Saturday, March 17, 2012

Military Welfare Queens Expect $1 Billion of Taxpayer $$$ to Waste












Alexandra Pelosi last night on the Bill Maher 'Real Time' show raised an excellent point in the context of her video presentation (of New Yorkers seeking welfare benefits) that in fact the military contractors and their ilk are the biggest "welfare queens" of all. Because they overlay their money with the cause of patriotism in fighting specious "wars" - they collect something like $700 billion a year which is piddling compared to the $70b in welfare collected by ordinary citizens in need.....and ok, maybe a few not in such dire need. But the point is, the latter aren't taking us to the cleaners! It's the one adorned in stars n' stripes that are doing that, but we know patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrels.

Enter now the city of Colorado Springs, long a shameless suckling on the teats of government to the tune of billions a year for military support and expenditure. The irony is most of its burgers are ideological (social-economic) conservatives who find no irony in bitching, moaning and pissing about the weak or homeless collecting food stamps- though they themselves collect hundreds of times as much in terms of fat military contracts, special benefits or spinoff largesse.....which is essentially the same thing. So while they bemoan the "Nanny" state to which the poor are driven, they overlook the "Pappy" state which sits them on its knees and doles out goodies galore.

Now, despite the fact there are more than 16,000 severely needy and homeless in the city and nearly 100 thousand (inlcuding children) with medical needs unaddressed, the town is expecting U.S. taxpayers to shell out more than a billion dollars to prop up its military fatcats and assorted leeches....including little military whores like Congressman Doug Lamborn ....who actually had the audacity to ignore Obama's State of the Union address, declaring his intent to "blow him off".
Hell, if I was Obama.....I would immediately pull the plug on ANY federal money to Colorado Springs to support a Combat air brigade- that Lamborn could brag on. "Oh See how much money I got for thee....? And it didn't even cost having to sit through Obama's State of the Union!" Sorry, buster! You and your pathetic town lose!

Here's the deal:

Despite the fact that the occupation in Afghanistan has mutated into a god-awful mess, approaching disaster on an epic scale, the meat heads in the Pentagon still want to award Ft. Carson (just south of Colorado Springs) more than 1 billion taxpayer smackeroos for a dubious combat air brigade (CAB) that's putatively there to "support operations in Afghanistan by training Apache helicopter pilots". This despite the fact that an ongoing environmental assessment hasn't even been completed? Hundreds of questions need to be addressed, including: How is such a unit to be accomomodated on the given location and what will be the training parameters? How many flights per day? At how much social, environmental cost? What if two choppers crash into homes per month? How much fuel can be dumped if need be and where? Who will pay for any damages and what about insurance? What are all the impacts associated with this? Of course, the Army could escape all responsibility despite the 285-odd questions that demand to be addressed by simply issuing a FONSI ('Finding of No Significant Impact').

Are you fucking kidding me? That cow has gone and left the barn before you closed the door, that train has left the station! So you're going to bring in some helicopter support base at the END of this year - despite the fact a full U.S. pullout is scheduled for 2014 (and may even come a year earlier if the events in Afghanistan continue to unwind)?

Now, IS our deficit really serious? Or is it all BULLSHIT if you can afford to piss away $1 billion of taxpayer dollars?

According to an article in The Colorado Springs Independent ('Ready for Takeoff', Mar. 15-21, page 10) nothing will now stop the CAB, it's effectively a done deal and "will require some $700 million for construction at the post". All to come from U.S. taxpayers most of whom have no vested interest in 122 helicopters (at a cost of $4.1 m each)flying 15,000 flights a year over Colorado Springs and the Pinon Canyon - creating environmental and other wreckage along the way, not to mention noise pollution.

So in effect, U.S. taxpayers will be paying for a military welfare check even more gross than the conservos make out taxpayer money going to birth control to be!

Okay, I did say $1b in waste, so where is the other $300 billion coming from? Well a good chunk will have to pay for new helicopters - Apaches- to help train these pilots that are ultimately supposed to be on their way to Afghanistan. (Though if the U.S. pullout for 2014 is real, I can't see how that timeline fits).

Another big chunk, maybe $50 million, will come from all the petroleum wasted in endless stupid "training" fights...Oh wait, sorry....they are "flying for our freedoms". Well, pardon me while I grab my barf bag.

Of course, these are only the on- paper costs . Unmentioned are the hidden costs to the community with 2,700 more families cramming into off -base housing (according to the article) thereby sending rents through the roof, even as traffic is rendered choc -a -bloc since most roads in the Springs (e.g. Academy Blvd.) can barely handle the existing traffic after 15,000 troops from Ft. Hood, Texas already moved in. Then there is the added burden on the schools, even as many have been closed and teachers sent packing because of the budget crunch.

The pro-Military groupies and whores keep babbling on how the new arrivals will "pay taxes" and "help the city" but if that is really so, how come the city's tide of red ink still goes on even after many thousands have already arrived, and presumably paid their local taxes?

The fact is this is all bullshit. The total social and environmental costs of such growth are always vastly more than the influx allegedly pays. More usually, because it doesn't take into account the new building that must occur to house or school all these newcomers.

The saddest fact of all is this is just a sop to Lamborn and his military-worshipping asshole pals. It performs no vital function and certainly can't be argued as necessary to operations in Afghanistan given how fast that debacle is unfolding and a rapid drawdown is almost imminent. In effect there's NO defense aspect or dimension to this sickening gambit at all. What it really amounts to is massive pork barrel spending for one location that will majorly hit future generations. They will inherit the future taxes to pay for the pork goodies to be distributed around the Springs in the form of this stupid CAB. Despicable!



All of us as taxpayers have been mightily pissed on by these military welfare queens!

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