Over 100 military construction projects on hold to fund Trump's Wall?

update Fort Bragg among N.C. military bases to take $80M hit to fund Trump’s border wall

North Carolina’s military bases will lose about $80 million in planned military construction, according to a list released by the Pentagon on Wednesday of projects across the United States losing funding to build President Donald Trump’s border wall with Mexico. The affected projects in North Carolina include $40 million for a new battalion complex and ambulatory care center at Camp Lejeune, a previously canceled $32.9 million elementary school at Fort Bragg, and a $6.4 million storage facility for the new KC-46 tanker at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. Those projects join cuts at a Florida base nearly destroyed by last year’s hurricane season, a new middle school for Kentucky’s Fort Campbell and a new fire station for a Marine Corps base in South Carolina.

UPDATE Tarps from Florence are still on roofs of hundreds of buildings at Lejeune, New River as Hurricane Dorian arrives

Fahy said following Florence, 345 buildings needed tarps on them. But he said that the Marine bases have made some progress with regards to roof repairs, with many buildings slated to get metal roof replacements. With a nearly $3.6 billion price tag in damages from Florence, the Corps is worried about the additional destruction that may come with Hurricane Dorian.

Maj. Gen. Julian D. Alford, the commander of Marine Corps Installations East, posted on the Camp Lejeune Facebook page that “many of the buildings on our installations are still undergoing repairs and are vulnerable to leaks.”
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More than 100 military construction projects could be put on hold to free up funds for a US-Mexico border wall

Military Times
By: Meghann Myers
Septamber 3, 2019

The funding comes from $1.8 billion each in funds designated for domestic and overseas projects, McCusker said. The 127 projects targeted are not canceled, she added, and are not necessarily going to be put on hold.

The Army Corps of Engineers is slated to replace, or build new barriers, in 11 places along the U.S.-Mexico border. (Dave Palmer/Army Corps of Engineers)

The Pentagon is prepared to fund 175 miles of border wall construction, Pentagon officials said Tuesday, using $3.6 billion in military construction funds that had been designated for 127 projects over the next year.

Officials declined to release a full list of the affected projects until the Pentagon has finished notifying the lawmakers who oversee the districts where they are planned, but said that family housing, barracks or projects that have had contracts awarded or are expected to be awarded in fiscal year 2020 will not be affected.

About 3,000 active duty and 2,000 National Guard troops are currently deployed to the southwestern border helping the Homeland Security Department with surveillance, detention of migrants and processing asylum requests.
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Now you know who is paying for Trump's Wall! It isn't Mexico....no shocker there.

Abortions, guns, raises and suicides in new Defense Bill

If you think Defense Bills are just about money going to contractors, this should open your eyes.

Obama Signs $633B Defense Bill
Jan 03, 2013
Associated Press
by Matthew Daly

As suicides among active-duty soldiers have accelerated, the bill also allows a commander officer or health professional to ask if a member of the services owns a firearm if they consider the individual at risk for either suicide or hurting others.

The bill includes a Senate-passed provision sponsored by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., that expands health insurance coverage for military women and their dependents who decide to have abortions in cases of rape and incest. Previously, health coverage applied only to abortions in cases where the life of the mother was endangered.

The measure includes a 1.7 percent pay raise for military personnel.

Air Force billion dollar COTS FUBAR

Billion-Dollar Flop: Air Force Stumbles on Software Plan
By RANDALL STROSS
Published: December 8, 2012

IN policy circles, problems that are mind-bogglingly difficult or impossible to solve, like global warming, are formally termed “wicked.”

For the United States Air Force, installing a new software system has certainly proved to be a wicked problem. Last month, it canceled a six-year-old modernization effort that had eaten up more than $1 billion. When the Air Force realized that it would cost another $1 billion just to achieve one-quarter of the capabilities originally planned — and that even then the system would not be fully ready before 2020 — it decided to decamp.

Silicon Valley sees its share of software projects that end unhappily. The most expensive failures, however, involve acquisitions of entire companies with software assets that turn out to be far less valuable than thought. Those can lead to stunning write-downs in the billions, as Hewlett-Packard has been forced to take recently.

But the Air Force’s software was not some mystery package, nor was it written from scratch. It was commercial off-the-shelf software, or “COTS” (the military can’t seem to resist any chance to use an acronym).

Installing COTS to run an enterprise is not a straightforward matter. The Air Force would have to make myriad adjustments to accommodate its individual needs, and in a military setting that would mean meetings and more meetings, unlike anything ever experienced in a Silicon Valley company. Still, it is hard to understand how the Defense Department blew a billion dollars before the plug was pulled.
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Romney promise, chicken in every pot and Big Bird unemployed

There was a time when a politician could get away with making speeches suit the ears of different crowds and then saying the opposite to other crowds. Those days are long gone but Romney didn't get the message.

I lived in Massachusetts when Romney was Governor and we used to get a kick out of what he said changing every time he spoke to different groups.

October 9, 2012
Democalypse 2012 - Vague Against the Machine - The Numbers Guy
Self-proclaimed "numbers guy" Paul Ryan doesn't elaborate on his revenue-neutral budget plan, and FDR issues a timely warning.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

October 9, 2012
Democalypse 2012 - Vague Against the Machine
Future American overlord Mitt Romney promises free stuff and enjoys the same insurmountable, unblowable election lead recently held by President Obama.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The problem I have is that no one really knows what he will end up doing for sure.

He was pro-choice and said he always was because of what he learned from his Mom. That was until he wasn't and then talked about being pro-life.

He told us when he was running for office that he cared about veterans until he got the job and then cut state programs for Veterans, stopped the hiring preference they used to get and cut public employees jobs outsourcing them to India.

Romney seems to think that people will fall for whatever he says because he can't stand for anything very long. He says he wants to increase the Defense budget but that means the contractors and not the pay and care for the troops and their families. He says he wants the troops to stay longer in Afghanistan unless he's talking to them and then says they should come home in 2014 or sooner. Now we find out he wants to send troops back to Iraq?

Massachusetts had problems when he was Governor, but we didn't implode. We had the State Senate and House to keep the state going.

Senate panel votes cut $8B from defense

Senate panel votes to cut $8B from defense

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jul 16, 2010 9:48:41 EDT

A key Senate committee decided Thursday to show some fiscal discipline, cutting $14 billion from the Obama administration’s 2011 budget — including $8 billion from the Defense Department.

The 17-12 vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee came on a procedural motion that divided up money among the 12 subcommittees responsible for discretionary funding of federal programs. This was a party-line vote, with Democrats voting for it and Republicans opposing the reduction.

The defense subcommittee receives $522.8 billion under the allocation, $8.1 billion less than the administration’s request. It is too soon so say how the committee will shave that much money off the 2011 defense budget, but it will not necessarily cause a lot of pain. The committee has made similar, although smaller, reductions in the defense budget in the past, but then made up for most of the reduction by shifting expenses into the off-budget war supplemental, where it doesn’t count against spending caps.

After approving the allocations, the committee passed a $141.1 billion appropriations bill covering military construction and veterans programs that is a modest $1.5 million less that the Obama administration requested. It includes full funding of the $18.7 billion part of the budget that pays for construction and family housing programs.

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Senate panel votes to cut 8B from defense

Defense and security are part of where the tax money goes

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is 43% of the taxes we pay.
Defense is 20% of the taxes we pay
Homeland Security is 2% of the taxes we pay.

Part of the taxes we pay goes to taking care of veterans. Veterans we were very glad to have serve when we needed them however we seem to have a problem taking care of them afterwards.

When you stop and think about where our money goes and what it pays for, all the things we say are important to us, it is very hard to understand the people protesting paying for them. This is not to say there is not wasteful spending but if the people protesting taxes protested wasteful spending instead of all spending, then they would have a valid point. The problem is, when they complain about they "don't want government" involved in their Social Security, their Medicaid or Medicaid, it is a ridiculous argument. They end up delivering a message they want the benefits but don't want to pay for having them.

This is not the worst part in this. The worst part is that 22% goes to homeland security and defense. This means the men and women serving as well. The men and women we deployed into Iraq and Afghanistan, into the Persian Gulf, Vietnam, Korea and the few remaining WWII veterans. These are the men and women we deployed into other foreign lands in order to provide security in times of peace. They are the men and women so committed to their states, they decided it was worth their lives by serving in the National Guards and Reserves and ended up being deployed into Iraq and Afghanistan.

So many people in this country do a fine job of cheering on the troops when we are sending them into combat but these same people never seem willing to live up to the obligation of taking care of the wounded when they come home. We scream when we want this nation to be safe but we never seem to manage to understand there is a price to pay for it. There is a price to be paid because of our security that is paid everyday, year after year, by those wounded for having provided it to us. Next time you hear someone say they don't want to pay taxes, remember where the money goes and then have them talk about the wasteful spending instead of spending on everything.

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$800 million approved for Fort Bliss growth

$800 million approved for Fort Bliss growth




FROM A NEWS RELEASE SENT TO THE KDBC 4 NEWSROOM:

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Early this morning, the U.S. House Armed Services Committee passed the fiscal year 2010 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 2647), which authorizes $779.4 million to support Fort Bliss growth. Congressman Silvestre Reyes, a senior Member of the House Armed Services Committee, worked to secure funding for El Paso as the bill moved through the Committee and voted in favor of the bill. The bill is scheduled for debate by the full House of Representatives next week.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) sets policies and funding levels for U.S. national defense programs for the upcoming year. The legislation authorizes $550.4 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD) and for national security programs under the Department of Energy (DoE).

"This year's Defense Authorization Bill includes substantial investments for Fort Bliss that will further the installation's status as one of America's finest national defense assets," Congressman Reyes said. "Most importantly, this legislation includes funding that will allow Fort Bliss to break ground for the first phase of the new state-of-art William Beaumont Hospital that will serve thousands of troops, veterans, and dependents in the El Paso community."

"The Armed Services Committee underscored its commitment to the men and women of the Armed Forces and their families with the passage of this critical legislation," Reyes added.

"Under this bill, our troops will receive a 3.9 percent pay raise and it also enhances mental health screening and medical care to more effectively detect and treat cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)."

$176 MILLION FOR A NEW STATE-OF-THE-ART WILLIAM BEAUMONT - PHASE I

The legislation provides $176 million for the first phase of the new William Beaumont Army Medical Center (WBAMC). The National Defense Authorization Act includes language authorizing $966 million for the construction of a new WBAMC complex. The inclusion of the full authorization for this facility in the NDAA sends a strong message of support to the Army and the Department of Defense for the new medical facility at Fort Bliss.

$32 MILLION FOR NEW FORT BLISS HELICOPTERS FOR COUNTERNARCOTICS PILOT TRAINING

The bill also includes $32 million to procure four helicopters for use in pilot training for counternarcotics operations at Fort Bliss. The aircraft replace helicopters which were deployed to support the US mission in Pakistan.

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http://www.kdbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=10549915&nav=menu608_2

US Mission in Pakistan?