IMPORTANT Troops Forced to Fight for Free?
May 28, 2008
Military.com|by Christian Lowe
The Pentagon has asked Congress to shift more than $9 billion from the services budgets to pay for Army and special operations activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, claiming that if more money isn’t appropriated for combat operations by July troops and civilian DoD employees will have to work without a paycheck - and some could be laid off.
The reprogramming request was sent to the congressional armed services committees May 28 after lawmakers were unable to reach a compromise on a wartime supplemental bill before the Memorial Day recess.
According to a Pentagon release, the department has asked to pull $5.7 billion from military personnel accounts of the other services and transfer those funds to the Army in order to pay its troops. Another $4 billion would come from the services operations and maintenance accounts to pay for Army and special operations ammunition, spare parts and other equipment needed for wartime operations.
Alert: Tell your public officials how you feel about this issue!
The Pentagon claims it needs the transfer to take place by June 9 to keep making Army payrolls.
“Without the ability to transfer these funds, the Army will run out of military personnel funds necessary to pay Soldiers by June 15,” a May 29 Pentagon release said.
The $160 billion wartime supplemental bill intended to pay for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the “Global War on Terrorism” through September is mired in a congressional fight over Iraq war policy, new G.I. Bill provisions and other spending tacked onto the bill unrelated to defense funding.
Both the House and Senate have passed their own versions of the supplemental bill - each of which President Bush has vowed to veto - but neither body had reconciled the two bills before recess.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates had warned lawmakers of the pay cuts if more funding wasn’t made available soon, but many saw Gates’ admonitions as tough talk to force lawmakers into action.
Tuesday’s reprogramming request ups the ante in the funding debate as the Pentagon claims even if the $9.7 billion reprogramming request is granted, the department will run out of money by mid-July if lawmakers don’t reach an agreement on a final supplemental bill.
“The department will have exhausted all military personnel and operations funding and will, at a minimum, be unable to make payroll for both the military and civilian personnel throughout the department,” the Pentagon said. “Service members and selected essential civilian employees, including those engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, would continue to serve, but without pay.”
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Oh My God.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:10 pmwow thats the most F’ed up thing i have ever heard of.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:50 pmThis is really messed up. My husband is currently serving and I am a full-time student. If he doesn’t get paid, we won’t be able to pay our bills.
May 28th, 2008 at 8:34 pmI don’t need to watch my budget, I HAVE TO! Why should our govt be any different? They blow our hard earned tax money like a drunken fckng senator out on a damned joy ride looking for skanky fckng whores! Oh, that’s right, they have them on SPEED DIAL!!!!!! What BULLSHIT!!
May 28th, 2008 at 9:02 pmShame on any/everyone of these politicians who recieves a paycheck or perk before this gets settled.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:07 pmIsn’t this like the 3rd time that congress has pulled this kind of shit?
What I’d like to see is, I’d like to see a tv commercial, aired on the major networks, stating what the bill is supposed to do (fund and pay our armed forces), and then go through a series of photos’ of each one of those shit eaters that tacked on unrelated spending, stating what they added on and for how much.
May 28th, 2008 at 9:30 pmNo surprise. The Democrats can fuck over the military and the American people all they want. They control government subsidies, unions, schools and media. Sadly, they have nothing to fear.
May 28th, 2008 at 11:37 pmIn his book ‘World War IV’ and this interview, Norman Podhoretz describes America as caught-up in its own, albeit still civil, civil war. Anyone think that between now and Inauguration thangs don’t remain too very civil?
‘Regime change Iran’ somehow got switched to ‘Regime change US.’ You know, your One-Party Democrat Country in your One Government UN World?
Change!
May 29th, 2008 at 2:47 amTime to clean House. If OBL and his devil-worshipping minions drop a nuke on DC, they’ll just be doing us a favor.
We used to say “Death to Tyrants” during the revolution. And isn’t the Congress and their judicial supports now the perfect examples of tyrants?
Hell, drop the nuke OBL. It won’t hurt my feelings none. Just make sure ground zero is Congress…or some place real close to it.
May 29th, 2008 at 4:30 amI’ve served 3 tours in Iraq with 3rd Battalion 7th Marines. And politics have served a serious role in all of them. On my first and second tour, congress was too busy fighting over who was “right” about Iraq, and wouldn’t listen to a damn thing that we, the troops said about Iraq. I suppose they figured we don’t know anything, after all, the troops are just the dumb saps fighting the war, what do the troops know?
On my 3rd tour, where pat was present, congress was finding every way search for so-called “atrocities”, and by this our rules of engagement were severely restricted. This caused myself and my Marines to be shot at, but have to request permission from our HQ to let us return fire. This was a prime example of how the expression “sh*t rolls down hill” actually works.
Then, just as they have been doing constantly, this democratic whining party played games with our funding, leaving us with fewer supplies, and a lack of new working gear. In fact, when I was about to hop on the bird to fly from Kuwait to Iraq, I had to go get ammo for my rifle and pistol, and when I arrived at the ammo shed, they presented a small Ziploc bag, and instructed myself and my group of Marines to grab a hand full and pass it on. So a handful was supposed to be what I was going to fight Al Qaeda with. Why? Well it’s because the democrats didn’t think it was important enough to give us money so we could actually provide ammo and equipment to the troops. I mean, we’re only fighting terrorist right. How dangerous could it be?
So as the dems disgusting game effected me and my Marines then, it is effecting all the troops now. And they won’t stop until we retreat from Iraq, and give Al Qaeda an un-earned victory. It seems to me that they act like this because they see politics as a sport, and regardless of what’s at stake, they want their team to win. But when you have crazy people making important decisions, expect insanity to occur.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:50 pm