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The guys toiling in our department of headlines we thought we'd never see are busy these days. Today's gem comes from the AP, in the NY Times:
Turnaround In Recruiting Puts Guard On Path For ExpansionFirst time since 1993 - wow. But some of the surprise wears off when the AP reveals why it can now publish stories like this. (Read closely - it gets tricky). The story points out that just when things are really turning around, President Bush wants to shrink the Guard!The National Guard Bureau, the Pentagon office that administers the Guard, issued a statement outlining a turnaround in recruiting and predicting that it would continue to rise this year. In the last quarter of 2005, the Guard signed up 13,466 recruits, above its goal of 12,605. It was the first time since 1993 that the Guard exceeded its goal in that period.
National Guard officials said Monday that recruiting had accelerated so much in recent months that they expected to expand the Guard even as the Bush administration proposes to shrink it.But wait - because here's where things get tricky:
In his 2007 budget, to be sent to Congress on Feb. 6, President Bush would pay for a Guard of 333,000 soldiers; its Congressionally authorized limit is 350,000. Administration officials say that is not a cut, because the Guard now has 333,000 soldiers.So setting aside enough money to pay the actual people in the Guard, rather than the authorized number of people in the Guard - is a cut. (Some fiscally responsible people might call it a good one.)
But...
Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey had said that if the Guard was able to grow beyond 333,000, the Army would shift money from elsewhere in its budget to pay for the extra soldiers.In other words, the number of troops authorized in the Guard won't be cut, there just won't be any money frozen to pay the salaries of Guard toops until they actually exist. (Or if you prefer, "if needed, your check will be in the mail". How you respond to this should be an indicator of your level of trust in "the system".)
Which brings us to how the AP/NY Times decide to frame the issue:
The administration's plan to pay for a smaller Guard has stirred opposition in Congress and among groups like the National Guard Association of the United States, which represents current and former Army Guard and Air Guard officers.But the final word on this belongs to Congress, and you can bet they'll vote their home-State pocketbooks on this one.
Not on the Guard issue so much - that's just an opportunity to look like good guys who stood up to Bush - if the local papers run the story just so. My prediction: the money will be "found". After all, those dollars will represent a fairly small drop in a rather large bucket of taxpayer dollars.
Bucket? Perhaps trough is the better term. Last year's $82 billion supplemental spending bill for the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan included $20 million for a road project in Mississippi, $5 million for the Fort Peck Fish Hatchery in Montana, $2 million for an upgrade of chemistry laboratories at Drew University in New Jersey, and $1 million for the Woody Island and historic structures in Philadelphia. Don't be fooled by any outraged congressional table-thumping over this Guard funding issue - watch your congressman's other hand.
But that, good friends, is half the story. For whatever reason they actually ran it, that headline in the NY Times was too good to just use just once. So here:
Turnaround In Recruiting Puts Guard On Path For ExpansionGood stuff.The National Guard Bureau, the Pentagon office that administers the Guard, issued a statement outlining a turnaround in recruiting and predicting that it would continue to rise this year. In the last quarter of 2005, the Guard signed up 13,466 recruits, above its goal of 12,605. It was the first time since 1993 that the Guard exceeded its goal in that period.
