The Republican Thread

[ChiSox_Sonix]

Defense Jobs: Winners and Losers

 

ELKHART, IND., AND OWEGO, N.Y.— Defense spending means jobs. But when the funding dries up, it can mean a world of pain.

Despite an overall increase in the defense budget, President Barack Obama is proposing to scale back or kill some major weapons programs in the year ahead, including the F-22 fighter and the next-generation presidential helicopter.

His proposed budget leaves many towns and cities across the United States facing the possible loss of high-paying jobs in one of the few industries that has proven recession-resistant — national defense.

As Congress determines the fate of these programs in the next few months, it will be selecting economic winners and losers from California to Maine. To illustrate what’s riding on the vote, msnbc.com visited two communities that stand to be aided — or devastated — by the outcome.

Finding itself — for now — in the winner’s circle is Elkhart County, Ind., home to a plant that builds Humvees for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Among the biggest potential losers is Owego, N.Y., a small, rural community, home of the controversial and endangered VH-71 presidential helicopter.

Likely winners

Unlucky in so many ways in this recession, the Elkhart area is fortunate in being able to rely on a continued flow of Pentagon money to build Humvees at AM General’s plant in Mishawaka, ten minutes down the road from Elkhart.

Workers at the Mishawaka facility, which employs more than 1,500 workers, know they have it good — especially compared to their friends and family members who have lost jobs at recreational vehicle plants nearby.

John Brecher/msnbc.comGuadalupe Gonzalez works at the AM General Humvee plant in Mishawaka, Ind. Gonzalez grew up in Elkhart, and feels fortunate to have work. An Army veteran, Gonzalez now makes the same vehicles that he traveled in during two tours in Iraq. Guadalupe Gonzalez, an Elkhart native and Iraq war veteran who rode in Humvees during his two tours of duty, said his job at AM General feels relatively secure.

“I feel pretty stable working here,” he said. “Obama’s been keeping the military contracts.”

Still, the question of what vehicle Defense Secretary Robert Gates will pick to replace the Humvee looms over workers at the plant. AM General, in partnership with General Dynamics, is one of three teams competing for the contract to build the Humvee’s successor – the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. The winner is expected to be announced in 2011 or 2012.

Humvee-making and other defense manufacturing have held up pretty well despite the recession. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of defense-related manufacturing jobs declined by only 4 percent from March 2008 to March 2009, compared to a 10 percent decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs overall.

Gonzalez’s immediate family knows about that decline firsthand. His two sisters, his mother and his in-laws all worked at RV plants, the area’s major industry. All have been laid off.

“They’re having to extend their unemployment benefits,” he said. “I feel I have a good future here. With the war going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military’s going to need these vehicles.”

Congress is set to approve nearly $1 billion for purchases of new Humvees and to refit of Humvees worn down by heavy use. The Mishawaka plant helps lift the hard-hit local economy, contributing $200 million in goods and services.

Several smaller firms in Elkhart such as Elkhart Brass, Transhield, and Acousticom also count on Defense Department contracts.

At a plant in Elkhart, 50 workers at Acousticom make headsets for Apache and Blackhawk helicopter pilots. “We do nothing overseas or in Mexico — all of our assembly work is done right here,” said Acousticom executive Doug Cochran. The firm has annual revenues of about $2.5 million, 80 percent of which come from direct sales to the Defense Department.

Possible losers

But while some Elkhart area employees feel safe, workers in Owego and other towns and cities with defense projects on the administration’s “hit list” fear the worst.

USAF/AP fileTwo U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor aircraft on a training mission off the coast of Florida. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday, April 6, that the Pentagon will end the F-22 fighter jet program.Gates has urged Congress to kill the Air Force's Transformational Satellite program. The losers there would be workers at Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the firms that worked on the program. Gates also wants Congress to halt the F-22 buy at 187 planes, which could jeopardize jobs at Lockheed Martin in Georgia and at suppliers in 44 states.

The proposed cuts are part of a larger effort by the president and Gates to root out waste in the Defense Department. Late last week, Obama signed a bill that tightens cost controls, saying wasteful spending on defense is “unacceptable” when the nation is fighting two wars and dealing with a massive budget deficit.

A potential loser in the budget scrimmage is Owego, home to a Lockheed Martin facility that had been serving as the primary contractor for the next-generation presidential helicopter until the Pentagon issued a stop-work order in mid-May.

“The whole issue now has become very personal,” said Martha Sauerbrey, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce in Tioga County, N.Y., where Owego is located.

Lockheed won the contract to replace the three-decade old helicopters in 2005. But coming out of a fiscal summit earlier this year, Obama blasted the contract — which has doubled in cost from $6.1 billion to more than $13 billion — as defense spending “run amok.” His budget proposes doing away with it altogether.

Sauerbrey, however, thinks the president was worried more about his image than he was fiscal prudence when he criticized the project.

“It was an irresponsible comment made, I think, to appease the everyday working people that he was a regular guy and didn’t need any highfalutin helicopter,” she said.

So far, Lockheed has laid-off 130 employees in Owego, with more reductions likely. Before the cutbacks, the company employed roughly 4,000 people at the facility, with 800 of them working on the helicopter project. An economist with the state of New York said these workers make approximately double the going wage in the area, giving a big boost to the whole region.

For the residents of Owego, worrying about the loss of its most-significant employer is nothing new.

IBM built its Owego facility in the 1950s, changing the area's economic outlook. Today, Lockheed Martin may have to lay off up to 20 percent of its workers at the same site.Image: IBM facility, Owego, NY“Same old, same old. We’re going to be fretting, what’s going to happen?” said Emma Sedore, the town’s historian. Sedore and her husband moved to Owego in the 1950s to work at newly built IBM facility.

Sedore said IBM, which employed 5,000 in Owego at its height, helped transform the town from a little bit “shabby” to a great place to live. But many of those well-paying jobs disappeared in the 1990s when IBM pulled up stakes. Today, Lockheed owns the former IBM facility and residents are worried about what would happen if mass layoffs were to occur again.

“We’re afraid a lot of the young people are going to be moving out,” Sedore said. “Well, of course they’ll have to if they lose their jobs. There sure aren’t any other places around here where they could get a good quality pay and job.”

Owego, whose village area was recently named the "Coolest Small Town in America" by Budget Travel magazine, is hoping tourism may pick up some of the slack.

Battles rage

Lawmakers representing Owego and other areas targeted for cuts are trying to wheel and deal in Congress to preserve funding for their big employers.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., whose district includes Owego, argue that it would be wasteful to throw out all the work that’s been done on the VH-71 program. They are working on a compromise that would include delivery of the helicopters, without some of the high-tech bells and whistles that have driven up the cost.

Analysts say this kind of “protect the jobs” mentality makes it difficult to do away with any defense program, even those with significant cost-overruns, like the helicopter project.

“There is no incentive for anyone participating in the process to get costs under control,” said Gordon Adams, a professor at American University and an expert in the defense acquisitions process.

Author of “The Iron Triangle,” a book about the politics of defense contracting, Adams said the various players in the industry tend to reinforce each other’s tendencies: The armed services want the products, the suppliers want the contracts and the elected officials want the jobs in their districts.

He said it shouldn’t come as a surprise to local lawmakers that the F-22 and the presidential helicopter are on the chopping block: “They were just ballooning in cost.”

Congressman Hinchey defends the cost of the helicopter program, saying it shot up because of requests for increasing sophistication in the aircraft’s abilities. What’s more, he said, his constituents don’t understand why this particular program is coming under so much fire when the federal government is spending billions to create jobs elsewhere.

“They certainly will [view this as a jobs-killer], because that will be the effect,” he said. “And the odd thing about it is that it will be completely inconsistent with the economic development package, the so-called stimulus bill, which is funding money to maintain jobs and to create new jobs.”

[lostfan]

Here's my response to that:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/...1901342,00.html

 

A few weeks ago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates trooped up to Capitol Hill to answer questions about the new Pentagon budget. This is an unseemly spectacle under the best of circumstances. Even reasonable members of Congress have been known to empretzel themselves shamelessly, attempting to defend weapons the Pentagon doesn't want or need, but which provide jobs for their constituents. Usually, they win, too. It is just too difficult for a Secretary of Defense to argue against shiny new weapons systems with subcontractors in 46 states, even if they are fantastically over budget and designed to counter a missile threat that the Soviets never perfected 30 years ago.

 

But this is a different year, and Gates is a different sort of Defense Secretary. He warned the legislators that each decision was "zero sum." Any money that went to things he didn't want would come out of programs necessary to support the troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Read "Can Robert Gates Tame the Pentagon?)

 

Undaunted, the legislators pressed their case — especially the Republicans, who seemed convinced, as one said, that the Pentagon budget was part of a nefarious Obama Administration plot: "Fiscal restraint for defense and fiscal largesse for everything else." Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona was very concerned about anti-missile defense — a gold-plated pipe dream, if there ever was one — and especially a product dramatically called the Kinetic Energy Interceptor. To which Gates replied, in a manner so casually dismissive that Franks seemed to shrivel in his seat, "I would just say that the security of the American people and the efficacy of missile defense are not enhanced by continuing to put money into programs ... that are essentially sinkholes for taxpayer dollars." (Read about the troubled SBX radar.)

 

And as for that kinetic contraption, it was a "five-year development program, in its 14th year, not a single flight test, little work on the third stage or the kill vehicle, etc., etc., no known launch platform ..."

 

Rat-a-tat, Gates continued on, in that flat, unassuming Kansas twang that screams: No bull here. The next day, testifying on the Senate side, Gates performed a similar anti-missile evisceration of Senator Jeff Sessions, who responded, "I'd say you were ready for that question."

 

After a quietly impressive career in government that has spanned more than 30 mostly Republican years, Robert Gates is suddenly seeming almost, well, charismatic. He reeks authority. He is, according to several sources, the most respected voice in National Security Council debates. The President is said to love his unadorned manner. Much of which is attributable to the fact that, in the self-proclaimed twilight of his public career, Gates has emerged as that most exotic of Washington species — the bureaucrat unbound, candid and fearless. He tells members of Congress what he really thinks about their pet programs. He upends Pentagon priorities, demotes the military-industrial hardware pipeline and promotes the immediate needs of the troops on the front line. He fires high-ranking subordinates without muss or controversy — an Air Force secretary and chief of staff who didn't agree with him on the need to end production of the F-22 aircraft; the commandant of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, who presided over disgraceful conditions; even a well-respected general like David McKiernan, a conventional-warfare specialist unsuited for the asymmetrical struggle in Afghanistan.

 

When, in a recent conversation, I noted that he seemed gleefully outspoken these days, Gates offered a twinkly smile and said, "What are they going to do, fire me?"

 

In truth, Gates has been bulletproof ever since George W. Bush lured him from Texas A&M University to replace the disastrous Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. His mission, Gates said, was "to put Iraq in a better place," which is a spectacular understatement. Iraq was falling apart in late 2006, and Gates found the Defense Department in paralytic denial. His nonstop effort to reform the institution — abetted by military rebels who had been cast into the outer darkness by the powers that were — is a great untold story of the war on terrorism.

 

"If you ever get a chance to interview Donald Rumsfeld," a retired four-star general told me in 2005, "ask him two questions and see which one lights up his eyes. Ask him what our force posture should be toward China 10 years from now. And then ask him what tactical changes we should make on the ground in Iraq as a result of the last three months of combat. I'll bet you anything, he gets more excited about China."

 

And that was the problem. The Cheney-Rumsfeld axis, which essentially ran national-security policy in the first half of the Bush Administration, was stuck in the Cold War. Rather than fight the enemy we had — the stateless terrorists of al-Qaeda — they sought more conventional enemies. Attention quickly — too quickly — shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq. And then, once the conventional armored push to Baghdad was completed, the ongoing war effort became — amazingly — a bureaucratic orphan. "Every time we tried to do something for the troops in the field in both Afghanistan and Iraq, we had to go outside the regular Pentagon bureaucracy to get it done," Gates recalled. "For example, there was no institutional home" for figuring out how to combat roadside bombs — but there were plenty of people working on how to counter missiles from North Korea.

 

On the day after he took over, Gates summoned General David Petraeus — no favorite of Rumsfeld's — from near exile at Fort Leavenworth, Kans., where he had supervised the writing of a new counter insurgency-warfare manual. Gates was about to travel to Iraq and wanted to know what the big questions were. "The biggest question is whether we have the right strategic concept to fight the war," Petraeus told him. "Instead of concentrating all our efforts on transitioning to Iraqi control, we need to go out and secure the population." (See pictures of Basra getting back to business.)

 

Gates seems uncomfortable talking about military intellectual stuff like counterinsurgency doctrine. He insists that logic, not doctrine, has driven everything he has done as Secretary of Defense. The highest priority was supporting the troops. "He resourced the important bureaucratic knife fights," said one senior Army officer. "He sided with us on MRAPs [mine-resistant vehicles] and unmanned drones, and increased intelligence, and more helicopters. Those should have been no-brainers, but it had been a real struggle to fund them before Gates." A military intelligence officer who was an Iraq specialist told me he had been pleading for more resources throughout the Rumsfeld years: "Iraq was Rumsfeld's fourth highest priority, after China, North Korea and Iran," he said. "But Gates called me in and asked, 'What do you need?' And he gave us everything we requested." Senior combatant commanders say these decisions, no less than the new tactics and increase in troops, helped change the course in Iraq.

 

And that, according to the Secretary of Defense, is the rationale for his new Pentagon budget; Bush had funded his wars outside the usual budget process, via so-called supplemental appropriations. Gates has included the war funding in his base budget, "so the programs will be institutionalized and the various services will fight for them." He insists that he is not abandoning the fancy hardware and future gizmos that his predecessors and Congress loved. "The things we've cut," he told me, "wouldn't have been in the budget even if we had $50 billion more to spend. They were programs that simply were unnecessary or weren't working."

The negotiating over the budget is likely to turn brutal, although Obama aides insist the President will veto the budget if Gates isn't satisfied with the result. And then there are the wars — especially Afghanistan, which Gates has said he hopes will turn around in the next year, but which has obviously become a more difficult enterprise than anticipated. Gates originally had planned to retire after a year or so, but he seems to have settled in, found a level of comfort and influence with the Obama Democrats that he never quite expected. "I don't do maintenance," Gates told me. "I would never do a job just to sustain the status quo. I like to go into an institution that's already good and do everything I can to make it better."

 

The Pentagon was good at some things, dreadful at others. It is better now, but there are lives at stake every day. Gates keeps track of those killed and wounded on his watch. He knows the exact numbers. He can get misty talking about the troops he's met downrange, young people the same age as the carefree students he supervised at Texas A&M, "which makes this all so much harder," he says. They — not future fights with China, not last week's tactics in Afghanistan — light up his eyes. He won't be abandoning them anytime soon.

 

[southsider2k5]

The sad thing is you could take many of the bolded arguments to the auto industry, and yet we were ready, and are ready, to keep throwing money down the drain there, while adding more costly restrictions to the industry.

[NorthSideSox72]

Here's my response to that:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/...1901342,00.html

Kudos for the use of the word "empretzel", which I had never even seen before.

 

[Balta1701]

The sad thing is you could take many of the bolded arguments to the auto industry, and yet we were ready, and are ready, to keep throwing money down the drain there, while adding more costly restrictions to the industry.

Except...at the same time as we're closing down some of those programs...we're also increasing the overall defense budget.

[southsider2k5]

Except...at the same time as we're closing down some of those programs...we're also increasing the overall defense budget.

 

Same with the auto industry.

[Balta1701]

Same with the auto industry.

Huh? We're increasing the auto industry budget?

[mr_genius]

Huh? We're increasing the auto industry budget?

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/GM-makes-new...70745.html?.v=8

 

The U.S. Treasury would own 72.5 percent of the new GM coming out of a bankruptcy sale process

 

The government certainly is putting more money into the auto industry than ever before.

[southsider2k5]

Huh? We're increasing the auto industry budget?

 

Sure we are. Who the heck do you think is financing all of this? Santa Claus?

[Balta1701]

Sure we are. Who the heck do you think is financing all of this? Santa Claus?

I just find that a bizarre way to look at the auto industry bailouts. Yes, the line item in the federal budget for "The auto industry" has gone up, but at the same time the auto industry is contracting substantially. Just struck me as a very weird way to think about the changes in that industry...to say that "we're increasing the budget for the auto industry" when the total amount of dollars (public + private) going in to automobile construction has dropped off.

[southsider2k5]

I just find that a bizarre way to look at the auto industry bailouts. Yes, the line item in the federal budget for "The auto industry" has gone up, but at the same time the auto industry is contracting substantially. Just struck me as a very weird way to think about the changes in that industry...to say that "we're increasing the budget for the auto industry" when the total amount of dollars (public + private) going in to automobile construction has dropped off.

 

Why, you made the same analogy for the defense budget?

[Balta1701]

Why, you made the same analogy for the defense budget?

Is the total number of dollars in the defense budget going up or down? Until the wars end, I'd say that if you count all dollars being spend on the department of defense, they're still going up, whereas if you count all dollars going towards automobile production, public and private, the latter is going down. More money is being spent on the DOD, less money is being spent on the department of automobile manufacturing.

[southsider2k5]

Is the total number of dollars in the defense budget going up or down? Until the wars end, I'd say that if you count all dollars being spend on the department of defense, they're still going up, whereas if you count all dollars going towards automobile production, public and private, the latter is going down. More money is being spent on the DOD, less money is being spent on the department of automobile manufacturing.

 

Excellent. Now you get why it is even dumber to be pissing away tax dollars into the auto industry under the guise of "high paying jobs".

[Balta1701]

Excellent. Now you get why it is even dumber to be pissing away tax dollars into the auto industry under the guise of "high paying jobs".

There's a big difference though. In the case of the defense department, 100% of its financing is public money. In other words, if I want to generate a high paying job, I need to have the taxpayer spend 100% of the cost of that job.

 

In the Automobile industry...GM in the first quarter reported revenue of $42 billion and a loss of $3.3 billion. If I assume those numbers are accurate (I have no idea if they're being treated like a bank or not)...if the government covers the entire loss, then the government is paying less than 10% of the price of running the company.

 

GM is therefore in this case analogous to the PPIP the Treasury is trying to work...it's paid for by a combination of government funds and private dollars, except the public is always going to fund a portion of the company willingly, because the public gets cars out of it.

 

 

And the multiplication factor is important...if the government doesn't cover that 10%, then the other 90% goes to chapter 7 and vanishes. A $3 billion dollar cut produces a $50 billion loss to GDP. Whereas in the DOD, a $1 billion cut to a DOD program = a $2 billion cut to GDP.

[southsider2k5]

There's a big difference though. In the case of the defense department, 100% of its financing is public money. In other words, if I want to generate a high paying job, I need to have the taxpayer spend 100% of the cost of that job.

 

In the Automobile industry...GM in the first quarter reported revenue of $42 billion and a loss of $3.3 billion. If I assume those numbers are accurate (I have no idea if they're being treated like a bank or not)...if the government covers the entire loss, then the government is paying less than 10% of the price of running the company.

 

GM is therefore in this case analogous to the PPIP the Treasury is trying to work...it's paid for by a combination of government funds and private dollars, except the public is always going to fund a portion of the company willingly, because the public gets cars out of it.

 

 

And the multiplication factor is important...if the government doesn't cover that 10%, then the other 90% goes to chapter 7 and vanishes. A $3 billion dollar cut produces a $50 billion loss to GDP. Whereas in the DOD, a $1 billion cut to a DOD program = a $2 billion cut to GDP.

 

By the logic bailing out the banks was the smartest thing we have ever done because of the additional multiplier effect through lending. Somehow I doubt you really believe that.

[Balta1701]

By the logic bailing out the banks was the smartest thing we have ever done because of the additional multiplier effect through lending. Somehow I doubt you really believe that.

If the economy actually turns around rather than falling off a cliff when the next couple bumps hit...then I'll have little choice but to start believing that...because the Fed/treasury bailouts will have worked. I've been fairly amazed by the market's ability to absorb bad news for the last 2+ months and still shrug it off.

 

(The counter-point to your argument, if I wanted to make it...is the math again. If there's a similar multiplier for the banks, then letting the banks fall would have taken out $25 trillion or so in GDP, based on the $700 billion from the Treasury and the $2 trillion+ from the Federal Reserve. That basically means the world would go back to an agrarian, hunter-gatherer society, I think).

[BearSox]

I'm hearing that there has been increased talk about raising the sales tax on everything up to 25% to fund for nationalized health care. Oh goody. Lets have our taxes raised even higher and also have to wait for months to get medical treatment!!!!!!!

 

I love America more than anything, but every single politician needs to be booted out office and we need to start fresh. This isn't even beyond ridiculous anymore, words can't describe it. Anyone ever wonder how we are gonna pay off all this depth we keep piling up? China ain't gonna be helping us out for much longer, and printing our own money is just gonna lead to hyper inflation.

 

I don't know. I don't care anymore. We are all pretty much screwed is how I figure it.

Edited May 29, 2009 by BearSox

[lostfan]

Uh how do you define "talk"? I mean I've heard "talk" that Bush wanted to bring back the draft, go to war with Iran before his term was up, etc. I've heard "talk" that Obama has a secret plan to enslave Americans and create secret police to stifle dissent.

 

A 25% sales tax is just plain LMAO. Do you believe everything you read?

[lostfan]

I obviously disagree with the fact that he thinks waterboarding and such is the holy grail of intelligence, but Bush has been 100% class since leaving office. Unlike Cheney who somebody needs to muzzle.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/29/geo...eech/index.html

BENTON HARBOR, Michigan (CNN) -- Former President George W. Bush on Thursday repeated Dick Cheney's assertion that the administration's enhanced interrogation program, which included controversial techniques such as waterboarding, was legal and garnered valuable information that prevented terrorist attacks.

Former President George W. Bush defended his administration in speech Thursday in Michigan.

 

Former President George W. Bush defended his administration in speech Thursday in Michigan.

 

Bush told a southwestern Michigan audience of nearly 2,500 -- the largest he has addressed in the United States since leaving the White House in January -- that, after the September 11 attacks, "I vowed to take whatever steps that were necessary to protect you."

 

In his speech, Bush did not specifically refer to the high-profile debate over President Obama's decision to halt the use of harsh interrogation techniques. Bush also didn't mention Cheney, his former vice president, by name.

 

Instead, he described how he proceeded after the capture of terrorism suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in March 2003.

 

"The first thing you do is ask what's legal?" Bush said. "What do the lawyers say is possible? I made the decision, within the law, to get information so I can say to myself, 'I've done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people.' I can tell you that the information we got saved lives."

 

Bush avoided the sharp tone favored by Cheney in recent weeks and stressed he does not want to disparage Obama.

 

"Nothing I am saying is meant to criticize my successor," Bush said. "There are plenty of people who have weighed in. Trust me, having seen it first-hand. I didn't like it when a former president criticized me, so therefore I am not going to criticize my successor. I wish him all the best."

[NorthSideSox72]

I obviously disagree with the fact that he thinks waterboarding and such is the holy grail of intelligence, but Bush has been 100% class since leaving office. Unlike Cheney who somebody needs to muzzle.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/29/geo...eech/index.html

He's been that. His last year in office was his best. Its like he started to grow up a little.

 

But then I never thought of Bush as some evil guy - I just thought he was clearly not up to the job. He was doing what he thought was right, misguided though he often was, and poor at management and execution he always was. A little bit like Carter that way I suppose.

 

I got off track there, but I agree, Bush has handled the past year or so pretty well.

 

[Texsox]

Excellent. Now you get why it is even dumber to be pissing away tax dollars into the auto industry under the guise of "high paying jobs".

 

I've been trying to wrap myself around the current concept that high paying jobs are bad in almost every industry. It seems sad that Americans gave up on high paying jobs, at least for the "other guy".

[southsider2k5]

I've been trying to wrap myself around the current concept that high paying jobs are bad in almost every industry. It seems sad that Americans gave up on high paying jobs, at least for the "other guy".

 

When your industry is going bankrupt, that means it is too much. I don't think it is nearly as complex as people want to make it out to be.

[Disco72]

I'm hearing that there has been increased talk about raising the sales tax on everything up to 25% to fund for nationalized health care. Oh goody. Lets have our taxes raised even higher and also have to wait for months to get medical treatment!!!!!!!

 

 

Uh how do you define "talk"? I mean I've heard "talk" that Bush wanted to bring back the draft, go to war with Iran before his term was up, etc. I've heard "talk" that Obama has a secret plan to enslave Americans and create secret police to stifle dissent.

 

A 25% sales tax is just plain LMAO. Do you believe everything you read?

 

The "talk" is about a Value Added Tax (VAT) which much of the world uses, and it would replace a large part of the income tax structure that currently exists. For example, see this article in the Washington Post. If implemented correctly, it is a much simpler tax system.

[Cknolls]

Sure we are. Who the heck do you think is financing all of this? Santa Claus?

 

 

Come on, its just a loan. Even though Teasury said GM would not pay back the 19.4 billion WE already gave them. How long do you think it will take GM to pay back the gov't. and actually show a profit after all is said and done? Total infusion somewhere between 75-100 billion dollars. I will say never, anyone else?

[Cknolls]

Uh how do you define "talk"? I mean I've heard "talk" that Bush wanted to bring back the draft, go to war with Iran before his term was up, etc. I've heard "talk" that Obama has a secret plan to enslave Americans and create secret police to stifle dissent.

 

A 25% sales tax is just plain LMAO. Do you believe everything you read?

 

 

Well the Emmanuel's brother is consulting with the W.H. on the health care plan, and he reccomends a 10% VAT to cover health care for all with no deductibles and a small co-pay.