A FIRST FOR B.O.! REDUCING DEFENSE - AND OTHER - BUDGETS

Yes, for the first time I agree with something B.O. said; that we can do just fine with a reduced Defense budget. He proceeded to ruin the favorable impression, though, by suggesting entirely WRONG ways to do it. We do NOT reduce the size of the armed forces; we do NOT allow the procurement of needed weapons systems to slide into the future; and we do NOT axe, as was done with the Airborne Laser after $ billions of expenditures, programs proven by tests to be successful.

Here's what we do; lay off the required % of civilian workers in DoD offices OR make across the board pay REDUCTIONS to achieve the % decrease desired. Either way, the excess would never be missed. If you can walk into any such office on a random day and find 90% of the staff in, I'll give you mucho pesos. If you can walk in on a random Monday or Friday I'll give you mucho, MUCHO pesos for the same discovery.

For one thing, in many places they are allowed to "work" - OK, to be there - an extra hour for 8 days in two weeks and get either a Monday or a Friday free. Another aspect is the huge amount of sick live these people are able to accrue ; 1/2 day per pay period = 2 weeks, and that for the lowest employee class. The longer one works there, the faster the sick leave compiles. Sum these two factors and you'll realize why the out of office numbers are titanic. Add the time these people are off being "trained," which is to say taking courses supposedly to keep them up to date, and you will swiftly comprehend why it is impossible to schedule office meetings on Mondays or on Fridays - PRACTICALLY NO ONE IS THERE!!!!! These many perquisites are meant to make federal employment more attractive because it supposedly pays less than work in the private sector.

FIRST OF ALL FORGET THAT INDUCEMENT. Where else would they work? private sector? There aren't any jobs unless they travel to China. You could cut their wages severely without fear of losing one, and if you did, so what have you lost? Excess baggage. Forget also that federal government work is so poorly paid; there are HUGE salaries paid to many employees that have plenty of seniority. I know whereof I speak. Having worked YEARS in just such offices I have observed a plethora of abuses like the following

1. $100,000/year guys' DAILY spending a good part of their mornings eating breakfast behind their privacy screens. (The latter prevent supervisors from walking down halls and observing the abuses.)

2. $100,000/year guys' REGULARLY sneaking out at lunch time to go home for naps or hikes around the vicinity.

3. "Secretarial" staff that are not even expected to do photocopying jobs for the professional staff. The highly-paid professionals do their OWN secretarial work, while the supposed secretaries send out email memos about meetings and saunter around delivering paperwork to others.

4. People with so little to do, they spend big chunks of the days reading magazines.

Are any of these featherbedders ever fired? No, never! If caught having intercourse on a desk, that might count as moral turpitude, but otherwise once in, man, you are like glue, you are like a permanent anvil on the taxpayers' necks.

Now, realize that at the same time, the trend in the offices is NOT to develop their own, internal expertise but to let contracts for the doing of the work. These are the appropriately-called Beltway Bandits - especially lucrative it is to be minority- or women-owned businesses. Then the dough really rolls your way. Thus, getting work done in the DoD requires paying office staff to eat breakfast on taxpayers' time AND hiring outsiders, from the same pot of tax $, to do the actual jobs. Therefore, why train your own crews? Why have a crew - other than to monitor what the contractor is doing, which is a great deal of the "work" these people do.

To trim the DoD budget without crippling our defenses, trim the superfluous duds spending most of their time on vacations and sick leave.

When it comes down to it, federal employment, whatever the agency, is largely just one more tentacle of the welfare monster.

Now, I've talked to you about the Department of Defense, where science and technology are employed, where many people have advanced degrees. Can you image the atrocities to be found in Housing, Education, Health, Human Services (Give-aways?)Here, the main purpose is to toss away our money. Try to picture the efficacy of those waste pits.

Read this, Senate and House of Reps.! Act with sanity and perspicacity. Reduce salaries and unnecessary positions. NOW!