Reply #69: I agree with Eisenhower.

[MADem]

I always have. He had his priorities right.

In that commentary, he railed against the military, industrial, CONGRESSIONAL complex. He lined out the word "Congressional" before he gave that speech because he didn't want to piss those clowns off on his way out the door. But it was in and on his mind. There's way too much pork in every DOD budget, that's just the sad truth, and it gets worse every year.

I don't see "the government" overseeing these "Let's Employ the Troops" projects, though. That's just not the paradigm. They'll hire private organizations, construction firms, electrical outfits, (sadly, many of them will look like Halliburton, odds are good, because they're skilled in bidding for this kind of stuff) and THEY will hire the people needed to do the work. If the UNION rules, it'll be union people who are hired first, unless the company gets a bonus for hiring a demobbed servicemember.

A drawdown has to be slow, though, and it has to coincide with a rising, not falling, economy. Throwing soldiers on the street without any decent safety net is just wrong. It also is an invitation to disaster. People do turn to crime, sometimes violent crime, when they have nothing--not everyone can be relied upon to resign themselves to homelessness and go sleep on a grate, quietly, docilely, in a filthy sleeping bag, and panhandle for booze during the day.

In a rising economy, they can adjust and reintegrate. In a contracting economy, they're fucked.