Blue Wolf II:
Romanoffia:
Meh - unnecessary on the part of the national guard units. The States need to fund them, not the feds, just so the states have a means to resist the upcoming federal government dictatorship.
The states already have this ability, it's called
State Active Duty and depending on what state you're in, it ranges from being fucking awesome (Delaware, double pay!) to fucking horrible (Wisconsin, $50 a day, which you totally get taxed on). Also, if you get injured on State Active Duty, you don't get the federal healthcare benefits (Tricare) you normally would with a regular deployment. Since no state has an independent healthcare set up just for their Guard, that means, in most states, you get injured on this status, you pay for it yourself. Oh, and remember, you're military, so you're expressly prohibited from suing your employer (State or Federal) for the money to cover your healthcare bills. I've seen this happen to members of my unit, it's State Active Duty's dirty little secret.
If any state started paying their Guard the same as they pay during State Active Duty, they wouldn't have a Guard. Patriotism aside, I got bills to pay.
South Carolina has not only a National Guard, but also a State Guard that is financed only by the state and it outnumbers the SC National Guard 10 to 1 in personnel and firepower. SC seems to be doing just fine in that department. Only the SC National Guard that uses federal facilities is affected and unnecessarily so. Just another way the feds are trying to weaken the States.
Well, if you aren't getting paid, blame Obama for that, not the so-called "shut-down".
I remember back when the government 'Shut Down' happened when Clinton was President. We got our Army paychecks without any delay. Obama, OTOH, via executive order, made sure that military doesn't get paid except in 'combat' theater deployment.
Ironically, Obama has made sure the welfare checks and foodstamps keep rolling out to the welfare drones because he obviously values them more than our military. Oh, and of course, those whose mouths are firmly osculating the government teat can always be counted upon to keep voting for the crooks who promise them the most government cheese at the taxpayers' expense.
And the next thing to come down the pike as yet another example of the Obama Administration's process of "Government by Crisis" is the 'Debt Ceiling' straw dog, which only means that the Government has to first pay its debts (which includes welfare, government employee paychecks, and assorted government cheese programs) before it can go spending money like a drunken sailor at a whore house on shrimps on treadmills (at the cost of millions and millions. Your tax dollars paid for this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x71Zqa33SFM ).
Frankly, I say shut down most of the Federal Government and strip it down to exactly what delegated authority it has in the Constitution as written and let the States take over whatever they see fit to spend money on.
We are currently spending about one trillion dollars each year more than we take in revenue. And then the bastards want to spend more and engage in running the printing presses (quite literally) to the point that we have become The Weimar Republik. "Quantitative Easing" is exactly the very same policy that Germany followed in the 1920's to pay off their debts imposed by Treaty of Versailles. And that is exactly how the US Government is paying for everything. Print bonds, print money in the amount of those bonds, inflate the currency and prop it up with the hopes that some dumb bastard country will buy those bonds, and then do it all over again when the next spending spree is started.
People think that prices are rising. Prices are not rising, per se, the value of the money is going down. After all, the more money you have in circulation the less valuable the money is, and bad money forces good money out of circulation (viz.: Gresham's Law). Ultimately, it all collapses and that is what is happening now. All this 'Quantitative Easing' does is to feed money to the banks and stock broker scum on Wall Street to make the numbers look good and fool people. Take my word for it, if people knew how bad it really was, their would be mass panic in the streets.
Every nation that has ever tried exactly what the US Government is trying in terms of fiscal policy always ends in disaster. Can you say, The Weimar Republic? Can you say The Confederate States of America (which collapsed because it spent more money than it could cover in revenue and then just ran the printing presses)? Can you say The Soviet Union? Does the Roman Empire ring a bell? How about the French Monarchy? Imperial Russia? Every nation that has tried this deficit spending crap has gone into the dustbin of history with not so hilarious results.
So, as I say, it's better to shut down the government and force the Executive Branch to comply with fiscal reform (which is what you are witnessing now) and do it now because in about six months the whole ball of wax comes undone and we end up in chaos and martial law by March, or, worse yet, dictatorial government by the President to affect the same totalitarian results.
It's time for the federal government to be shoved back into its constitutional cage where it belongs.
Fabulous rant, Roman.
