Sequestration = air show cancelled. Big deal or so what?

[John Ranalletta]

Guess this is just one of those essential services impacted by sequestration.

 

Let's cancel flyovers supporting NFL, MLB and NASCAR. Jet fuel and spent a&p hours are too expensive for just making noise.

 

http://indy.st/13gFiQ1

 

 

[Danny caddyshack Noonan]

Not being a pilot, I would guess that any flyover contributes to stick time hours. Hours is hours unless you're doing combat training.

Airshows are another thing altogether. That's recruiting driven.

[John Ranalletta]

Maybe, but hard to justify putting uber experience pilots in airshows considering a carrier isn't being refueled due to sequestration.

 

Best thing for recruiting is a bad economy.

 

http://bit.ly/V4mzlt

[Rougarou]

Generally, sports flyovers are conducted in coordination with training. These flyovers aid in the pilots/aviators in working on their TOT/TTT skills and CAS.

[John Ranalletta]

Generally, sports flyovers are conducted in coordination with training. These flyovers aid in the pilots/aviators in working on their TOT/TTT skills and CAS.

 

Don't disagree, but in this case, somebody decided it wasn't an essential training mission. Funny how the definition of essential changes when the cash runs low.

[Selden]

It's going to be difficult to stay away from the "no politics" line on this thread, but a fundamental problem that I see is that while almost everybody thinks government costs need to be cut, almost everybody thinks the cuts should apply to someone else. Blunt instrument that it is, at least sequestration avoids choosing (although I would love to see those above 65 more affected by spending cuts — that would provoke some screams).

 

Disclosure: I'll be turning 67 during this year's UnRally.

[John Ranalletta]

When the concept was proposed and adopted, it exempted the two biggest cost items in the budget: medicare and social security; so, it matters little whether we get sequestration or not. It is inconsequential, overall.

 

Oh, the horror of sequestration: or: What happens if we really had to cut spending?

 

 

[Dave McReynolds]

I would venture to guess that if Social Security and Medicare had been included in sequestration without changing the total amount to be cut, the cuts would not be devastating to anyone or any program. I'm on Social Security and Medicare, and love both programs, but like Selden, I would like to see all of us share in the pain. Unfortunately, it's going to take a lot more pain than the sequestration to get our fiscal house in order, but it's a start. I am in favor of many social programs, and I guess I would be considered a liberal by most standards, but I'm also a CPA, and realize that we can't keep spending money we don't have.

[kmac]

Sequestration...Is that when spanish speaking people say "yes" to castrating their horses?

[John Ranalletta]

Here's a quick $83 billion pick up, but bankers would lose incentive to buy off the white house and congress without it.

 

$86 billion subsidy goes to "To Big To Jail, er... Fail" banks. http://bloom.bg/ZsxyJf

 

A whopping 2,416% return on their investment in prostitutes. er ...politicians.

 

[DiggerJim]

You missed the percentage of the Federal Budget - 2.2%...does anyone think that they couldn't cut 2% out of their own budget? That there's not 2% fat anywhere in their spending? You couldn't cut out a grandmuchobiggiemonstergulper latte & donut once a week or start bringing your lunch to work or cut the cable or drop cell phone features/or cell phones even and not save 2% per year without ruining your lifestyle? Hell, I'd bet most of spend more than 2% riding around with no productive purpose on bikes Yet 2% of federal spending will bring the country to its knees. Nobody's wasting nothing and old people will die and children will suffer and it's just inhumane.

 

(Flashback to WKRP in Cincinnati..."oh the humanity of it all!")

 

 

[Downs]

They will/are cutting any training that is not directly related to a deployment. Or at least that's what HQMC is telling us. If Sequestration starts all training other than what is essential for deployment will cease.

 

Any maint./spare parts purchases will be limited to those that are required to make the aircraft mission capable.

[Mike]

The math is elusive. I work for Mama G and my agency has been told that we'll be furloughed to achieve what will be an 8.67% pay decrease. Some agencies have not gotten these notices. Others have already curtailed travel, etc.

 

Honestly, while it will cause some personal pain, I think it's needed. The problem, as I see it, is that no real planning went into this. No surprise, eh?

[Harry_Wilshusen]

The thing that bothers me is that politicians are claiming this will be horrendous. However even with sequestration and the ending of 2 wars Washington will spend more this year than last.

[Harry_Wilshusen]

The math is elusive. I work for Mama G and my agency has been told that we'll be furloughed to achieve what will be an 8.67% pay decrease. Some agencies have not gotten these notices. Others have already curtailed travel, etc.

 

Honestly, while it will cause some personal pain, I think it's needed. The problem, as I see it, is that no real planning went into this. No surprise, eh?

 

I disagree. Lots of planning went into this. It's just that the planning was political not economic.

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

The math is elusive. I work for Mama G and my agency has been told that we'll be furloughed to achieve what will be an 8.67% pay decrease. Some agencies have not gotten these notices. Others have already curtailed travel, etc.

 

Honestly, while it will cause some personal pain, I think it's needed. The problem, as I see it, is that no real planning went into this. No surprise, eh?

 

Yes, no real planning. Yes, it's stupid. That was in fact the entire point of the sequester: to introduce such dire and stupid consequences for inaction as to make action (i.e. thoughtful budget cuts in late 2011) a virtual certainty. As you can see, it didn't work, and now we're on final approach to those dire consequences.

 

We're expecting furloughs here, too - 15 to 22 days between now and October 1. The loss of income will suck, but look at the bright side: at least we'll have time to get more crap done around the house.

[upflying]

How about military jet flyovers for profit?

You want us to fly over or perform at an airshow, pay us.

That's how civilian air show acts do it.

[chrisolson]

The Luke AFB (Phoenix, Az) open house has also been cancelled. Interestingly the majority of civilian comments on their site were "don't cancel, we'd pay to come to the open house and see the air show". But too late to try to put that together.

[Fubar]

Looks like the MacDill show in April is still on. Keeping my fingers, toes and eyes crossed as I promised the boy we'd go.

 

I like upflying's idea: pay for the flyovers. JP ain't cheap.

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

How about military jet flyovers for profit?

You want us to fly over or perform at an airshow, pay us.

That's how civilian air show acts do it.

 

Civilian acts are for-profit ventures; they gain nothing if they perform on their own dime. For the military, aerobatic demonstrations at air shows are a recruiting tool; if they aren't performing before an admiring public or putting up with an intrusive documentary film crew, then the number and caliber of potential recruits goes down, a real (if difficult-to-measure) loss of value. For reference, the Blue Angel's annual operating budget is about $37M, about 0.0037% of the defense budget (and if the BA's didn't exist, those planes and pilots would probably be on normal active duty, so not much $$$ would be saved).

 

If the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels started charging to cover their costs for air show performances, the average attendee would no longer be able to afford admission; the operating cost for a squadron of F-18's or F-16's is an order of magnitude higher than that of a typical civilian aerobatic plane.

[Albert]

If they do a flyover at a stadium using stealth fighters . . . does anyone know?

[bayoubengal]

As a junior officer I flew flyovers of military air shows and college football bowl games. As a senior military officer I served as the approval authority of same plus NFL and NASCAR. Theoretically we could not perform the flyovers and save XX hours of training hours. Truth is we call it training although that's a bit of a stretch, it comes out of training hours budget, but flyover hours are not programmed for, meaning if we didn't use the hours for flybys, we would use them for training. So bottom line, we could add a couple hours to our training bucket, but not save real money. Statistically, it's insignificant, but it's good cheap PR...

This obviously doesn't apply to the T-Birds and Angels, that's programmed recruiting money.

Hope that helps.

 

Col Hutch

[chrisolson]

If the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels started charging to cover their costs for air show performances, the average attendee would no longer be able to afford admission ...

Counterpoint ...

The documented historical attendance for the Luke AFB open house averages around 200 thousand folks over a 2 day period. At a nominal $10 a head, that goes a long way to pay down the cost. Might not be cover everything, but $2 million is still a serious chunk of change.

[Fubar]

Just got the news from the Tampa ABC affiliate: "Severe spending cuts are now the law of the land and the sequester has grounded the MacDill Airfest, for now."

Nearly everything I could add here would probably cause "political speech" ramifications so I will just say my 8 year old is going to be disappointed if this isn't fixed quickly.

[Quinn]

Just got the news from the Tampa ABC affiliate: "Severe spending cuts are now the law of the land and the sequester has grounded the MacDill Airfest, for now."

Nearly everything I could add here would probably cause "political speech" ramifications so I will just say my 8 year old is going to be disappointed if this isn't fixed quickly.

 

 

 

I can no longer afford to amuse your 8 year old. I've spent all my tax money on a Teapot Museum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta_Teapot_Museum

 

------

 

 

[Bud]

We fell off the cliff and .................

 

 

 

[Harry_Wilshusen]

We fell off the cliff and .................

 

 

 

The sky fell. Clouds are on my lawn.

[Selden]

if the sequester law had been written so that geezers (like me, age 67) receiving Medicare and SS benefits would have been impacted, it would never have happened. I'm relatively recently retired, and the tax benefits we receive are an embarrassment. Special treatment for the geezers is what's really screwing the next generation.

[SuperG]

2 points if I may.

disclaimer- my post is purely economical not political.

 

SelDen,

I may miss interpret your post when you say"

tax benefits we receive are an embarrassment. Special treatment for the geezers is what's really screwing the next generation."

seems contradicting as -embarrassment- as in not enough- and later - special treatment- as it is too much being given to geezers.

 

I need more info because the word Sequestration is being thrown around a lot lately, howabout "Sequestration for dummies" explanation.

To be lame and plain, isn't it trying to curb what I understand as -reborrowing to cover our financial obligations, but always adding a little bit more spending to it.

Meaning, I can't seem to pay my credit card (because i am burning up money I make each month, so I reborrow from an other creditcard each month and spend a little more on top of it to stay a float. Then I repeat it over and over...

If that is the case, it must stop, period. It can not be sustained, regardless how good or bad the things I spend the money on. So Sequestration is a no brainier. Right?

 

 

 

[1springer]

Tongue in cheek I hope, but if not .........those tax benefits would be?

 

 

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

I may miss interpret your post when you say"tax benefits we receive are an embarrassment. Special treatment for the geezers is what's really screwing the next generation." seems contradicting as -embarrassment- as in not enough- and later - special treatment- as it is too much being given to geezers.

 

Think of the phrase "embarrassment of riches."

 

I need more info because the word Sequestration is being thrown around a lot lately, howabout "Sequestration for dummies" explanation.

 

OK, here goes. I will keep this as apolitical as possible.

 

In August 2011 the Budget Control Act was signed into law. One of the requirements of this new law was that a congressional "supercommittee" would be required to pass substantial spending cuts before November 23, 2011. So as to incent the committee to make those very unpopular spending cuts, the law required that if the committee failed to act, the debt ceiling would be increased to cover our bills, AND major across-the-board spending cuts would take place. Those major across-the-board spending cuts are what is known as the sequestration, and the idea was that they would be senseless and painful (i.e. no thought given as to where we might make intelligent cuts; just hack 10% from every agency's budget). According to the BCA the sequester was originally scheduled to take place on January 2 of this year, but at that point a law was passed to delay the sequester until March 1. And now it's happening.

 

To be lame and plain, isn't it trying to curb what I understand as -reborrowing to cover our financial obligations, but always adding a little bit more spending to it.

Meaning, I can't seem to pay my credit card (because i am burning up money I make each month, so I reborrow from an other creditcard each month and spend a little more on top of it to stay a float. Then I repeat it over and over...

If that is the case, it must stop, period. It can not be sustained, regardless how good or bad the things I spend the money on. So Sequestration is a no brainier. Right?

 

The spending cuts you describe are what the congressional supercommittee was supposed to do back in fall 2011; the sequester is a legally mandated consequence of their failure to do so.

[Dave McReynolds]

Sequestration seems like a no brainier to me too, although there can certainly be legitimate arguments on where to make the cuts. But then I'm just a small town CPA, and don't claim to be an economic genius.

 

But there are economic geniuses who believe that increased deficit spending is the solution to our economic woes. I think their belief is sincere, and not politically motivated. What I have never heard from them, however, is a step-by-step plan for paying off these deficits, or, if it is unnecessary to ever pay off the deficits, how exactly that would work in the long run. In the short run, yes, deficit spending seems to be working out fine, and in fact the economy seems to be recovering. But I would like to see a chart prepared by one of these economists going out 20-30 years, showing how they expect this to play out. And if the chart shows years with significant surpluses being used to pay down the accumulated deficits, as is assumed in Keynesian economics, I would question whether that could ever be a realistic assumption.

 

I believe any business has a healthy level of debt, which will allow it to grow, and the amount can be calculated, within a reasonable range. A business can, and probably should, carry a certain amount of debt throughout its whole life. Probably the same is true of governments, although as a CPA, it would be beyond my meager abilities to calculate the optimal level. But if there is an optimal level of debt for the government to carry, certainly those geniuses who recommend further deficit spending must have calculated it and must believe we are still under that level? And if they have done that, could they please clue in the rest of us so we can stop worrying about it?

[philbytx]

I trust that your statement was said with tongue firmly in cheek Selden ??

 

 

[1springer]

"Sequestration generates automatic cuts for each of nine years, FY 13-21, totaling $1.2 trillion. Sequestration was originally scheduled to take effect on Jan. 2, 2013. However, it was delayed for two months - until March 1, 2013, by the deal struck on New Year's Eve, called the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.

Now, without Congressional action to prevent sequestration, the first round of cuts will take place on March 1, 2013.

The 2013 cuts apply to “discretionary” spending and are divided between reductions to defense ($500 billion) and non-defense ($700 billion)."

 

There are exemptions of course:

 

www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/2/905