Who is really to blame for sequestration?

Who is really to blame for sequestration?

Army offers more budget crunch guidance
Army Times
By Paul McLeary
Staff writer
Posted : Friday Feb 8, 2013

Today is the deadline for the services to submit their sequestration and continuing resolution (CR) implementation plans to the secretary of Defense, and according to an internal Army document obtained by Defense News, the service has identified more potential operational impacts if Congress and the White House don’t get the nation’s fiscal house in order by March 1 (sequestration deadline) and March 27 (the end of the current CR).

In the Wednesday memo titled “Operating Under Uncertain Budgets,” the Army estimates that it will take as long as 150 days to restart any contract that has been shut down due to budget pressure, and that “this considerable time lag creates a FY14 problem. Workload to renegotiate contracts will over burden an already taxed acquisition workforce and likely increase costs in the short term.”

Some of those contracts are significant. Other documents have already reported that 21 of the service’s 26 major acquisition priorities would be at risk to incur significant Nunn-McCurdy breaches, which would in turn impact 300 contractors and 1,000 suppliers in 40 states.
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That would be John Boehner


But what does he say now?


The other truth is that President Bush did not have Afghanistan and Iraq in the Budget but President Obama put them in it.
Total outlays in recent budget submissions
Annual U.S. spending 1930-2014 alongside U.S. GDP for comparison.
2013 United States federal budget - $3.8 trillion (submitted 2012 by President Obama)[122]
2012 United States federal budget - $3.7 trillion (submitted 2011 by President Obama)
2011 United States federal budget - $3.8 trillion (submitted 2010 by President Obama)
2010 United States federal budget - $3.6 trillion (submitted 2009 by President Obama)

Washington, DC — President Obama today submitted to the Congress a Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 supplemental appropriations request totaling $83.4 billion to fund ongoing military, diplomatic, and intelligence operations.

Oct 22, 2009
"For 500,000 priority 8 veterans" benefits were restored.
"Biggest increase in more than 30 years."
"Post 9-11 GI Bill"
The President speaks at the signing of a bill that will increase the VA budget, help fund the post 9/11 GI Bill, and dramatically increase funding for veterans health care. October 22, 2009.

2009 United States federal budget - $3.1 trillion (submitted 2008 by President Bush)
2008 United States federal budget - $2.9 trillion (submitted 2007 by President Bush)
2007 United States federal budget - $2.8 trillion (submitted 2006 by President Bush)
2006 United States federal budget - $2.7 trillion (submitted 2005 by President Bush)
2005 United States federal budget - $2.4 trillion (submitted 2004 by President Bush)
2004 United States federal budget - $2.3 trillion (submitted 2003 by President Bush)
2003 United States federal budget - $2.2 trillion (submitted 2002 by President Bush)
2002 United States federal budget - $2.0 trillion (submitted 2001 by President Bush)
2001 United States federal budget - $1.9 trillion (submitted 2000 by President Clinton)

Bush failed to plan for payroll of troops

Army running out of payroll cash, DoD says

By William H. McMichael and Rick Maze - Staff writers
Posted : Tuesday May 6, 2008 20:15:01 EDT

In an announcement that puts troops and their families in the middle of a political dispute, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday that the Army will not be able to pay soldiers after June 15 unless Congress approves an emergency war funding bill.

The claim drew a quick rebuke from Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, who is working on such a bill.

Murtha said there is no threat to military paychecks and that it is inappropriate for the Pentagon to try to involve soldiers and their families in a political dispute over how much money is needed to pay for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and exactly when the money is needed.

However, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell was very clear in a meeting with reporters.

“June 15th is the last payroll the Army at this point can make without congressional action,” he said.

Morrell said the Pentagon has “for months” been funding the wars by borrowing from personnel budget accounts. But those accounts “are about to run dry,” he said.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/military_emergencyfunding_050608w/
How many emergency supplemental bills Bush need to make demands on congress for before he managed to do anything ahead of time? Now this? Did he plan on anything? No VA gear up for the wounded. He cut back the VA in 2005! No plans for facilities to take care of the wounded of the families who had to leave their jobs to take care of their family members. No plans for anything and now this? But hey, he says he supports the troops and that's all we are supposed to need to hear!

$3 Trillion Cost Estimate for Iraq War Fiasco May Be Too Low

Apr. 6: $3 Trillion Cost Estimate for Iraq War Fiasco May Be Too Low

Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz


Guardian (United Kingdom)

Apr 06, 2008

VCS Note: The military reports 73,500 unplanned Iraq and Afghanistan war battlefield casualties, and VA reports 300,000 unexpected Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran patients, yet the Bush Administration has not provided the public with the full long-term costs of caring for our casualties and veterans. Professors Stiglitz and Bilmes use facts to estimate the cost of the Iraq War at $3 trillion - and growing - a conservative estimate.

$3 Trillion May be Too Low

April 6, 2008: - President Bush has tried to give the impression that the $3 trillion dollar estimate of the total cost of the war that we provide in our new book may be exaggerated.

We believe that it is in fact conservative. Even the president would have to admit that the $50 to $60 billion estimate given by the administration before the war was wildly off the mark; there is little reason to have confidence in their arithmetic. They admit to a cost so far of $600 billion.

Our numbers differ from theirs for three reasons: first, we are estimating the total cost of the war, under alternative conservative scenarios, derived from the defence department and congressional budget office. We are not looking at McCain's 100-year scenario - we assume that we are there, in diminished strength, only through to 2017. But neither are we looking at a scenario that sees our troops pulled out within six months. With operational spending going on at $12 billion a month, and with every year costing more than the last, it is easy to come to a total operational cost that is double the $600 billon already spent.

Second, we include war expenditures hidden elsewhere in the budget, and budgetary expenditures that we would have to incur in the future even if we left tomorrow. Most important of these are future costs of caring for the 40% of returning veterans that are likely to suffer from disabilities (in excess of $600 billion; second world war veterans' costs didn't peak until 1993), and restoring the military to its prewar strength. If you include interest, and interest on the interest - with all of the war debt financed - the budgetary costs quickly mount.

Finally, our $3 trillion dollars estimate also includes costs to the economy that go beyond the budget, for instance the cost of caring for the huge number of returning disabled veterans that go beyond the costs borne by the federal government - in one out of five families with a serious disability, someone has to give up a job. The macro-economic costs are even larger. Almost every expert we have talked to agrees that the war has had something to do with the rise in the price of oil; it was not just an accident that oil prices began to soar at the same time as the war began.
go here for more
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/9747