Where can I find info re: Bill Clinton 'stripping our military of all money'?

[SaveAmerica]

I keep hearing that President Clinton took money from our military and left it broken and with no funds (well, I've heard this twice from one person). I've tried to google some information but my results keep coming back to right wing sites that, ironically, keep saying that Clinton put too much money into the military. Does anyone have anything in their bookmarks I can check out about the subject? Thanks!!

I did find this beauty of a quote from Kay Bailey Hutchison (any Texans care to c/p it, send it to her and ask her how she feels about it now?):

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) debunked the Clinton administration's bargain-basement cost estimates. "They said Bosnia would cost $1.2 billion and we ended up at this point $6.5 billion into Bosnia." That's money any number of U.S. cities could have used to deal with the worsening urban crisis.

http://www.pww.org/archives97/97-05-29-1.html

[Atman]

1. Any freeper site. It's like porn to them.

.

[cynatnite]

2. I don't have any links...but I do remember this...

Bill Clinton was shrinking the military overall...mainly because we didn't need the supersized military that Raygun built. I remember this because someone was whining about it and I said...who are we going to invade? Russia? China? Are they going to invade us? Who are the real enemies and why do we need a massive military?

No answers came. We were working towards peace in those days. Now, bush has started two wars and our military is broken. We couldn't fight off six terrorists in a lifeboat.

[Canuckistanian]

3. Gee and I thought only Congress could fund the military

I guess whatever branch of government is controlled by Democrats must have the power to fund the troops.

I didn't know it was a variable thing.

[NMDemDist2]

4. right, uh huh, he only gave the troops the largest pay increase ever

shame on the Big Dog eh??

from a speech from 1999

This bill makes good on our pledge to keep our armed forces the best-equipped and maintained fighting force on Earth. It carries forward modernization programs, funding the F-22 stealth fighter, the V-22 Osprey, the Comanche helicopter, advanced destroyers, submarines and amphibious ships, command and control systems, and a new generation of precision munitions.

The bill also recognizes that no matter how dazzling our technological dominance, wars still will be won, today and tomorrow, as they have been throughout history, by people with the requisite training, skill and spirit to prevail. The excellence of our military is the direct product of the excellence of our men and women in uniform. This bill invests in that excellence. It authorizes, as you have already heard, a comprehensive program of pay and retirement improvements that add up to the biggest increase in military compensation in a generation. It increases bonuses for enlistment and reenlistment and provides incentives needed to recruit and retain our military personnel.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=328

[MannyGoldstein]

8. And Bush Is Fighting A 3.5% Raise That Congress Wants

Can't make this stuff up.

[SaveAmerica]

9. Thanks for that, I'm only half-way through and see this bill involved that

'coward' Murtha. Why does he hate our troops?

ETA: Bill gets it, how many times have I typed these words here on DU:

"When a young man or woman joins the United States military, they don't ask you if you're a Republican or a Democrat and you all make it clear you're prepared to give your life for your country. We should do everything we can to ensure your safety, to give you a bright future, even as we give you the tools and the support to do with work you have sworn to do."

[napi21]

5. I don't have any web sites I can steer you to, but my son was in the

Navy then, stationed in Whidby Island when he was ashore and assigned to the Nimitz when on tour. He was a airdale and worked repairing radios for the EA6B's. He complained all the time that they couldn't get the parts they needed to fix the stuff. I don't know if the DOD just was giving up on the EA6B's or if this was a department wide problem though.

BTW, the griping about Clinton underfunding the military didn't begin with BC. Cheney was actually the first to promote the reduction in the need for military expenses because the cold war has been won! I know you can find many sites to prove Cheney was the first to call for not funding new aircraft and military expansion!!!

[cynatnite]

6. You reminded me of when Kerry was running and the RW...

went all nuts because they attempted to say he wouldn't fund the military. We were using snopes, I think it was, to debunk all that crap and one of them we hit back with was exactly what you said about Cheney.

[MADem]

7. Well, you have to go back to Secretary of Defense CHENEY's drawdown plan

Which was prepared during BUSH ONE and implemented over about ten years. Once the BRACs started, the personnel drawdowns had to follow.

Bush closed the bases, Clinton took the heat for cutting the people who were no longer needed because the bases had been taken away. You can't keep people on if there's nowhere for them to work, see?

It was a detailed plan, executed in three and five year increments. Once that ball got rolling, no president of any party could stop it.

But ya want info? The REAL info? Start with SECDEF DICK CHENEY.

[cynatnite]

11. Thanks for the info about that...

I forgot about bush sr. and the base closings. I stand corrected from what I said earlier on this thread :)

What would I do without, MADem? This isn't the first time, you know. :D

[MADem]

13. I had a BIG chunk of work to do during that disaster--and it never got better

The repercussions from Cheney's slash, burn and save short term money reverberated for a decade. It was soul-crushing!!! The good people who left early because they took TERA or failed of selection; the absurd force shaping tools, like harder tests for the enlisted, silly hoops to jump through for officers, vigorous PT tests and weight standards (much of which has gone by the wayside)....and never mind the accession standards!! The kids who are mid-grade at this stage must be appalled--seeing people who wouldn't have qualified when they came in joining their units.

It's just incredible, the baaaastid is taking the military we have left, and grinding it to shit!!! I swear, Big Dick doesn't like us poor slobs who wore the damned uniform!!! It's the slogging Guard and Reserves that are really taking it up the wazoo this time, but they're all feeling it to some extent, either with short-shrifted funding and training, or simply unacceptable deployment cycles...!!!

Cheers-- :hi:

[cynatnite]

14. I was active 86-90...

Standards were tough then. Well, I thought it was at the time. I'm not sure if I'd want to see how an active military looks now with the loosening of standards like that.

My nephew is on his third tour and he's so tired now. He curses if anyone mentions bush within hearing distance. He told my husband he almost got an article 15 for it by an officer who overheard him. Anyway, when he gets home next year he's getting out. He planned on being a lifer, but this damn war really sucked his love of the Army right out of him and he lost some friends, too. :( I worry about him.

on edit: Husband got out same year I did. He went Inactive Reserves. Got reactivated for first gulf war.

[SaveAmerica]

15. That right there will be in the top 3 of Bush's legacy, I hate that we're

losing our good troops and they've lost faith in their calling in the service. I hope your nephew comes home safe and sound.

"He planned on being a lifer, but this damn war really sucked his love of the Army right out of him and he lost some friends, too. :( I worry about him."

[MADem]

16. They were tough back then--Reagan was halfway through his 600 ship Navy

and his plussed up, All Volunteer force. The standards were high, and climbing during your tour. They stayed that way until Nahn Wun Wun changed everything...That's when they started to slip, not immediately, but as the strain started to be put on...and as the years passed they got slacker, and every day, they slip more and more.

The standards were so absurdly high because all they wanted was the cream of the cropduring the drawdown. And they were using those standards to dump people who couldn't keep up. Now, they're ignoring ALL of the standards.

[SaveAmerica]

12. Thanks MADem and Napi, my personal experience is knowing

several people who were pink-slipped by Bush 1 (very soon after the Gulf War). In the future when I hear this stuff I just have to remind myself that the people spouting it believe every bad thing in the world began in the Clinton Administration (he's all powerful).

[davepc]

10. Clintons military management was miserable; he followed Republican plans

Clinton basically adopted in full Bush Sr. military reduction plan.

Congress, which has the Constitutional authority to dictate the size and funding the the military (after 1994, a REPUBLICAN congress) went along with it.

[MADem]

17. What would you have had him do? The first round of BRAC was DONE.

You can't keep people on when bases have been closed. There's nowhere for them to work. And plenty of Dems were onboard with the drawdown--Leon Panetta discussed it at length--the pain and the benefits.

We did fine with a smaller military when we weren't fighting stupid wars. It wasn't so much the numbers, it was the vicious way Cheney drafted it.

I do think a a softer landing might have been in order. Towards the end, they offered more services to transitioning servicemembers. They should have had that shit up and running from the git-go. Some of the culling was rather cruel, too, IMO.