{"id":534,"date":"2012-12-14T11:29:06","date_gmt":"2012-12-14T17:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/blog\/?p=436"},"modified":"2013-02-06T15:52:54","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T21:52:54","slug":"7-absurd-ways-the-military-wastes-taxpayer-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/7-absurd-ways-the-military-wastes-taxpayer-dollars\/","title":{"rendered":"7 absurd ways the military wastes taxpayer dollars"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Laura Gottesdiener, Alternet
\nWednesday, Dec 12, 2012\/SALON.com
\nclick here for original article<\/a>
\nThis article originally appeared on AlterNet. <\/a><\/p>\n

If you thought the Petraeus scandal was embarrassing, wait ’til you hear how much is spent on military golf courses <\/em>
\n\"petraeus_essay_rect-460x307_zps3f7fd987<\/a><\/p>\n

The David Petraeus scandal has shined a light on the luxurious, subsidized lifestyle of the U.S. military\u2019s top generals. But so far, what the media has uncovered only scratches the surface of the abuses. Here are seven absurd ways the military wastes our money \u2014 and none of them have anything to do with national defense.<\/p>\n

1. <\/strong>A whole battalion of generals? The titles \u201cgeneral\u201d or \u201cadmiral\u201d sound like they belong to pretty exclusive posts, fit only for the best of the best. This flashy title makes it pretty easy to say, \u201cso what if a few of our military geniuses get the royal treatment \u2014 particularly if they are the sole commanders of the most powerful military in human history.\u201d The reality, however, is that there are nearly 1,000 generals and admirals in the U.S. armed forces, and each has an entourage that would make a Hollywood star jealous.<\/p>\n

According to 2010 Pentagon reports, there are 963 generals and admirals in the U.S. armed forces. This number has ballooned by about 100 officers since 9\/11 when fighting terror \u2014 and polishing the boots of senior military personnel \u2014 became Washington\u2019s No. 1 priority. (In roughly that same time frame, starting in 1998, the Pentagon\u2019s budget also ballooned by more than 50 percent.)<\/p>\n

Jack Jacobs, a retired U.S. army colonel and now a military analyst for MSNBC, says the military needs only a third of that number. Many of these generals are \u201cspending time writing plans and defending plans with Congress, and trying to get the money,\u201d he explained. In other words, a large number of these generals are essentially lobbyists for the Pentagon, but they still receive large personal staffs and private jet rides for official paper-pushing military matters.<\/p>\n

Dina Rasor, founder of Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group, explains that this \u201cbrass creep\u201d is \u201cfueled by the desire to increase bureaucratic clout or prestige of a particular service, function or region, rather than reflecting the scope and duties of the job itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s sort of like how Starbucks titles each of its baristas a \u201cpartner\u201d but continues to pay them just over minimum wage (and a caramel macchiato per shift).<\/p>\n

As Rasor writes, \u201cthe three- and four-star ranks have increased twice as fast as one- and two-star general and flag officers, three times as fast as the increase in all officers and almost ten times as fast as the increase in enlisted personnel. If you imagine it visually, the shape of U.S. military personnel has shifted from looking like a pyramid to beginning to look more like a skyscraper.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the skyscraper model doesn\u2019t mean that the armed forces are democratizing. In fact, just the opposite; they\u2019re gaming the system to allow more and more officers to deploy the full power of the U.S. military to aid their personal lives \u2014 whether their actual work justifies it or not.<\/p>\n

2. <\/strong>The generals\u2019 flotillas. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates appointed Arnold Punaro, a retired major general in the Marines, to head an independent review of the Pentagon\u2019s budget. Here\u2019s the caution he came up with: \u201cWe don\u2019t want the Department of Defense to become a benefits agency that occasionally kills a terrorist.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, just how good are these benefits? For the top brass, not bad at all. According to a Washington Post investigation, each top commander has his own C-40 jet, complete with beds on board. Many have chefs who deserve their own four-star restaurants. The generals\u2019 personal staff include drivers, security guards, secretaries and people to shine their shoes and iron their uniforms. When traveling, they can be accompanied by police motorcades that stretch for blocks. When entertaining, string quartets are available at a snap of the fingers.<\/p>\n

A New York Times analysis showed that simply the staff provided to top generals and admirals can top $1 million \u2014 per general. That\u2019s not even including their own salaries \u2014 which are relatively modest due to congressional legislation \u2014 and the free housing, which has been described as \u201cpalatial.\u201d On Capitol Hill, these cadres of assistants are called the generals\u2019 \u201cflotillas.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Petraeus\u2019 case, he didn\u2019t want to give up the perks of being a four-star general in the Army, even after he left the armed forces to be director of the CIA. He apparently trained his assistants to pass him water bottles at timed intervals on his now-infamous 6-minute mile runs. He also liked \u201cfresh, sliced pineapple\u201d before going to bed.<\/p>\n

3. <\/strong>Scandals. Despite the seemingly limitless perks of being a general, there is a limit to the military\u2019s (taxpayer-funded) generosity. That\u2019s led some senior officers to engage in a little creative accounting. This summer the (formerly) four-star general William \u201cKip\u201d Ward was caught using military money to pay for a Bermuda vacation and using military cars and drivers to take his wife on shopping and spa excursions. He traveled with up to 13 staff members, even on non-work trips, billing the State Department for their hotel and travel costs, as well as his family\u2019s stays at luxury hotels.<\/p>\n

In November, in the midst of the Petraeus scandal, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta demoted Ward to a three-star lieutenant general and ordered him to pay back $82,000 of the taxpayers\u2019 misused money. The debt shouldn\u2019t be hard to repay; Ward will receive an annual retirement salary of $208,802.<\/p>\n

Panetta may have been tough \u2014 sort of \u2014 on now three-star general Ward, but he\u2019s displayed a complete refusal to reevaluate the bloated ranks of the military generals. Unlike his predecessor Robert Gates, who has come out publicly against the increasing number of top-ranking officers and tried to reduce their ranks, Panetta has so far refused to review their numbers and has yet to fire a single general or admiral for misconduct. He did, however, order an \u201cethics training\u201d after the Petraeus scandal.
\nREAD FULL ARTICLE HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, just how good are these benefits? For the top brass, not bad at all. According to a Washington Post investigation, each top commander has his own C-40 jet, complete with beds on board. Many have chefs who deserve their own four-star restaurants. The generals\u2019 personal staff include drivers, security guards, secretaries and people to shine their shoes and iron their uniforms. When traveling, they can be accompanied by police motorcades that stretch for blocks. When entertaining, string quartets are available at a snap of the fingers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[166],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-defense-budget"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/petraeus_essay_rect-460x307_zps3f7fd987.jpg?fit=460%2C307&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":870,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions\/870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}