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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (10140)	2/1/2002 6:31:35 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93284

I've got a DoD story that parallels the appropriate use of funds issue. I suppose you've heard a word or two about the nearly destroyed [by the previous Administration] military, that seems to have done a pretty fine job in Afghanistan. I was talking to a friend about a base on the Continent; they've got a plus up in facilities costs. So the base has a facilities expansion in the works. Fortunately, it's small enough that it doesn't have to meet DoD regs for anti-terrorism measures. You might expect new training facilities, mission critical facilities, etc...Nope. The facility expansion is to a building that some in civilian life call a bowling alley. The expansion includes an extension for an atrium. Nice. Seems a bit extravegent to me, but troop morale and yada, yada. Ok, I won't grumble. [Their training situation was and is fine by the way.] But my friend tells me that there was an additional extension, whose purpose was unspecified in the plan. Seemed odd to him, so for the hell of it he tried to find out what it was for. With a few phone calls...he was directed to another part of the base budget .... "Service Contracts" ....which in turn led him to a brand new line item for a contractor. Turns out the contractor is going to stuff the room with slot machines. Slots are of course a money making operation and the facility is primarily used by the enlisted. The base gets a significant cut of the profits. While there's all this free choice stuff around. I have a fundamental problem with the military putting in a money making operation targetted at the poorly paid enlisted personnel and using tax dollars to do it. Will anyone above the base level even have a clue what's being done? No way, a "generic" facility expansion for the "Strike Zone" justified by troop morale, yada, yada. No specific mention of the atrium. The contractor's name is rather non-descript. I doubt if even the commander of the base knows it...why bother him with the details? It's a multi-year project so the current commander won't see it built, the next commmander will. If he happens to ask who put this in...you got it. "The last commander approved it, sir." If he happpens to say "Kill the slots." .... "Sir, it's a multi-year services contract....Sir, there would be termination fees, it'll cost us more to take it out than it does to leave them in, Sir." ... to the next commander .... "Sir, both prior commanders approved this....Sir." And life goes on. jttmab