Senator John McCain made a pretty fevered pitch for cutting wasteful spending in the defense budget. Republicans are rather well known for their support of the military, so cuts in the Department of Defense seem out of step.
What McCain was pushing for was what he refers to as wasteful spending, and he was doing it so that rather than wasting the funds on non-military expenses, the real military could have those dollars. The Civil Air Patrol was right in the sights of the senator.
We predicted that the amendment would fail because the Senate has more Democrats than Republicans, and that is what happened, McCain would have required 60 votes to have his amendment included, and he just did not have that.
The problem for the Civil Air Patrol is real. McCain put out a strong argument on the increased budget for the Civil Air Patrol, what he failed to do is prove that the Civil Air Patrol is a waste of spending. All he needed to do was to demand that the other side prove the value of the Civil Air Patrol – which they can not do. The GAO report clearly demonstrates that the Civil Air Patrol is less than useless and that no one else wants anything to do with the CAP due to the lack of assets available to those agencies, and specifically, the lack of qualified personnel.
Then we enter into the Catch-22 of the problem. In order to train and qualify members, you need more than what would otherwise be required, because volunteers are not going to always be available when and where you want – or need – them. This mind numbing waste of taxpayer dollars keeps more money away from the real military, and does nothing to solve the problem of having qualified personnel where and when you might need them for these other agencies.
On top of all that – the Civil Air Patrol cannot justify its own expense.
Face the hard facts – in Florida, a sink hole opened up under a house and it “ate” a resident who lived in the house. They know where the body is and they do not plan to go and get it. Odd, but it would seem that – as part of correcting the sink hole – they would have to dig up part of that hole to fix the primary problem that created the hole in the first place, yet, they announced that the man has found his final resting place. A state knows where a body is, and they won’t go and get it.
For the Civil Air Patrol, look at all of the searches conducted in the last three years and discover who really found the body, site, aircraft or what have you – almost every time, it was not the Civil Air Patrol, yet many thousands of taxpayer dollars had been pissed away on the fruitless search. For Sandy and the Gulf operation, any monkey with a camera could have snapped off digital pictures. A lot of aircraft had been flying around already – why was the Civil Air Patrol needed at all – for either scenario?
This is the waste of taxpayer dollars that Senator McCain is discussing, and yet, the tax and spend Democrats in the Senate just pushed it along without even a vote on the subject.
We have not had a budget (let alone a balanced one) for years. Could you operate like that for very long? Here is the hint, no. When they do not have a balanced budget, they are continuing to borrow more money, but people do not realize that even a balanced budget fails to be a debt free nation, it just means that they are spending everything that they brought in. Hopefully they include repayment of debt in that picture! Even when Clinton had a budget surplus, that just meant that they did not spend all that they ha, but rather than applying the “extra” (it is not extra!) money to pay off the debt, they just pissed it all away – both parties! Again, how long would you survive – financially – like that?
Cutting $15 million from the Civil Air Patrol does not last long in the terms of other expenditures, but that is “broke thinking” – the reality is that the Civil Air Patrol is robbing almost $40 million from the American taxpayer each year – and that is still “broke thinking!”
Now consider that if you did not have the Civil Air Patrol stealing our tax dollars, you would not need the CAP-USAF either! How much more taxpayer money could be returned to the U.S. Treasury?
The McCain amendment only dealt with $15 million, the real savings was far more than that…far more.
(NOTF Ed. note: The CAP is the official, uniformed, volunteer civilian Auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force. According to numerous sources, Cindy (Mrs. John) McCain was once an officer in the Arizona Wing of the CAP, but was given the dreaded “2B” [for some unknown reason] and drummed out of the corps.)
Hayden didn’t turn on CAP. He turned on Pineda and his cronies. (who still run Florida Wing behind the Wing Commanders back) And he got foolishly involved with Chitwood and became anti-Courter.
There is a small group in Florida Wing, part of Pineda’s posse that remain behind the scenes in pulling strings. One example was the Wing Administrator, Judy Levitch, yes she’s Danny Levitchs wife. I’ve seen some of her actions on personnel matters. Another is Valerie Brown. She was SER Vice Commander and wore eagles until Pineda removed her. She wants those eagles back. She seems involved in almost any activity in Florida. Pineda himself still has political power since the majority of the major Wing staff positions were appointed by Pineda or Danny Levitch. It’s said in Florida any Lt Col with over 30 years in CAP is a candidate for a 2B [termination] since they are wrongfully perceived as a threat to those in power. A couple of these were overturned by the MARP, the others just said the hell with CAP and quit.
While politics existed prior to Pineda, it was very minor. Often because the Florida Wing member also had a duty on Region or National level. It exploded under Pineda’s first term as Wing Commander and still exists since “his people” are still in power. Several of the last Wing Commanders owed their position to Pineda, directly or indirectly. Moresch is the exception, however he didn’t realize about the Wing power structure until the last 18 months or so of his term. By then, to late to make changes. The current Wing Commander is not part of the Pineda group. But he’s viewed by many in the know in Florida to be weak.