Cut the ****ing Defense Budget and give us some real incentive to work with less, the DoD needs to figure out how to use its money more efficiently. I'll give you an example, I was doing inventories today of our company's equipment and looking over my Commander's FLIPL, which stands for "Financial Liability Investigation of Property Loss." Basically it means if you lose something, or at least too much of something the Army will come take your pay for its lost equipment.
Anyway I was counting these things:
A wooden mallet which looks almost no different than this one and which we are supposed to have 48 of in the company, one per truck as part of the Basic Issue Items. Looking on the form I realized this ****ing thing cost the Army $55.38 PER UNIT, which meant counting 48 mallets accounted for 2640 dollars. Now 2640 dollars isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, but the fact that these wooden mallets and many other things from pliers to wrenches cost over 50 dollars per unit for everyone in the Army must add up to a hell of a lot of wasted money. Not only that but because they cost so much for the Army to buy them the Army spends a lot more money protecting them, and accounting for them, my salary for example.
I get paid X amount of dollars per month and I assume the Army wants some work out of me, and while I don't disagree that inventory is necessary its also inherently a waste. Why? Because its not our mission, its something we must do to accomplish our mission regardless but its not our mission to do inventories, but the only reason we spend so much time doing them is because no one wants to have to pay for 2640 dollars in wooden mallets because a box was lost somewhere or consumed on a mission and wasn't annotated on a shortage annex. So the fact that these things cost so much for the army, means I have to be that much more through and anal about my inventory which is that much more time away from accomplishing our actual mission or doing something else more productive, like training. The less time we have to worry about wooden mallets, 10 inch pliers, 1-1/2 - 7-8 wrenches, etc which all cost over 50 dollars, the more time we can do something more productive, yes we'll have to inventory them anyway but it'll be less stressful, consume less time, consume less money and provide more "value" to the Army through my own and other's personal labor. Basically they'll get more done while paying me the same, because I won't spend a week buried in a supply room.
and of course, the President is insisting that it has to have tax increases.
