Is This Obama's "Fundamentally-Transformed" America?
In 2014, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel first announced a plan to cut the Army to pre-9/11 levels and pre-World War II levels in a 2015 budget proposal.
A document from the Department of National Defense acquired by USA Today said the number of American Army troopers reached 570,000 during the peak of wars in Iraq and Pakistan.
Citing documents, USA Today explained that the Army might also need to cut an additional 30,000 soldiers if automatic budget cuts or sequestration begins in October.
"At that level, the Army would not be able to meet its current deployments and respond to demands for troops in other regions," USA Today said.
"The cuts would reduce the active-duty Army from about 490,000 soldiers to about 450,000, its smallest size since World War Two. The Army said it had about 490,000 soldiers before the 2001 attacks, rising to about 570,000 in 2012 before reductions began.
'These cuts will impact nearly every Army installation, both in the continental United States and overseas,' said Brigadier General Randy George, director of Army force management. 'These are incredibly difficult choices,' he said.
The cuts, first announced more than a year ago, come as the Pentagon is absorbing nearly $1 trillion in reductions to planned defense spending over a decade.
George said unless Congress moves to end spending limits currently in the law, the Army will have to cut the size of the force by a further 30,000 soldiers by the end of the decade.
'The resulting force would be incapable of simultaneously meeting current deployment requirements and responding to overseas contingency requirements,' he said.
George said three Army combat brigades in Georgia, Alaska and Hawaii would be significantly restructured. Two of them would be reduced from brigade-sized units of about 4,000 to battalion task forces of about 1,050. One would lose its Stryker fighting vehicles and become a regular infantry brigade.
"The labor force participation rate hovered between 62.9 percent and 62.7 percent in the eleven months from April 2014 through February, and has been 62.9 percent or lower in 13 of the 17 months since October 2013.
"Today's jobs report, while overall very strong, showed a slight tick down in the labor force participation rate, from 62.8% last month to 62.7% this month. It's now at the lowest rate since 1978.
Why the participation rate has fallen so much is one of the most hotly debated questions in economics. On the one hand, America is aging (blogger's comment: and has lost many to abortion), and the baby boomers are beginning to retire. That leads to a natural demographic decline in the participation rate.
"The number of Americans on food stamps has topped 46,000,000 for 35 straight months, according to data from the Department of Agriculture (USDA).
"The most recent job numbers from the feds included a report on private sector jobs for February. It looks as though we have added 295,000 jobs. Most hailed this as good news, particularly since the unemployment rate dropped to 5.5 percent. This is about as close to full employment as you can get – and it should be good news, assuming all the numbers are accurate and the economy is thriving.
But here's the deception: 102 million people aren't working, including about nine million who are officially counted as unemployed and the 93 million who've given up. Are these numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics accurate? Ninety-three million adults aren't in the labor force. That's up from about 79 million from when we began to head into recession seven years ago.
Imagine being served your poolside drinks by a lawyer, or getting your chicken sandwich delivered by an experienced marketing professional. The first is a friend of mine, the second my waitress a few weeks ago. Both lost jobs due to economic downturns at their organizations. Both took available work to pay the bills while looking for new positions in their chosen professions.
My friend and the waitress are victims of a massive but hidden problem called underemployment. Watching falling unemployment numbers being reported at 6.2%, down from nearly 10% four years earlier, is simply misleading.
Virtually all phase out as family incomes rise, either by securing higher hourly pay or working more hours, and impose an effective marginal tax rate as high as 50 percent. Consequently, these programs discourage work and skills acquisition, and encourage single parents and one partner in two adult households not to work. Often, these motivate single people to work only part-time.
"If we really have a 5.5-percent unemployment rate, it's unlike any other 5.5-percent unemployment rate in the history of any recovery. Many on the Left are quick to remind us that at one point during the peak of the recession we had a 10-percent unemployment rate. But I would like to remind them that this was back when we had a strong labor participation rate.
If we step away from 1978 labor participation rates for a moment, use our current participation, and use the real population numbers, we have over a 30-percent unemployment rate. These are not my numbers – this is using what is in plain sight from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau.
In a true 5.5-percent unemployment environment, it would be almost impossible to keep wages from climbing. The fact that isn't happening now further confirms the reported numbers aren't even close to reality. Wages will go up and the standard of living will improve when the labor market is truly tightening and workers have the opportunity to move from job to job for higher wages; in other words, when employers are having more and more difficulty finding workers.
However, that doesn't describe today's environment. We have no wage growth because the reported tight labor market is nothing more than a government-created illusion.
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