Senate The 2nd Term of the Obama Administration: Facts, Opinions, and Discussions

Well, we did pass a budget, and have we cut Medicare and Defense within the last 5 years.

 

Just wanted to repeat in here how disappointed I was with the president's NSA speech. As I listened to it, I almost saw the unmanned drones circling overhead, with their missiles trained on the White House press corps.

I like the Mozilla foundation's response:

https://blog.mozilla.org/privacy/2014/01/17/response-to-president-obamas-speech-on-surveillance/

 

I want to know thing, if Obama is being compared to Kennedy. Did a bullet actually save Kennedy's legacy?

 

I hope this SOTU address doesn't include anything new, unless it's an absolutely brilliant new idea or something that could actually pass Congress. I just want this State of the Union address to be about the fundamental things he feels he must accomplish before leaving office, a shorter and much more focused speech, with specifics.

 

Gosh Obama put up a brave fight against the 18th century Democrats and their protectionism didn't he?

Silly Democrats, Free Trade Deals are for everyone's good!

 

The Democrats usually go along with what Obama wants, don't they? I'd put my money on the protectionists deferring to the president rather than revolting.

 

No, they revolted.

 

Not really. Nowadays, people of greater intellect don't look up to him as the Gary Stu of the presidency that he seems to always be hyped up to be. He made a lot of screw-ups.

 

no, they're revolting.

 

Kinda like the loyal opposition.

 

I don't think we've had that since Reagan and Tip O'Neill...

 

Yeah. The good old days, right?

Going to be interesting when the GOP takes back the Senate. I think that may actually help the democrats keep the White House in 2016, for multiple reasons.

Peace,

V-03

 

The Democrats could still hang on to the Senate, and make a few gains in the House, in 2014. And 2016 is looking like it will be a very good year for Democrats, with Hillary as the very likely nominee, a presidential year meaning it's more likely to take back the House (especially with the excitement surrounding Hillary if she's the nominee), and it's the year the Senate Class of 2010 is up for re-election so we can get rid of a lot of Tea Party Senators.

 

It depends on how nutty the Republican nominee is.

 

If the Democrats block free trade agreements in favour of subsidies and protection they deserve an especially nasty drubbing in the elections.

Protectionism and fair trade are insipid ideas that drown more than they save, and it's past time we abandon them.

 

they do support those things, as do many repubs. i don't think this will necessarily hurt them, though. all they have to do is crank up the uterus-stealing/middle crass/dirty air dirty water/war on women-various hyphenated americans-irregal immigrants talk and they manage to coast on through.

 

Are we talking about TPP here, or just trade agreements in general? Because if it's TPP, then there are other reasons why some oppose it, unrelated to the "dey derka derbs".

 

Pentagon plans to shrink army to pre-WWII levels!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/u...k-army-to-pre-world-war-ii-level.html?hp&_r=1

 

A lot of it isn't going to pass. I have no problem with the troop cuts. Making the Army leaner and more specialized (regular forces are being cut but Special Operations is being increased) is good for the service. Hagel is also proposing to retire the A-10 for the new F-35. That makes sense as well. The Marines are being slightly cut.

But he is also recommending to freeze military pay and reduce the commissary allotment, which is going to hurt the regular soldier. Also, for some reason, Hagel is continuing to fund the Navy to build 2 destroyers and 2 attack submarines a year, when upgrading existing ones would seem to make sense due to the current worldview. I'd imagine the shipbuilding decision is a political nod to the districts that contain the facilities, even though it costs billions of dollars.

 

If the A-10 was like the only thing that was effective in desert environments, why does scrapping it make sense?

 

Maybe the US has UK envy, realising that the navy is the key to long range power?

 

yeahhhhh! entitlements next, baby! woohoo!!!!!

*high five*

 

Well, the A-10 isn't the only plane effective for desert environments, it's that it excelled at close air support by design. The A-10 was originally designed during the cold war as a dedicated tank-buster, when the fear was that hordes of Soviet armor would pour across Europe. That never happened of course, but due to the A-10's characteristics (low loitering speed and armor protection) it became the "go to" plane for close air support.

I don't think any new A-10's have actually been produced in over 20 years, and it's already been slated to be retired a couple of times prior as well. So there is no "A-10" production line that needs to be shut down. The F-35 can be used to take up some slack of the A-10, but the competitor of the A-10 isn't a new plane, it's the UAV. The newer Reaper and older Predator UAV's can take over the A-10's mission on an "on call basis." For comparison, the USAF has over 300 Predtaor/Reaper UAV's. The USAF has less than 200 A-10's left on active duty. The A-10 is still in service with the Air National Guard, and what is unclear if the remaining active duty ones will be transferred to the National Guard, or if they will all be completely phased out.

I imagine such details are going to be the main sticking point. For example, it makes no sense to cut the Army to pre-WWII levels, but keep the Navy funded at cold war levels and beyond, if ships are still going to be produced. If it's all just a political ploy to keep big ticket items produced in certain areas, it's going to produce an even bigger fight. It will depend when the official details emerge instead of just the summary.

 

When it comes to "production line politics", how large are these production lines anyhow? Whenever I hear about the military buying aircraft or tanks just for to "keep the production line open", it seems like they're buying them in the single digits or some other really small batches. So the production lines for say, the F-15 or F-16, have to be pretty small operations by now right, I mean it doesn't seem like there's much work to be done.

 

It depends. To get technical, the Air Force isn't buying anymore F-16's or F-15's because the existing airframes are going to last past their retirement date. As such, any current examples are being built by their respective companies for foreign sales on the private market. (Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas, as the case may be) A better example would be the F-22, which is just entering service, so to loose the "production line know-how" would actually impact any additional aircraft purchased at a future date. For comparison, each Arleigh Burke Destroyer takes 5 years to build and costs 2 billion dollars each. There are two shipyards in the US. Bath Iron Works in Maine, and Ingalls Shipyard in Mississippi. The Navy currently has 62 destroyers, and plans for up to another 14, which are still being funded for 2 a year. The issue is that the Arleigh Burke destroyer is one of the most "upgradable" ships the US Navy has, and the Navy has a current program to upgrade older ones. 22 Arleigh Burke's are less than 10 years old. I'd wager that older Arleigh Burkes could be upgraded for a fraction of the cost of building new ones, but almost 30 years worth of potential shipbuilding is a tough sale to refuse.