MN Representative Clueless On Military Budget

Let me start by saying I am a Ryan Newman fan. He is the driver of the number 39 Army sponsored car. I was a fan of his before the Army began a limited sponsorship deal, which is why the efforts of that wack job representative from MN, Betty McCollum, to curtail the money being spent to sponsor his car has hit more then one nerve with me.

First let me explain something to the good representative that she can not possibly be expected to understand since anything dealing with the military is as foreign to her as a discussion of quantum physics with Michio Kaku. In the defense budget a certain amount is set aside for the recruiting budget. It is up to recruiting command how those dollars are spent. There are no funds explicitly set aside for NASCAR sponsorship. So how does that become an accepted fact? Real simple actually. She is a Democrat, she said it and a complicit press, also lacking in knowledge of all things military, run with the story as told. A Democrat wouldn't stretch the truth or lie afterall. So in reality you can't really strip the money for NASCAR funding from the budget per se, you can only strip the amount of money overall in the defense budget by that amount but it is still up to the defense department and the Department of the Army to decide how to divide up the money they are given. Are you still following? They can strip the $7 million from defense saying it is to stop sponsorship of NASCAR just as easily as they can say it is to stop the purchase of toilet paper. It is up to the individual services to decide how they spend their bucks. In reality the Army could decided not to cut one single dollar from the recruiting command and instead cut the $7 million from elsewhere, like say buying toilet paper.

Congress could even make it specific that recruiting command cut $7 million from it's budget, but it would still be up to recruiting command to decide where to make the cut at. They could make up the shortfall by making recruiters walk to meet potential recruits instead of driving and save the fuel costs. By now you should be getting the message that this is all a political stunt aimed at drawing the ire of the NASCAR community, whom Democrats consider the great unwashed and to appease the more rabid members of the anti war community thereby elevating her to hero status in their eyes and possibly getting a ringing endorsement form Berkeley City Council.

We have already seen cuts approved over defense such as the funding for the second engine for the F-35 fighter jet, so I am waiting for the Democrats to quit trotting out stuffed animals and kiddie puppet icons and tell me just what it is they are willing to cut.

Just for the record, besides sponsoring the Army car there are cars sponsored by all the other branches also, although on limited basis. The US Navy sponsors the X-Games and there are several other examples of recruiting efforts that are collaborations with various other endeavors. The bottom line is the services must target their advertising to their target audience and in efforts that are going to return the most bang for their buck.

But you silly libs, go on with your stupid selfs and while most Americans will only know what the headlines proclaim to them because quite frankly when it comes to the inner workings of the military they too are not too informed.


Quick update: Obama claims to be a big Nascar fan

Just had to add this nugget also.

"We've heard innumerable times that the Republicans were elected to send a message from the people that we should stop spending money," he said. [Bill Harper, McCollum's Chief of Staff] "And yet the people who sent that message want us to spend $7 million for a sticker on a NASCAR."

Just another sign of ignorance. NASCAR is the organization not an actual vehicle. You can have NASCAR style cars, or cars which race on the NASCAR circuit but you can't have an actual NASCAR.