Comment by Aaron Greenwood on January 4, 2013 at 10:08am

There has to money for Smokey.  I mean what is a good government for except "free stuff" and playing games?

Really Smokey is the least of our worries.

We should be debating our 16.5 trillion dollar and growing national debt.

We should be discussing unfunded liabilities, the "free stuff" your elected officials have been giving away for decades dwarfs the amount of the national debt.

We should be discussing the fact we borrow 48 cents for every dollar we spend to keep up the unearned lifestyle of an entire nation, which is nothing short of injustice not only to the young but to the world.

We should be debating the wisdom of an ideology that creates large demographics dependent on the state rather than policies that encourage self reliance and self sufficiency.

We should debating the consequences of trillions of dollars of national debt on the future of out children?

We should be debating the morally of one nation borrowing so much money, money that could go towards lifting up the third world where they don't often have clean water.

Give poor Smokey the money, it doesn't matter any more.

Comment by shotsie on January 4, 2013 at 10:32am

Okay, Aaron, why don't we start locally by cutting Sandia, Los Alamos and Kirtland AFB budget's by 50% and see what happens....  I'm sure Intel will step it up.... 

Comment by Aaron Greenwood on January 4, 2013 at 12:10pm

Shotsie, what we need to do is face reality and that means fully understanding the problems we face.  Fighting over cutting this and cutting that is not productive and evades the real issues. What to cut is a distraction and takes the focus off the source of the problems, which are philosophical, ideological and moral.   I offered a few points in my post as a starting point for discussion.

Comment by RunLikeADog on January 4, 2013 at 1:07pm

Be careful what you wish for, shotsie, you might just get it especially with Heinrich and Lujan-Grisham in D.C. It so easy to go after Sandia and Los Alamos, but the reality is that everyone has to become accountable for spending; from the Feds, to the bloated State and County governments all the way down to you and I. We all have to become less consumer and more producer.

Comment by shotsie on January 4, 2013 at 4:09pm

Talking philosophically about cutting budgets is easy; actually going through budgets and cutting programs is tough guy stuff.  You cut 50% from Sandia and KAFB, and you just eliminated 10,000 (direct) jobs.  (I was just using these places as an example, since the Feds directly fund the programs here - I work at KAFB, so no, I really don't want large cuts there.  Everybody thinks the other guy should take the hit... )

BTW, I'm sure Boehner noticed that Steve Pearce voted against him for Speaker of the House - we have a large military/test presence in Southern NM that could easily be moved to Texas or Nevada. 

Comment by Izquierdo on January 4, 2013 at 7:11pm

Smokey Bear is often hailed as the greatest public service program in advertising history, and I believe that money is well spent. The Forest Service (state and federal), the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, however, spend millions each year on needless travel. They go to meetings -- regional meetings, national meetings and local meetings. I'm sure that is true across government (and the private sector). Although it would put airlines out of business and hurt hotels if this practice were terminated folks, it should be stopped. Ninety-nine percent of the business could be done over Skype. The senator attacks Smokey for one reason--without the bear (a true icon)  in the story, it would never be put in print. The senator's name certainly isn't as well known as the bear. Officially need to take a serious look at state and federal travel -- a huge part of the federal budget. And I'm pretty sure it extends well beyond land management agencies to the military (especially the military), and every other cabinet beyond Interior and Agriculture.

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Comment by Lahjik on January 4, 2013 at 8:54pm

No, you can't do business over Skype.  It's a nice platform for hobbyists but it's completely unsecure and the fact that it's a walled garden, even since Microsoft bought them, means they can't interface to the real world.  I am a fed, working for an Army Dept. in San Antonio and we manage a world-wide network built for Army (and military) Medical conferencing.  We do thousands of hours of conferencing every week and through leveraging our existing networks and expertise we have saved the Army millions in travel, alone.  In order to do that we have specialized equipment and highly trained personnel dedicated to promoting military health care and protecting the war-fighter.  It's not free and it's not even cheap but it' definitely represents a massive savings when its used correctly.  Now, if the Forest Service wants to ride our network, they can call me and I'll get them in touch with my boss to work out the details; if they want to hire me to build out a network for them, I'll be happy to talk.

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