U.S. Military Will Always Have 'A Full Menu,' Secretary Gates Says

[tekisui]

Source: NPR

Soaring health care and pay costs have made it difficult for the U.S. military to "significantly increase our ... capabilities" in recent years, outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates says.

The Pentagon's health care bill alone, he tells All Things Considered host Robert Siegel during a conversation for today's broadcast, has "gone from $19 billion in 2000 to $55 billion now."

Getting such costs under control will remain critical to ongoing efforts to be ready for future challenges, adds Gates.

And the Pentagon chief, who retires later this month, says that even as the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan hopefully wind down, there will be no shortage of threats for the U.S. military to be preparing for.

more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/06/03/136894234/u-s-military-will-always-have-a-full-menu-secretary-gates-says

[Swede]

1. He's right. But wind these 3 wars down,bring 'em home.

Concentrate of the 21st century threats.

[Autumn]

2. No shit, I wonder why

the Pentagon's health care bill has "gone from $19 billion in 2000 to $55 billion now." Get a fucking clue Gates.

[EOTE]

3. "there will be no shortage of threats for the U.S. military to be preparing for."

Of course, what's the point of spending more on your military than the rest of the world combined if you can't have a little fun with it? If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

[FlyByNight]

4. Of course

A trillion dollar-plus "national security" budget buys a lot of wars.

We'll go the way of Rome before too long...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. "..no shortage of threats.." The Pentagon's Bogeyman locker is well stocked.

Probably with price-tags denoting expected profits attached.

[hifiguy]

6. The imperium always needs a bogeyman

real or not. Trillions flushed down the sewer.

[blindpig]

7. Imperialism has it's necessities.

And ain't it typical that they will look to take it out of the hide of the personnel while giving even more busines to the masters of war.

[gratuitous]

8. Those greedy goddam veterans!

$19 billion to $55 billion in health care costs in just 11 years?! Scumbags. It's a good thing wars in far-flung regions of the world with supply lines thousands of miles long don't cost anything. I hope our mercenaries don't have to go without just so some grasping veteran can get a hearing aid or some physical rehab.

I know he didn't, but I would have loved to hear that Robert Siegel punched Gates right square in the face when he made that last comment about "no shortage of threats."

[klook]

9. Perpetual war

for perpetual peace.

- Gore Vidal

[Brickbat]

10. Well sure. If no one is there to cut him off, close the buffet, hide his wallet, or make his

plate smaller, a glutton will always have a full menu.

[izquierdista]

11. Bucket!

[Gregorian]

12. Pull the plug!

This restaurant is too expensive. Mom and dad are unemployed. You're allowance is suspended.

I'd dump NASA as well.

[Lasher]

13. Gates wants to screw retired veterans out of medical benefits.

The medical benefits program for retired veterans is called Tricare. This is for retired career vets, and not the same as the VA.

Gates wants to 'reform' Tricare so that veterans have to pay more. The money saved would not be used to lower overall defense spending. It would be spent on even more wars, more active duty soldiers, more mercenaries, more hardware from the defense industry where he will probably be working soon. He's been tying to sell this outrage since last year at least.

"Health care costs are eating the Defense Department alive," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in May.

Much of the increase in costs stems from an insurance program called Tricare.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/07/news/economy/military_health_care/index.htm

Taxpayers in The United States will pay $169.4 billion for Proposed total Iraq & Afghanistan war spending for FY2011, but you'll never hear Gates saying, "Iraq and Afghanistan war costs are eating the Defense Department alive." From the same article linked above:

Most Tricare reform plans generate savings by targeting two areas.

The first is shifting the burden of health care costs from the Pentagon to the private sector companies that employ many veterans after they leave the military.

And the second is a modest fee increase on retired Tricare enrollees that would still leave them with far smaller bills than individuals in private sector plans.

The Pentagon said in its most recent budget request that as of 2007, the average out-of-pocket cost for a retired veteran and family of three covered by Tricare was $1,192. Private sector plans were costing families almost $3,300 the same year, according to a Kaiser Foundation survey.

Get it? Most people have shitty health care insurance, so it's OK for our vets to have shitty insurance too.

Our massively bloated defense budget is being increased yet again this year, at a time when we're cutting our domestic social programs. But that's not enough for these immoral madmen. They want to betray our career veterans so that the Pentagon will have even more money to waste.

There is nobody even pretending to exercise any real control of the military/industrial complex. We should have taken Ike seriously but did not. Now we are screwed.