National Guard who was sent to Iraq in April, and plans to leave as soon as his unit returns home.

Active-duty soldiers live on or near bases, where there are resources for their families and the support of others in the same situation. It’s a different matter for someone like Laura Kinslow, 28, who is facing a second winter in the isolated house outside Brookings, S.D., where she said goodbye to her husband, Eric, as he left for Colorado one morning in January en route to Kuwait. Actually, she might have found herself in Kuwait, where her own Guard unit has been deployed—but she was seven months’ pregnant at the time, and has since given birth to a son, Toby, whom Eric has never seen.
        It isn’t just families reservists leave behind, it’s jobs. Robison, whose husband is a salesman for a steel company, worries about how long his boss will keep his position open for him. “They’re supposed to hold their jobs for five years, but they can let them go if they downsize,” she says. “His boss needs someone who can be there.” Janet Mooney still goes almost every week to the state-police barracks where Patrick was posted, sorting through court papers on cases that he’s trying to keep alive from half a world away. Of the 17 troopers assigned to his unit, four, including Mooney, are serving in the Guard or Reserves. “These call-ups are killing me,” says state police Chief Howard Hill, who also had to give up one of his three pilots over the summer. Among the units mobilized was an engineering battalion that specializes in flood control. “If we have a flood in West Virginia now, that unit with all its know-how is gone, and their equipment is gone. They’re in Iraq.”

The frustrations have given rise to a nascent bring-home-the-troops movement, which is starting to attract attention from the brass. After the wife of a soldier in the 122d Engineers griped to a newspaper reporter last summer, Brig. Gen. Buford Mabry explained the Army’s view to a “family readiness group” meeting in Batesburg, S.C.: “We all have freedom of speech, but our soldiers need our support, not complaining.” In Kansas, relatives of soldiers in the 129th Transport, which was sent to Iraq in April, set up a Web site, 129bringthemhome.com, and collected more than 13,000 signatures on a petition calling for a one-year limit on Reserves deployments. Eventually a general was sent out from the Pentagon to talk with them, after which they changed the Web site to 129supportingoursoldiers.com. Soon afterward they got a firm date for their spouses’ return: June 22, 2004.

 

[airwinger]

I agree with the article that stop-loss for reservists when no one else has it is a problem, however I have little sympathy with the fire chief saying "If we have a flood in West Virginia now, that unit with all its know-how is gone, and their equipment is gone. They’re in Iraq.” Um hello the unit is for National Defense not public service.

Gen Macarthur said it best "It is to
win our wars... All other public purposes, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment but you are the ones who are trained to fight. "

Kimphil As far as being well paid, there was a congresswoman who stated that the average enlistee earns $6.70 an hour for a 40 hour work week, and if you think that PFC works 40 hours you are mistaken. Those young men and women aren't paid nearly close to what they are worth. I've seen some of them take welfare and others have to work two jobs not to. Officers don't complain but I will state that the $52,000 a year job offer I turned down for $30,000 as a 2ndLt is what I'd call well paying.

Plus only 18.5 billion of that money goes to Personnel, a far cry from "enormous part of the $87 billion supplemental goes to the pay of soldiers" see http://64.177.207.201/pages/16_404.html

 

[airwinger]

Ha..now I do know...I'm going to be watching you UI

 

[gunnerdd972]

I only have time to read NATOPS, oh and Airwarriors of course.

 

[vegita1220]

kimphil...
I can't say from personal experience, but from close friends who have chosen the enlisted route, I hear:

Typical enlisted sailors do not work the 8/9-4/5 shifts their civilian counterparts do. And there's no such thing as overtime. They also generally don't get to cool their heels as much depending on their CO.

Also, even more depends on what you do. An "information technology specialist" in the Army is not gonna make nearly as much as he/she could in the civilian world, or at least could have during the IT boom.

 

[TNWhiskey]

I wouldn't even engage this moron...he obviously gets his democratic talking points off the fax each morning...Yawn Yawn...ask the military if they'd want Bill Clinton back instead of the Bush...I think the earth would shake with a resounding 'HELL NO!' What would you say to them kimphil? Didn't you like the fact that he sold secrets to the Chinese and traded sleepovers for buy-offs errrr I mean campaign contributions...oh wait that didn't happen, oops...hey Mr. Clinton here's OBL....'oh no thanks I'm too busy nailing my interns and covering up bad real estate deals and don't have time for terrorists.' On second thought I better bomb Serbia to get heat off me...Oops I've lost the 'nuclear football' codes again. Oh well it not important. Let's see if we cut the CIA, FBI, and Military intel departments then they'll be less resources to track down all our inproprieties Hillary...do you forgive me now sweetheart?

Before you begin to lecture military people about how Bush is selling them out you might want to consider what they dealt with before...I think they'll grant Bush a little leeway at this point.

Please Please be in my platoon at OCS kimphil...I wanna see the SI's chew you up and crap you out. Tell them they're 'competitively paid' for the time they put in...lol...maybe they'll ask us to give you a towel party.

 

[kimphil]

Originally posted by TNWhiskey
I wouldn't even engage this moron...he obviously gets his democratic talking points off the fax each morning...Yawn Yawn...ask the military if they'd want Bill Clinton back instead of the Bush...I think the earth would shake with a resounding 'HELL NO!' What would you say to them kimphil? Didn't you like the fact that he sold secrets to the Chinese and traded sleepovers for buy-offs errrr I mean campaign contributions...oh wait that didn't happen, oops...hey Mr. Clinton here's OBL....'oh no thanks I'm too busy nailing my interns and covering up bad real estate deals and don't have time for terrorists.' On second thought I better bomb Serbia to get heat off me...Oops I've lost the 'nuclear football' codes again. Oh well it not important. Let's see if we cut the CIA, FBI, and Military intel departments then they'll be less resources to track down all our inproprieties Hillary...do you forgive me now sweetheart?

Before you begin to lecture military people about how Bush is selling them out you might want to consider what they dealt with before...I think they'll grant Bush a little leeway at this point.

Please Please be in my platoon at OCS kimphil...I wanna see the SI's chew you up and crap you out. Tell them they're 'competitively paid' for the time they put in...lol...maybe they'll ask us to give you a towel party.

I bet you'd love to give me a towel party. Bet you'd wouldn't blink at the idea of following an illegal order like that. Why don't you go back to high school and bully some kids out of their lunch money. Yes, I bet the Marine Corps needs a lot more idiots like you.

Make fun of the Clintons all you want. They're not my golf buddies, I could care less.

 

[riley]

Kimphil - your assumption was dead wrong - I don't get my news from "Entertainment Tonight", I get it from "Playboy" articles.

You kind of sound like the guy who gets his kicks by dicking with everyone. Post something dumb, get a reaction, post something dumb, get a reaction, repeat until people get pissed off....