DOD Orders 25% Funding, Staff Cuts; Government Employees Union Objects

[Omaha Steve]

Last edited Tue Sep 8, 2015, 07:58 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Sea Power Magazine

By RICHARD R. BURGESS,

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Department of Defense (DoD) has ordered a 25 percent cut in its headquarters funding and staffs, a greater cut than the 20 percent previously announced by the agency.

“I am directing a 25 percent reduction across all appropriations funding for Major DoD Headquarters Activities across all Military Departments, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Staff, the Joint Staff, Defense Agencies and Field activities, and the Combatant Commands without regard to action by Congress, ” \Robert O. Work, deputy secretary of Defense, said in a memorandum dated Aug. 24. “These reductions will cover the period from Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 to FY 2020, with credit granted for Headquarters cost reductions taken pursuant to the 20 percent reduction previously directed by then Secretary [Chuck] Hagel.”

“We anticipate Congress will require a 25 percent reduction in the funding of DoD Headquarters in lieu of the 20 percent requirement previously established by the Department,’ Work said in the memorandum. “Even if Congress fails to act, the Department needs the savings that will be achieved through this reduction to fund higher priority requirements in support of the warfighter and to address underfunded strategic needs.”

Work said that the Office of the Secretary of Defense staff and the Defense agencies and field activities, which took the majority of cuts in contractors, will also go through a 25 reduction in funding for civilian personnel.

FULL story at link.

Read more: http://www.seapowermagazine.org/stories/20150908-dod-cuts.html

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Press release here too: http://www.afge.org/?PressReleaseID=1797

[randys1]

1. Slash workforce and increase spending with the MIC...amazing

[hack89]

2. The DOD's job is to equip and train a military force

Not provide jobs for civilians.

[happyslug]

4. You can NOT "Equip and train" if the toilets don't work....

Sorry, you need people people in the DOD making sure no one is double billing the Government or otherwise cheating the Government (i.e. charging the Government for troops not actually in units, weapons sold to enemies of the state, and other similar lack of checks on troops in the field, all of which can be seen in the Iraqi Army pre ISIS, the failure to do such checks, which was a product of neo-liberalism economics imposed on the Iraqi Military by the US elites, was why that Iraqi Army collapsed and had to be replaced by leaders, advisers and supplies from Iran, all of which went to the Shiite Militia that stopped ISIS short of Baghdad).

Sorry, you need civilians buying the bullets and other supplies the military needs to be equipped and trained. Worse, the people who are going to be cut, tend to be janitors cleaning up the offices and maintaining the toilets, AC and Heating for those offices. Thus what checks we have on the military contractors will be diverted to cleaning offices and making sure the heating and AC is working (or we will have people staying at home and NOT doing their job for they do not want to freeze to death when they get to their jobs do to the lack of heat),

Congress likes cutting the checks on military contractors and that is what this is about. It is less about saving money as oppose to freeing their buddies from having to obey the law. It is like saying since everyone is speeding, lets save money by cutting back on Police doing speed checks for we have to cut back somewhere and it is clear the speed checks are not catching EVERY Speeder thus there are a waste of money. You need people on the top (i.e. in the DOD independent of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines) trying to contain costs and making sure what is CLAIMED to have been purchased was actually purchased. That is the primary job of the DOD and it is the job that is going to be cut.

Think about it, the group whose job is to make sure we are "Equipping and Training" our troops are being cut, thus making it easier to speed the money that is to "Equip and Train" to other purposes. No one is asking to CUT programs and that is what needs to be done.

[hack89]

5. The uniformed military has downsized to levels not seen since the very start of WWII

The civilian workforce has not. We don't need the same workforce we needed 20 years ago.

[happyslug]

6. I can make the point we do need a large Civilian Staff then we did 25 years ago

It is a lot easier to eliminate a line of something, then the staff that supports many lines. Thus it is easier to eliminate whole military units, then the staff used by those units to get barracks, parts, fuel, food, and vehicles. Think about it, would your local gas station need less people if 10% of the people using it today suddenly stop using it? The answer would generally be no. They have to keep the same number of people if 1 person shows up as opposed to 100 people.

The Staff people at DOD, are like the clerk in the above gas station, they have jobs which have to be done, whether is is one user of their services or 1000 users of their services. Often you can NOT combine the jobs, for people want different services, often at the same time (the clerk in charge with fuel, can not be assign food, for often both are needed by the same unit at the same time, thus two clerks have to handle each items on its own).

25 years ago takes us to 1990. The Cold War had ended. The US Military was downsizing BUT at the same time changing its form. The Army in 1990 had several leg infantry Divisions in the National Guard. The purpose of those units were to fill in any gap created in a conventional war in Europe. Wheeled units can move much faster and further on paved roads then tracked vehicles, thus conventional leg infantry could be used as Gap Fillers.

With the end of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, a massive invasion from Eastern Europe was no longer a threat, thus the leg infantry units (again all National Guard Units) no longer had a purpose. The Army cut back it regular forces all during the 1990s to reflect that the Army did not need as many troops as it did when the threat was the Warsaw Pact. On the other hand, the Army decided to upgrade the National Guard Units to Armor and Mechanized infantry. Thus many National Guard units went from using trucks as their main vehicle to using Tanks and M2 Bradly Combat Vehicles. The National Guard Armor Units (such as the Texas National Guard) went from using M60s and M113 to using M1s tanks and M2 Bradleys.

Thus, while the number of troops went down, the acquisition of vehicles, parts and fuel increased. A truck can go 20,000 miles before it needs new tires, a tank or other track vehicle needs a new track every 2000 miles. Fuel for tanks in measured in Gallons per miles, not Miles per gallon (even in the largest trucks you measure fuel in miles per gallon).

On top of this one of the job of the Civilian DOD is to integrate the new members of NATO into how NATO operates, which includes training in the US. Thus you need people to arrange for such training, to see who we can get to take the training and to make sure the training is somewhat effective.

One of the problems with dealing with Staff people, is you often need the same number of staff people to order 10 of something as oppose to 10,000. Thus that parts of the DOD NOT dealing with increase fuel and parts buying, you have people who needed to be kept on staff to buy 10,000 boots a year as opposed to 100,000 boots (The actual making of the boots would go to a Contractor, but how many, type and specs would be handled by a clerk in the DOD).

Thus staff positions tend to stay the same in any reduction in force. You need a good staff if you are a leader of 10 men or 10 million men. The main reason for this is in an emergency, a good staff can handle the expansion of the line units around them without any increase in the size of the Staff. i.e. the same size staff can often handle groups that go from 10 to 100 in numbers, if the staff is adequately trained (and that is clearly the situation with the Staff of the DOD, they do known what to do).

Given the massive increase in the mission of the US Military (including Africa and Eastern Europe), maintenance of a Staff capable of handling these various missions, including increase number of special forces missions (who mostly work with locals, thus we need to have people in the DOD who know who to get in contact with in those countries).

Thus the switch to a more mechanized military, the need to integrate Eastern European military personal with NATO, and the need to be able to send troops to African and other third world hot spots, all goes to expanding the Staff to support such missions and thus more then enough justification for an expansion of the Civilian employees of the DOD.

[hack89]

12. Or some are just dead weight protected by politicians

Who don't want jobs in their districts cut and possibly impacting their reelection chances.

[happyslug]

15. Most of the dead weight are in line units not staff

Why do we need troops in Europe? Why do we need the National Guard to be armored? (Moving the Armor to anywhere but the US would take months, thus if we need troops anywhere in the world, they will be flown in, with any armor coming months later).

Sorry, why should any REGULAR army unit, outside of Korea, be armored? Korea is a huge exception, for the potential enemy is just across the DMZ, but elsewhere any armor will take MONTHS to get to where the fighting is, months that can be used to up train the National Guard troops who could then to flown to where their armor is.

Yes, in my previous comments I mentioned the change in the National Guard to Armor, but that was driven by the "need" to maintain M1 tank production NOT the need for the Guard to be Armored).

Thus the "excess" in the Military budget is NOT in the Staff in Washington, but the line units elsewhere. Why do we need 12 Carriers? At the height of Desert Storm we only used 4 (plus a battleship). In the more recent invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq the US only used two (mostly due to the fact the distance to fly from the Carrier to where the fight was, was to far unless refueled by land based C-130s tankers).

How about the Air Force? Why do we need as many planes as the rest of the world combined? Please note, with the exception of Russia and China, the next 10 biggest Air Forces are all allies of the US (or the case if Israel a close "friend&quot .

One Air Force General noted we are within 20 years of a time period where manned air planes will become obsolete. Obsolete as Air Defenses get better so that it would be cheaper to send in drones on one way missions. Such Drones would be 1/4 the weight of present manned planes, simply because there is no need to carry fuel to come back. Thus he was advocated cancelling the F-22 and F-25 programs and if the present F-15 planes are to old (Air frame fatigue is a concern with the older F-15s), buy Russian made SU-27s but install american electronics and the US will still have the best fighter in the world till such fighters are obsolete (It is in electronics that make American Fighters the best in the world, the SU-27 from a flying point of view as good as the F-15, the key is we could buy them new and not worry about frame fatigue for another 20 years).

Sorry we could cut both the Navy and Air Force by three-quarters and still be able to defend American Interest world wide. That is where the real savings are, cutting down line units we no longer need. Units assigned to defend against a Soviet Red Army that no longer exists. Units design to put down communist uprising that are no longer a threat.

We have to accept that fact that what happens elsewhere in the world is best solved by the people living in those areas NOT by US forces imposing out will on them. That imposition ends up just making the problem a bigger problem in the long run.

[Drahthaardogs]

10. YOu do realize that things

like the Corps of engineers who build military hospitals, provide engineering support, and maintain the countries waterways like the Mississippi are covered under DoD, right? How about DLA, the guys who provide fuel to the aircraft? What about the National Guard Bureau?

The statement that DoD only includes soldiers is not accurate. You need a whole system of support personnel to run an army, navy, and air force.

[hack89]

11. The OP is referring to headquarters staff

Last edited Wed Sep 9, 2015, 09:28 AM - Edit history (1)

Not the guys in the field.

I understand very well what the military involves - 20 years in the Navy including time at the Pentagon. The military is much smaller. The civilian workforce needs to be smaller too.

[atreides1]

13. Ahem

"....Major DoD Headquarters Activities across all Military Departments, Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Staff, the Joint Staff, Defense Agencies and Field activities, and the Combatant Commands without regard to action by Congress, ”.

Now, I didn't do twenty years in the Navy...only 13 in the Army and all of that was as a field soldier...the closest I ever got to the Pentagon was Ft. Belvoir, Va!

But when the article says "Field activities, and the Combatant Commands", that to me would mean that these cuts will affect the troops in the field, at some point!

[hack89]

14. Ok. nt

[jtuck004]

3. We could cut the number of Oligarchs the parties are keeping wealthy. Just the savings in

not having to shovel back money to compensate one of those greedy ass clowns for their investment/donation would let us keep thousands of jobs.Then we could move the jobs to something useful - perhaps farming?

And politicians could regain some respect from people who have higher standards than they are used to.

Win win.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

7. Getting rid of Rumsfeld's office of propaganda...

... would be a great excuse for these cuts.

[vkkv]

8. Good! Cut Cut Cut!! the D.O.D.!!! It is LONG overdue! n/t

[seabeckind]

9. Translation...

the savings that will be achieved through this reduction to fund higher priority requirements in support of the warfighter and to address underfunded strategic needs

IOW, the DoD needs the money to keep buying their "strategic" toys. Like the replacement for the hummer.

They also have to keep those hundreds of foreign bases in operation.

When did the wars in EU end? Why do we have thousands of troops there?

How about Japan and Korea? Why are we paying to defend their country?

Then there's the contracting. This is just the final moves of the privatization started under Reagan and has just now matured.

[Lychee2]

16. So Chuck Hagel ordered a 20% cut, and the DOD upped it to 25%.

That's a huge cut. President Obama must have authorized it. It's a drastic move, which is unusual for him.