Every time I see a yellow "Support the Troops" ribbon on a car that's sporting Republican bumper stickers, I want to vomit. Republicans love to talk up patriotism, and they love to use "support the troops" as a campaign slogan. But when push comes to shove, when the time arrives to actually support the troops, they are nowhere to be found. There are many, many examples of this, but it might just be harder to find a better one than the Pentagon appropriations bill that just came out of the conference committee.
The military pay raise built into the bill is one issue. The bill provides for a 2.2% pay increase for most troops (there are some targeted raises for certain ranks). That's the smallest increase since a 1994 2.2% increase, and it is well below the inflation rate - meaning that the troops are effectively getting a pay cut this year.
That's not the thing that's really pissing me off, though. It's an annoyance, and it's enough to demonstrate that their committment to the troops isn't worth anything more than the average political promise. But it's not the big issue. After all, most of the country is in the same boat as the military on this one. For all the talk about how good the economy has been, there's a law that pegs the minimum military pay increase to the average increase in wages - so around half of you are probably in the same boat, or worse.
No, what gets me is some of what did make it into the bill, instead of a larger pay increase. Some more ships for the Navy, to start with. The president requested funding for 2 next-generation destroyers, and that's what he got, even though the House of Representatives initially approved only one. The reason that the second got approved actually hasn't got much to do with defense - it's that building 2 lets two different shipyards, in two different states, belly up to the pig trough. Even better is what the Air Force got. They're getting C-17 cargo planes. In fact, they're getting more of them than they want. They want to maintain about 180 of the aircraft, but it looks like they are going to get about 20 more. Why? Because that will let Boeing keep the assembly line going for another year. That's good for the workers on the line, I guess, and that's probably the justification that these so-called lawmakers are using for doing that. But it's even better news for the company and the shareholders, because it isn't like they're building the fucking things at cost. Nope. The military contracts are profitable business for Boeing.
Remember all this when you go to vote in November. Remember this when you hear or read about congresscritters - particularly those in the majority party - talking about how much they support the troops, and how they love the military. Remember that they aren't using the word in the common English sense. Remember that they think that the best way to "support" the troops is to rive the folks in uniform a raise that doesn't even match inflation, while making the Air Force buy more planes than they want.
And if all this makes you want to puke when you see a car with political stickers and "support the troops" ribbons, well, I do to. Do try to keep it down. But if you can't, make sure you're aiming in the right direction.
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