SEQUESTRATION-CAN IT SAVE TRILLIONS

With the failure of the Super Committee and the previous Simpson/Bowles Debt Reduction Commission appointed by President Obama due to political gridlock, we now have “sequestration”, which has stirred great concern across the country and within the Halls of a do-nothing Congress. With a President more interested in his re-election than the deep issues confronting the nation, we must urge our reluctant Congressional representatives to act bravely and firmly before the axe falls sharply upon our national economy.

The definition of sequestration in this case is, “confiscation of property, as by court or government action.” What will be confiscated are dollars from government budget line items, which means that half of the $1.2 million in expense will be cut from the Defense Department.

We and Congress have kicked the can down the road so long we now must address several previously untouched issues, because there is no longer any alternative. Cuts in expenditures must be made and they must be made soon.
Issues such as Immigration, Social Security, and Obama-care must be changed, but the hot-button issue getting all the attention currently is National Defense and cuts to the Pentagon budget. That is a highly emotional subject just like the ones I noted earlier.

I have addressed Defense spending previously, and know from first-hand experience, as every single veteran knows, that we can cut waste, fraud and corruption in Defense spending and not lose one iota of defense readiness.
That would save billions of dollars, but we must save trillions ASAP, and I am going to make a suggestion that will cause a huge emotional negative reaction from many of my readers, but it is doable and logical.

There is absolutely no reason for the United States of America to fund, supply and support five separate distinct branches of our military. We should unify the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard into two distinct units, namely the Army and the Navy. Currently we have five separate units operating five different air operations, with five different supply units, five different uniforms, five different budgets that overlap the same objective.

After you take the emotional opposition out of the argument there are obviously billions of dollars in savings that can occur, and many of the under utilized facilities domestically and internationally can be unified with immediate greater efficiency and effectiveness.

Our federal government has never been run with the efficiencies and cost-controls that exist in private industry and those efficiencies must be forced upon our military and government operations ASAP. We have to require the political leadership to make these hard decisions and get our country back on a sound economic balance sheet.

Just consider all the under-utilized buildings that our government owns and maintains. Consider the millions of acres of land owned by the federal government and the substantially under-utilized acres of land that exist on our military installations. Selling off unneeded and unused land and getting it on the tax rolls only makes sense, but some one must have the guts to face these issues despite the well-known special interest lobby efforts that will quickly spring forth.

Remember our five-star General of the Armies, and later President Dwight Eisenhower warned us of the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex shortly after he left office. Many of the essential services of government must be preserved, but first we must get our financial house in order or nothing will exist if all our institutions collapse because our elected officials did not act responsibly. If you look into the mirror you know I am correct in my conclusions, but no one enjoys facing the cold hard facts of the day.

We are all guilty of kicking the can down the road, and we have been spoiled and bought-off by persuasive political forces, including lobbyists, but we must now suck it up and pay the price for having it good for far too long without keeping an eye on our federal check book. We trusted Congress to do that, and they cannot be trusted in this day and age.

I think our last chance to achieve an improvement in our economy and our national finances may be with the adoption of the Simpson/Bowles Commission Report.

COMMANDER GRANGER