Thoughts on Government Spending

This week has been pretty easy. All of my training has been indoors watching power point slides by different instructors. I have been learning the Arabic alphabet and spelling a lot quicker than I thought I would. It's not that bad once you have the alphabet down, now I just need to figure out what all the words mean. A lot of our classes this week have been cancelled or delayed due to the weather. It hasn't been severe or anything, just kinda brown. Yep, brown. On a good day this week I could see for about a half a mile before everything faded into the dirt that's been hanging in the air. I have no idea how this happens, cause I always thought that dirt is heavier than air and therefore should fall, but not here. I wouldn't call it a sand storm either, because those usually involve some high winds, so what ever it was, the weather has been keeping flights grounded and some of our instructors were stuck on other camps waiting to come here.

Needless to say, I have had a little extra free time on my hands, so I have been thinking about a few things, mostly government spending. This didn't just pop up out of sheer boredom, but because all of the contractors that I have talked to are over here to teach or assist and are making between $100,000 and 300,000 a year. A YEAR! How many contractors are in theatre? About 150,000; 39,000 are American; 70,000 from the Philippines, Peru, Bangladesh, and other countries; 37,000 are from Iraq. Obviously the Americans are the ones making the big bucks and the ones coming from other countries are making considerably less, but still being paid well from what they are used to. Let's just say that the average is $100,000 a year, you're talking almost 4 billion dollars just to pay the Americans. This number is just a guess, but I don't think it's that far off. I will do some research. Lets talk about what we could be doing with this money... if you know a congressman you should let them know my idea.

The armed forces has been searching for ways to increase their numbers for a long time. They are offering bonuses and college money just to entice people to enlist for four years. Then they throw more money at you when its time to re-enlist. I personally got 30,000 for re-enlisting for six years. This doubled my income for 2008. But I do get benefits, I get a statement at the end of every year showing my base pay plus what the government says I receive in benefits. If I remember right it was about 60,000. At that rate the Government could pay for 65,000 Staff Sergeants with 4 billion dollars. Or you could have well over 100,000 Privates through Specialists, which is the level that most of the contractors are working at any way. Also most of the contractors are either retired military or got out because they could make more money as a contractor. Many of the contractors are mechanics, truck drivers, laborers, and cooks. You know when the last time I saw a cook doing their job for the Army? 2003 when we were driving from Kuwait to Iraq and they had to cook because we didn't have contractors yet. I'm sure the congressmen and women don't want to hear this because I'm sure many of them are getting rich off of owning stock in these contracting firms, but the money could be better used. There are approximately 475,000 active Army Soldiers, that's almost a $10,000 a year raise for EACH person. Tell me that you would still have trouble getting people to come in and stay in the military with better pay.

I'll have to think about this some more...I just think that there is a lot of waste going on and no one really seems to notice. There is always a better way. Thanks for listing to me rant for a while. I should be at my final destination in Iraq by the end of this week, weather permitting! I hope you all are enjoying your summer! Talk to you later...