2. After building the Nevadan megacity the US needs to start a massive cloning program to supply soldiers to conquer Australia and build another Megacity on top of it before the Chinese beat us to it. Then repurpose Uluru as a shopping mall complex.
7. Place Congress and the Senate on the same healthcare and retirement systems as the rest of us.
14. Separate New York City from New York State with the Brooklyn, Manhattantown, et. al. becoming cities in their own right. Also, give financial aid to businesses feeling the squeeze of harsh economic times to keep them from leaping cross the water to Jersey.
16) Make Gary Gygax's birthday a national holiday.
17) work to have restrictions on how much detainees can sue the U.S. when they finally hit the court system. Last thing we need is to be giving millions of dollars to people who will just go and use it to attack us.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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18) Ban the Obama Beanies.
Creepy, but that's how the market works.
16) Make Gary Gygax's birthday a national holiday.
and give him his own crypt in the National Cathedral!
18) Ban the Obama Beanies.
Where those in Curse of the Crimson Throne?
Maintain a sense of humor.
Enhance calm. (NSFW - language)
19) Start a Cabnet Level Pathfinder RPG campaign!
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13. Build three Mag-Lev train tracks: one that runs the East Coast, one that runs the West Coast, and a third that runs across the country and connects the others.
20. A Hypersonic Maglev that travels in a Vaccuum.
21. Absorb Mexico and Cuba as States in the Union of North America and Move the Capital to Nevada (I hear there is going be a hightech megacity there for a billion people).
23. Don't make other big statements of how your administration is not going to do something while at the same time you have people doing exactly what you are saying you aren't going to be doing. (e.g. saying you aren't going to work with lobbists when at the same time you have a couple lobbist as nominees) Either don't have people in those positions or just keep things quiet.
With a design based on the Tomb of Horrors!16) Make Gary Gygax's birthday a national holiday.and give him his own crypt in the National Cathedral!
And every potential political candidate must prove their worth by successfully traversing the Gygaxian National Catherdral Tomb of Horrors!
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23. Don't make other big statements of how your administration is not going to do something while at the same time you have people doing exactly what you are saying you aren't going to be doing. (e.g. saying you aren't going to work with lobbists when at the same time you have a couple lobbist as nominees) Either don't have people in those positions or just keep things quiet.
24: Ban people making serious political points in a silly, fun thread so it doesn't get locked.
25: Ban complaints about suggestion 24
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And every potential political candidate must prove their worth by successfully traversing the Gygaxian National Catherdral Tomb of Horrors!With a design based on the Tomb of Horrors!16) Make Gary Gygax's birthday a national holiday.and give him his own crypt in the National Cathedral!
Or at least by passing the Test of the Starstone.
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Or at least by passing the Test of the Starstone.And every potential political candidate must prove their worth by successfully traversing the Gygaxian National Catherdral Tomb of Horrors!With a design based on the Tomb of Horrors!16) Make Gary Gygax's birthday a national holiday.and give him his own crypt in the National Cathedral!
Are you sure you want to make it that easy? President Iomedae or President Cayden Cailean might be alright, but President Norgorber*?
**=Delete as appropriate.
29. Be sure to give Congress the finger at your first State of the Union Address. Do that, and I can almost guarantee your popular vote in 2012 will top 65%.
29. Be sure to give Congress the finger at your first State of the Union Address. Do that, and I can almost guarantee your popular vote in 2012 will top 65%.
Heck, he'd get my vote.
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31. Cut Pentagon spending in half, with the money cut from expensive weapon programs, not combat divisions.
Impossible.
Not politically, numerically.Procurement is currently about 20% of the budget of the Department of Defense, with R&D less than that.
Eliminating them completely, which would be lethally detrimental to both short-term and long-term security, would still not effect a 50% reduction. That could only be reached by reducing operations, maintenance, and personnel costs to a significant degree, which would also be dangerous to security.
36. Do not start an armed conflict with Pakistan. No, I'm serious, don't keep attacking their soil, they will eventually have to respond. Find a way to motivate them to deal with the terrorists in those areas.
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Ok, let me try and revise 31 then.
31) Cut the bombers, cut the Aegis ships. Cut the R&D invested into how to fight Russia and China. Mothball most of the cruisers and destroyers, keeping the subs and aircraft carriers. If we build any new ships they should be small patrol craft. Preserve the infantry battalions who will be fighting guys with AK47s in neighborhoods but cut deeply the huge bureaucracy above the battalion.
Save whatever percentage can be saved by doing this while preserving what the Pentagon does these days, which is patrolling the seas and fighting a bunch of guys carrying AK47s and IEDs.
Sorry again, but:
Without the Aegis ships, cruisers, and destroyers, the carriers will be burning junk heading for the bottom up in very short order, sent there by opposing small patrol craft. Just check the size of the support squadron for a carrier. They barely fight directly, they just keep the carriers from being blown up.
For bombers, what new bombers? The budget for strategic bombers is pretty much nowhere. The problem is a 5th generation fighter costs out the wazoo, and any tactical bomber that can survive a 5th, and eventually 6th, generation fighter is going to cost even more. (The A-10 is technically woefully obsolete, and in increasing need of total replacement.)
You cannot deploy an infantry battalion without support. That is not merely bureaucratic, but things like fire support, supply, family support (over $2 billion in the DoD budget for family housing), and more. Cutting it means a repeat of "going to war with the army you have". I would not wish that disaster on President Obama.
As it goes, the army is doing a major reorganization to focus units at the brigade level, which, as it goes, is turning out to be both the minimum required support for an infantry battalion, and the optimum required flexibility to deal with a variety of warfare types. Further, the structure of infantry battalions is being changed to include more that can deal with assymetric warfare. Unfortunately that requires, you guessed it, a whole bunch of new equipment designed for such, including the various uparmormed HMMMVs and the Stryker APC.
And above that, the best forces to deal with high-end asymmetric warfare (i.e. terrorism) are not infantry battalions at all, but special operations units, and they have even higher personnel and training costs.
I know all the political issues about the military budget, and I understand people want to see it reduced, but the simple reality is that a global armed force costs, and even with scaling down certain weapon systems, the only way to cut the specific military budget is to reduce the overall size, or to reduce deployment costs (i.e. not use said armed forces, which comes from a different part of the budget anyway). Also, reducing from a global armed force means repeating asking for the same criticism Clinton got, again something I would not recommend President Obama volunteer for.
At this point the best that can be managed is a gradually evolution and development of the economy that means the DoD budget becomes a lower portion of the GDP. Actively reducing the budget itself is pretty much not possible and maintain security or effectiveness, and that means it is not "possible" politically.
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Ok, let me try and revise 31 then.
31) Cut the bombers, cut the Aegis ships. Cut the R&D invested into how to fight Russia and China. Mothball most of the cruisers and destroyers, keeping the subs and aircraft carriers. If we build any new ships they should be small patrol craft. Preserve the infantry battalions who will be fighting guys with AK47s in neighborhoods but cut deeply the huge bureaucracy above the battalion.
Save whatever percentage can be saved by doing this while preserving what the Pentagon does these days, which is patrolling the seas and fighting a bunch of guys carrying AK47s and IEDs.
Sorry again, but:
Without the Aegis ships, cruisers, and destroyers, the carriers will be burning junk heading for the bottom up in very short order, sent there by opposing small patrol craft. Just check the size of the support squadron for a carrier. They barely fight directly, they just keep the carriers from being blown up.
To back Sam up a little:
Part of the effectiveness of a carrier task force is that each ship adds to the radar and communications envelope of the entire group. By reducing the number of ships, you reduce that envelope and thereby reduce the effectiveness of the carrier itself.
In addition, the destroyers and cruisers represent a large part of our littoral warfare efforts. Small patrol boats could accomplish this, but they would also have to be stationed overseas, as they would be more at risk on the open seas.
Granted, the cruisers could be done away with, but don't mothball them. Do what we've been doing - sell them to our allies.
As for the current Arleigh Burke Class destroyers - the first ship in the class (DDG-51) is less than 20 years old, and some are still being built. Not only are they new, but they are among the most versatile of our surface ships - capable of ship to ship combat, as well as all manner of littoral support.
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I am sure even Samwise understands what you are saying...unfortunately the USA has missed it's opportunity to conform to the Rules. Its resources are committed to an economy of plunder and I now strongly believe that Obama (sorry folks, he is just another man facing a four year term surrounded by traitors with their own agenda) is not the President they need to save the USA from their own Citizens.
Here is a little test of where you stand in the Obama USA: Every Citizen has the right to an equal share of the Benifits and Obligations of Citizenship? (YES/NO)
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I am sure even Samwise understands what you are saying...unfortunately the USA has missed it's opportunity to conform to the Rules. Its resources are committed to an economy of plunder and I now strongly believe that Obama (sorry folks, he is just another man facing a four year term surrounded by traitors with their own agenda) is not the President they need to save the USA from their own Citizens.
Here is a little test of where you stand in the Obama USA: Every Citizen has the right to an equal share of the Benifits and Obligations of Citizenship? (YES/NO)
Yes. Robert Reich just told the house though the answer is no.
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Guys, my whole idea with suggestion 31 is that the US can no longer be a global armed force, or in other words an empire. It has to switch to a defensive strategy. There is no point in preparing to fight the next WW2 naval engagement against other world powers. They have nukes, the US has nukes. Any attempt to go to war with another nuclear power has a good chance of destroying one or two US cities and rending the country apart.
Except without the ability to confront such a power conventionally, the only option will be nuclear.
With no ability to project naval power globally, what would the US do if China decided to annex Korea the way they did Tibet?Likewise that large army you want to keep around will be undeployable without a navy to support it.
Pretty much everything else follows from that base.
As I said, I understand the political issues behind reducing DoD expenditures. At this point, I do not see them as viable. Like it or not, the US must be able to project power globally.
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Let me also throw out that the military also does a pretty good job by itself of cutting costs in tough times - probably better than many other parts of the federal gov't. As long as it doesn't jeopardize the lives of servicemen, or the mission, they are quite willing to cut money - I'm speaking from current experience on this.