Hillary Continues Posturing To Right
 

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/expor...05/brief3.html

Dems aim to increase army size

A team of Senate and House Democrats today are planning to introduce legislation today aimed at significantly increasing size of the U.S. Army.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services (SASC) airland subcommittee, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), a SASC member, and Reps. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), both members of the House Armed Services committee, are pressing for the passage of the United States Army Relief Act.

The legislation seeks to raise the cap of the Army’s end strength, said an aide to Tauscher.

The Army already is working on increasing its troop levels by 30,000. Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, has said on numerous occasions that it costs about $1.2 billion a year for every 10,000 people added to the Army.

Both the House and the Senate have called for an increase in troop levels in their 2006 defense authorization bill and it is likely that troop levels will be increased when the conferees meet.

The Army is having trouble recruiting enough people to man the current force, where do they think that extra volunteers to man their additional billets will come from?

TR

Sir,

I think they will try to raise whatever additional benefits they can to attract new recruits. They are attempting to show that they are "hawks" on the GWOT and taking care of the troops at the same time. :rolleyes:

JMHO,

Doc

It would have been better if they could see the requirement before the RIFed out all of the experienced troops the lost under the previous regime.

They can posture all they want, I am not fooled.

TR

Me neither but we're informed. Hillary will distance herself away from bubba as she no longer needs him. My guess is she thought he was too far to the right in politics anyway. She will appear in whatever role it takes to win the presidency and if she wins, she'll make FDR look conservative.

JMHO

Doc

It seems just like yesterday her husband was doing everything in his power to reduce the size of the Army. How ironic.

Thats not entirely true. Bush Sr did most of the cutting before Clinton took office.

D R A F T

;)

Not exactly.

President GHW Bush proposed and initiated it.

President Clinton accelerated it and continued the process that forced RIF actions.

He then cut funding for critical programs, resulting in us having to shoot up our "go to war" ammo stockpiles for raining.

TR

Hey, a Dem (Rev Al Sharpton) proposed that last time it was brought up, maybe they would like to touch that rail among their constituency again?

TR

To be (somewhat) fair, while he may have been doing all in his power, he faced a Republican Congress and did not accomplish much. The big reductions in the size of the Army are more a legacy of the administration of Bush pere.

Bush's first defense authorization act, for fiscal year 1990 (Public Law 101-189, signed Nov. 29, 1989) reduced Army authorized endstrength to 764,021. I am not sure how much of a reduction from Reagan's last defense authorization act this was, as I cannot find FY89 endstrengths online, but it was a reduction, as 2nd Armored Division began inactivating in FY90.

Bush's next defense authorization act was signed during the Desert Shield build-up, in November 1990 (P.L. 101-510). It reduced Army end strength for FY91 to 675,669, an 11.5% decrease.

The next two years, the end strength was further reduced to 660,200 and then 598,900.

Clinton's first defense authorization act chopped it further, setting FY94 Army end strength at 540,000. The next year, it dropped to 510,000.

Despite the GOP taking control of Congress, authorized strength fell again for FY96 to 495,000. It stayed there for the next several years, going down to 480,000 in FY99. It has stayed at 480,000 since.

Bush pere inherited an Army of almost 800,000 and reduced it by 25% to 600,000 in four years. Clinton inherited a 600,000-man Army and reduced it by 20% to 480,000 in eight years. Bush fils inherited an Army of 480,000 and has kept it basically the same (there have been tiny increases in the other services).

This doesn't exonerate Clinton, of course. The reductions in the Bush years were rapid and precipitous, but they were of an Army which had increased as a result of the Reagan defense buildup, and with the Soviet collapse, some reduction was justified and could be absorbed. But once the floor was set (based on the two-MRC strategy), the Clinton Administration just kept lowering the floor.

Further posturing
 

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07...s_6129021.html

Hillary Clinton to take on Rockstar over Hot Coffee

Washington, DC press conference Thursday will see the New York Senator call for a Federal Trade Commission inquiry into the San Andreas mod.

"Tomorrow in the country's capital, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) will call on the Federal Trade Commission to launch an inquiry into the "Hot Coffee" mod, sources have told GameSpot...

Clinton is expected to call on the FTC to determine who is responsible for the Hot Coffee mod, a modification that unlocks sexually explicit minigames in Rockstar's recently published PC version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas...

Although there are far more outspoken politicians when it comes to regulating game content inappropriate for children, this is not the first time Clinton has looked into the issue. On her official Web site, Clinton lists "fighting the culture of sex and violence in the media" as part of her platform, and in March, she joined with Senators Joe Lieberman (R-CT), Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Rick Santorum (R-PA) to cosponsor legislation seeking $90 million over five years for research into how viewing different types of media (television, video games, and the Internet in particular) affects children's development."

She also seems to be shifting right on this issue as well. Trying to appeal to all those "values" voters who have been so turned off by the Democratic Party for the last couple decades. Good luck to her with that. :boohoo

Here's a novel concept.....

Instead of increasing the size of the Army why don't they increase what we PAY our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines? I think they have earned it.

Just a thought for an outsiders point of view.

AL:

785,000 was the Reagan end strength, IIRC. It was 16 divisions.

I believe that it dropped to 12 under Pres. Bush and then to 10 under Pres. Clinton. It has been at 480,000 soldiers plus or minus a few since then.

Anyone recall when the Reserve Component realigned and we lost 2 Reserve SF Groups?

TR

I do. I came in in 93 and there wasn't any talk of it around the head shed. By 95 or so guys were looking for homes.....