General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUnlike our troops and cities with military bases, DEFENSE CONTRACTORS WILL NOT SUFFER PAY CUTS
How many Defense Contractors does it take to build an aircraft carrier? With cut-backs in the military being so important that our troops must suffer, why do we need Defense Contractors to build more ultra-expensive Navy ships?
Jan 10, 2013
(CBS News) WASHINGTON - Monday will mean a day without pay for thousands of Americans who work in defense jobs --another effect of automatic federal budget cuts.
The furloughs starting tomorrow affect 680,000 workers. For the next 11 weeks, they will lose 20 percent of their pay.
In theory, the furloughs apply across the board to civilian workers, but there are notable exemptions. For example, military commissaries will close an extra day a week, but not military day care centers.
Most shipyard workers building ships for the Navy are exempt. But all those lost wages will harm local economies. Communities near the nation's largest military bases will lose tens of millions of dollars.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/01/10/military-daycare-centers-hire-first-screen-later.html
While I support daycare, as the Department of Defense (DoD) puts women "in harms way" during active, combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, I wonder why hiring policies were unusually lax for Defense Contractors that make money from U.S. Military daycare programs. The daycare article reports only ONE daycare center: How widespread was the real problem? Director Panetta became outraged only after news articles like this next one went into print.
The Army bureaucracy has allowed newly-hired employees to start caring for infants and children at base daycare centers before completing the entire vetting process to include criminal background checks, said Pentagon officials and former military daycare workers.
The thoroughness of the background checks has become a matter of intense concern for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and President Obama since the arrest of two daycare workers at Fort Myer in September on misdemeanor assault charges for mistreating toddlers.
The arrests and subsequent investigations by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia led to the discovery through random background checks and an audit that at least 31 other Fort Myer CDC employees had criminal records, including two for misdemeanor sex offenses.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/01/10/military-daycare-centers-hire-first-screen-later.html
There are two important appointments of Directors in the intelligence community that President Obama made, which appear questionable, because of their association with the George W. Bush Jr. administration:
Obviously, one questionable appointee is Leon Panetta, who was appointed by Bush as the FORTH director of the CIA. Apparently, it took Bush four attempts before he found a political lackey who would support his pathetic views of how the intelligence community and the CIA should operate. Why did Obama promote him to the influential position of Director of the DoD?
The other is a Director that few presidents try replacing; the director of the FBI:
President Obama plans to nominate James B. Comey, a Republican who served as a senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
In 2005, Comey invoked the state secrets privilege in the civil case of a Syrian Canadian who was sent to Damascus in 2002 to be interrogated and was ultimately tortured. Comeys role in that episode elicited some criticism from civil liberties groups.
James Comeys nomination should raise serious concerns, and his role in the Bush administration needs to be examined, said Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. We need to know the full story of his role in the torture memos. It does not sound like a great nomination. Recycling Bush people is not a good guarantee for the protection of civil liberties.
Read more: http://english.ruvr.ru/news/2013_05_30/Obama-to-appoint-former-Bush-official-as-the-FBI-director-by-June-as-a-concession-to-Republicans-2177-240/
Did these questionable appointments occur because President Obama felt threatened?
US President Barack Obama is the target of more than 30 potential death threats a day and is being protected by an increasingly over-stretched and under-resourced Secret Service, according to a new book.
Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/5967942/Barack-Obama-faces-30-death-threats-a-day-stretching-US-Secret-Service.html
In the words of a popular right-wing news source; "WE REPORT; YOU DECIDE!"
gopiscrap
(23,763 posts)business has way too much power...imho ALL private businesses should be nationalized and the profits turned over the national treasury
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)gopiscrap
(23,763 posts)NutmegYankee
(16,201 posts)You realize that public shipyard workers are not contractors right? And only the repair yards are exempt. All navy oversight personal at construction yards are getting furloughed.
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)All navy oversight personal at construction yards are getting furloughed. It's a bit reminiscent of "Military Daycare" mentioned in the OP; with too little oversight.
NutmegYankee
(16,201 posts)(Naval Inventory Control Point), who then sells them to different activities to replace broken or worn out parts. The money transferred from one Gov activity to another is then is used to order and stock more parts.
For new construction of ships, the shipbuilder orders the parts to military specifications and assembles the ship, which is then delivered to the Navy whole. As for oversight, that's a major problem with sequestration. The Navy spent a lot of effort to restaff it's Supervisors of Shipbuilding (SUPSHIPs) to keep cost down and stop quality problems. It has been successful recently, but sequestration may ruin that.
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)You appear to know a great deal more about these military production issues than me.
With China's recent escalation in military personnel and equipment - especially orbiting defense satellites - I wonder which super-power they intend to go to war against. Most electronic equipment sold in the U.S.A. these days is made in China?
Do U.S. Defense Contractors farm out production of electronic components they sell to the military and other DoD agencies to manufacturers in China?
NutmegYankee
(16,201 posts)The military is required to buy most items from domestic suppliers. A foreign company sometimes supplies components if they have skills or processes that domestic suppliers lack. Usually this is because we want a specific patented product.
patrice
(47,992 posts)same person the same question when they are employed in the private sector.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)It's already started to a very small extent. It will grow in size over time. Canceling a contract outright can be expensive, most contracts have cancellation costs as part of them. So the government has a tendency to just let them expire instead (unless they have a very long time to go). So existing contracts are expiring and new ones are not being started, or they are for fractions of the previous value. That will result in lay offs of existing workers.
That is unless the budgets are adjusted, something the government hasn't done yet. The reason that the government is furloughing people instead of laying them off is they expect in the long run for the budget cuts to be replaced in some sense. So they don't want to cut staffs to only have to hire them back later. The contractors though are anticipating that even if the money is replaced, it won't be for exactly the same contracts, or industries, so they are cutting people now. If these cuts are sustained, you'll ultimately see the government employees cut, mostly through attrition.
bluedigger
(17,087 posts)Building five destroyers is a little bit different than other procurement items, like services or ammo.