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POW camp at SERE will be more fun if you do.

A few more to the fire...

Too Soon? IMG_8335.MOV

Admittedly, I’m not well versed on tax policy or law. When I hear/read these arguments about the 1% paying more, corporations paying more or Bezos not paying a fair share etc, I always wonder why a company like Amazon is not looked at in totality. How much do they pay in excise taxes on gas for cars and aircraft, property taxes, income taxes generated by employing thousands of people, SSN/FICA/Medicare, sales tax on what they purchase, sales tax paid on their products by the consumer who buys their products, etc? I guess I’m missing something because it seems like a guy like Bezos is generating untold amounts of tax revenue for both the local and federal governments.

This should fix that shitty morale and retention problem! 🤣 https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/02/18/air-force-reviewing-four-day-weekends-amid-civilian-leave-crackdown/

High tariffs will just be passed along to consumers, amirite? But higher corporate taxes won't be?

Most mid-level officers are in the top 10% of tax payers. The top 1% is somewhere around a half mil or sightly more. I’m not saying $690K isn’t a lot of money for us normals, but seems like top 1% gets thrown out as if it only encompasses Gates, Bezos, etc. Tax the rich is a stupid and losing strategy, especially when you have half of tax payers barely providing anything, and not to mention all the people who don’t pay a dime in taxes, but suck societal resources without issue. I think both sides can agree the tax code needs improvement, but simply continuing to increase punishing successful people is a ridiculous proposition. How about we just go flat tax, no breaks/deductions (or very little at least). Something like everyone pays 10% fed, whatever that totals to is what the fed budget is. Oh that’s not enough to fund all your bullshit pet projects? Too bad, draw the cut line like the rest of us who understand basic finances do.

Got my dates! Columbus! RNLTD 2 June IPT 8-4-2025

Zero mention of FWA or implication of it (though you obviously inferred it because you’re driven by political bias). Directly says they increased insight into where money is going. If one doesn’t support transparency and basic tracking of money, they’re simply an idiot. Stop grasping at straws, it’s a bad look.

If you make it through and get your wings, I’d say there’s a better than average chance you get a callsign as a result. Probably not a good one. 😂 Free advice. There’s almost zero upside to putting your personal shit out for public consumption. A picture, opinion, video, look what I did, listen to what I know, etc. the cons far outweigh the pros. Think about applying for a future airline job or maybe a Guard unit and having them read a questionable Facebook post or play your podcast and then ask for an explanation. Your older, wiser self will thank you if you just STFU and live your life. You’ll mess up enough in private or within your normal circle. No need to expand the list of people who you might have to explain extra shit to sometime in the future.

Our nation’s quality of life wasn’t built on taxes.

The upside down memes are out of control.

Shut up Nav. ADS-B was not a smoking gun and I didn't latch on to the ADS-B issue as casual, but as a dinosaur who now uses ADS-B religiously, I see the enormous SA benefit offered by the capability. I think if it was in use it could have been a glove save. On at least two occasions ADS-B has "saved" me. Both times were I was where I was supposed to be and others were not. I already do pay more....how much is enough? I already pay 35% AND Social Security that I likely won't get. The progressive tax schedule is pure punishment to those who are successful. Please save the progressive liberal crap justification. It is blatantly unfair and now you want more...shocking...not. I am so glad my "extra" contribution could pay for these items. - $59M for ILLEGALS to stay at the Roosevelt Hotel in NYC - $10M for "Mozambique voluntary medical male circumcision" - $9.7M for UC Berkeley to develop "a cohort of Cambodian youth with enterprise driven skills" - - $2.3M for "strengthening independent voices in Cambodia" - $32M to the Prague Civil Society Centre - $40M for "gender equality and women empowerment hub" - $14M for "improving public procurement" in Serbia - $486M to the “Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening,” including $22M for "inclusive and participatory political process" in Moldova and $21M for voter turnout in India - $29M to "strengthening political landscape in Bangladesh" - $20M for "fiscal federalism" in Nepal - $19M for "biodiversity conversation" in Nepal - $1.5M for "voter confidence" in Liberia - $14M for "social cohesion" in Mali - $2.5M for "inclusive democracies in Southern Africa" - $47M for "improving learning outcomes in Asia" - $2M to develop "sustainable recycling models" to "increase socio-economic cohesion among marginalized communities of Kosovo Roma, Ashkali, and Egypt" - $1.4M contract to physically observe mailing and clerical operations - Over $32 million from various other government departments for Politico Pro, which then wrote nothing but positive stories about Biden and negative stories about Trump.

Spoken like a true helo guy 😁

It's generally best not to do public speaking on things you don't know much about...hasn't stopped a lot of people....

I'm sure you know more about DoD budgeting than I do, but can you defend the President calling for a 40% cut in DoD funding over 5 years? Given the missions we are being asked to do? Given the threats we are facing? What $68B are you cutting from $850B in the current budget? And I hope you have cuts of similar scale lined up for the next 4 years after that - that's what the admin is telegraphing they want. Axing DEI and some % of worthless staff civilians ain't gonna get you there. I mean I guess if you cut the USMC entirely in 2026, Space Force + all F-35 buys entirely in 2027, all USN ship building in 2028 you would get there? I'm out of ideas on that scale for 2029 and I'm even hundreds of billions short even with the above. That seems reasonable! /sarcasm I would LOVE for a Republican here who supported Trump but is also relatively within the foreign policy mainstream help me understand how this is going to work. If you want to just max abandon world affairs and become isolationist, copy shot, that's not what I'm asking for. I say again, if Biden would have been blowing up Putin's phone with heart emojis, worked to abandon Ukraine in short order, basically preemptively abandoned Taiwan AND called for severe DoD budget cuts in early 2021 y'all would have stormed the Capitol (again).

You can flatten the rank structure if you increase the pay. It isn't surprising we don't track good talent to be GOs when an O-7 makes less than a 3rd year FO at mainline. Our military pay structure hasn't been "designed" in any meaningful way in decades - we've just done percentage increases across the board, and it isn't reasonable to expect people to serve out of self-denying patriotism absent an ongoing existential war. More leadership positions is a long trend in military history. I'm sure Alexander had some folks complaining about paying for front and rear file leaders in the phalanx, when the Athenians used to get away with just front file leaders.

I could be wrong but don’t think IP manning is an issue in the T-6 world. The issue is maintenance. Vance is still on the legacy syllabus and producing pilots without any delays while students at Columbus is experiencing a 6 months (and counting) delay between academics and flight line. If Columbus had a healthy T-6 fleet, the IPT SGTO class wouldn’t cause such a long delay for legacy students. This IPT thing is not going to produce more pilots every year unless the MX issue is fixed first, at least not at Columbus

If you’ve paid attention to the facts instead of your feelings, there have been signposts since the beginning indicating the direction this is headed. As I said, you can oppose the reality of what’s happening with fantasies of complete Russian withdrawal/collapse, but you’ll only be upset/embarrassed when it never happens. The outcome is dictated by logic, not your notion of right/wrong.

They only look at the documents you provide in your packet.

Yeah. Saying that the EOs intent was "only the Pres and AG can interpret the laws" is a shitty take. Didn't stop all of social media from running with it yesterday though. This was my interpretation as well. For all of the screaming about Trump, DOGE, firings, Ukraine, taxes, etc, a large portion of what is happening is a long overdue attempt at reigning in the federal bureaucracy. This EO is just another step in that direction, and I think it's a reasonable approach. I'm anxiously awaiting the implementation of the "Schedule F" EO, which is intended to put some guardrails around civil service employees working in policy-influencing positions. As can be expected, many in .gov land are not supportive.

A couple snippets re: the EO that I just looked at (I have not read the actual EO): Therefore, because all executive power is vested in the President, all agencies must: (1) submit draft regulations for White House review—with no carve-out for so-called independent agencies, except for the monetary policy functions of the Federal Reserve; and (2) consult with the White House on their priorities and strategic plans, and the White House will set their performance standards. The Office of Management and Budget will adjust so-called independent agencies’ apportionments to ensure tax dollars are spent wisely. The President and the Attorney General (subject to the President’s supervision and control) will interpret the law for the executive branch, instead of having separate agencies adopt conflicting interpretations. I read this to mean intent is to rein in unelected bureaucrats, who have enjoyed zero accountability, from making regulations that are based on their personal interpretation. These bureaucrats are not elected and do not represent the people. The president is elected by the people to represent their interests via his running of the executive branch. Therefore, he should have final say on how the executive branch defines/implements regulations, which ultimately are what directly impact all of our daily lives. There could be more to this as I haven’t read the actual text, but what I posted above is absolutely a great thing. I’m sick of people who weren’t elected doing whatever the fuck they want to impact my family’s life. I demand accountability through elections.

Just to switch gears (not that getting breech loaded over taxes isn't a fun discussion!), I just saw this and wanted to highlight another excellent pick by Trump! Trump to tap Texas “border czar” to lead U.S. Border Patrol, report says I met Mike Banks when he spoke at a Texas Leadership conference a year or so ago, and was highly impressed with the guy! He's not a politician, knows the border as well as anyone, and has reasonable expectations as to what needs to be done. He is also very unapologetic, during his speech he talked about the border buoys Texas is putting in the Rio Grande. He defended their use, and addressed numerous fallacies about them such as using saw blades in between the buoys. Not long after, I took a week-long trip along the Texas border with a stop at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, and there was a line of these waiting to be placed in the river. I did the same thing Banks mentioned and ran my bare palm along the ridges of those "blades." I didn't get a scratch. This new administration is moving in the right direction when it comes to defending our sovereignty!

As U.S. and Putin negotiate, intel shows he's not interested 'in a real peace deal,' sources say Say it ain't so.

I think it’s a great idea! in fact I’d document every UPT training sortie. Maybe you can discuss things your IPs should have done better. Make sure to tag the UPT base in the hashtags

Sales tax for all taxation as the baseline. This allows for removing sales tax on targeted items as tax relief for those who make less and therefore spend a higher percentage of their income on essentials. It also means workers never have to do taxes ever again. Tax fraud is harder because taxes are collected *from* the taxed by a business who does not want to go to jail for tax fraud. This would have to be done by constitutional amendment. Make the amendment such that the tax is only adjustable to 0%. No intermediate tax levels to favor this industry or that. Limit exemptions to a fixed level, let's say a max of $5,000 (just an example). If the item or service costs more than that, the rest is taxed. The exceptions are solely for helping low-income Americans, but everyone gets the same exemptions. Income tax was always a stupid and complicated solution.

I’m sure billionaires have a different mechanism at their disposal, but let’s call this the Pledged Asset Line of Credit loophole where you borrow against stock (not taxed) unless you sell the stock to pay off the load (taxed as capital gains). I’ve never seen why that’s a hard one to solve. These loans have to be repaid, presumably by the sale of the underlying assets which triggers capital gains. So, let’s say when you pledge the stock against a PAL, we jot down the current value. If you sell the stock later, which you’ll eventually have to do, you get long term gains up to that amount, and any gains past that are treated as short term gains regardless of duration, and the underlying assets must be sold to pay off the balance when you die. No rolling forward shenanigans. Still leaves PALs as a reasonable financial tool but gets rid of them as a tax loophole. The dumbest way to address it is a wealth tax.

There are people on Reddit who actually believe Trump's "gutting" of the FAA was the reason for this crash.

Good lord

I was quite honestly shocked at the SA provided. In the AC-130H for many years we did not have a moving map or access to the nav data other than tuning TACANS and the ILS. Around 9/11 they added another screen up front and we were hoping it would be a repeater of the PFPS moving map the Navs had but we only got sensor imagery on it. H model pilots tended to be very good (not me, I sucked), at building a mental picture of the AOR and what was happening on the ground...we had no other choice. The U-Boats had the Tactical Situation Map but dudes tended to stare at it rather than look outside. You are probably right...I am at the end game of a big career (or end career decision). In reality, without intervention the fund is depleted in 2034 right when I am trying to collect peak fundage. Crazy huh, not bad for a ham-fisted gunship pilot. I am extraordinarily lucky to have made some very wise financial decisions. That being said, I do not enjoy writing quarterly tax payments in the amount of $33,000 to the government....that in addition to the withholding on my retirement, salary and 40% of all most bonuses. I already do pay more...a LOT more. Never any hard feelings, you are welcome to come break bread at my house anytime, I've told you that before. Whatever liberal brainwashed lunacy is rolling around in your noggin is offset by the fact that you are part of the less than 1% who stepped forward to serve...and I know the things you did for this nation. You do provide a great perspective. I've said it before, I think framers wanted great long debate. We might get a little loud at times but I will happily buy you a beer anytime...before I fall in the grave.

FY24 total federal outlays totaled $6.75T. Do you really think that because allegedly $4.7T of those were missing a previously-optional field that it's indicative of widespread fraud, waste, and abuse? 4.7 / 6.75 is exactly 69%, I'm half inclined to believe man-child Elon picked that number as another 69 joke. If Treasury, the Fed & DOGE want to work together to improve internal accounting practices, great, go for it. Maybe requiring this code on every transaction is a good improvement, I'm not an expert here but I'm happy to accept smart, positive changes to the way the government operates it's processes. It's like in the DCA crash when folks latched on to the fact that the helo wasn't broadcasting ADS-B. Wow, that seems like a smoking gun! But if you actually fly aircraft, you know that's not a big deal, let alone causal in deadly crash that occurred. Some folks here (not saying you on this, just folks in general) rightly laugh / get mad when non-experts wildly speculate and misjudge stuff about aviation but also happily make the same mistake when the headline is about something else and it conforms to their predisposed views.

Flares are for pussies!

THIS IS WHY WE NEED TO PAY MORE TAXES - nsplayr

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FIFY

You believe that reducing taxes is "giving" money to the taxed and "taking" from the untaxed? Hot take, but very honest. Okay, then what do we do? Right now the system you believe in is running 2 trillion dollar per year deficits. This is during one of the most financially successful times in American history. We are running deficits (deficit/GDP) that have not been seen since WWII. If we keep interest rates where they are, the deficit will rise another trillion dollars as our interest payments spin out of control. If we lower interest rates we risk reigniting inflation. So what do we do with this broadly popular concept of spending more money than we have on everyone just because they like it? How much of my money do I deserve to keep, and do you believe the bottom 50% of the country with no net federal income tax liability should be contributing anything towards this massive shortfall that funds their "general welfare?"

Beyond lucky

Glad to see that most, if not all survived.

I think it's reasonable to conclude that the line "We do not support Taiwan independence" was purchased illegally by a foreign adversary from a fifth column here in the US.

The pendulum is swinging comically hard toward strict-interpretation queep bullshit. We gotta have another war to actually focus up on shit that matters, only half kidding... Who put a barbed wire baseball bat up these people's asses?? Leadership is busy funging everything in sight, with no end in sight. Funge = fun sponge for those who are uninitiated. I for one can't wait to do my open ranks inspection in service dress with a super straight gig line and not a single hair besmirching my ears on a cancelled Family Day while also not teleworking during no-longer-Women's History month! /sarcasm

100% agree. Let’s institute reforms for PPBE and GSA. Let’s stand up a commission to change and revise the rules. Not just propose barely thought out cuts to top line military budgets or state we can simply cut 20% (or 50%) of the military budget. If you just cut budget you’re left with the shitty system you have. You just have less money to play inside it.

"When I win," he declared (at 27:32), "I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day 1. We will end Kamala's war on American energy and we will drill, baby, drill. We're gonna drill, baby, drill. That's gonna bring down prices of everything because energy brought it up."

Just as such, it's unbelievable to me that you advocate for a Russian win and just let them have it. Your guy is in charge. Surely he can negotiate better than giving Russia everything it wants? You even have his mug as your avatar. Surely you must be rooting for him to really stick it to Russia as much as you want it stuck to poor old corrupt Ukraine that didn't provoke an invasion? Or is it that you love Russia and have been rooting for them to wipe poor old corrupt Ukraine off the map and really stick it the Bidens? OK, new topic. Security interests. Russia is and always will be a security interest. To think otherwise is quite naive. Rewarding a dictator for life with lands due to invasion sends too many bad messages. As stated by others, Russia's military power has been shunted. ROI is, may it continue that no American fighting man end up in battle with Russia, nor our children. Second ROI, Russia gets nothing and is taught a lesson, fuck around and find out. In one hand, pull out the map from 2000 and start from there. In your red right hand, be holding an economic smack down that God himself would be impressed to see.

His weaponized autism gets the best of him. He’s still the guy who’s selling beta full-self driving software on Teslas after years of it being in beta.

Facts like Ukraine is the source of one of his impeachments and Trump is never one to forgive, so he thinks Zelensky has it coming. Facts like Trump has "appeared" to like Putin. Look how he writes, "ending the War with Russia" as if Russia is the victim here. And "MILLIONS" is hyperbole. So many signs that he loves Putin. I'm just wondering when the 3-way happens between Trump, Putin, and Musk. EU still has plays and I can envision them going it alone to help Ukraine. Hell, maybe Ukraine signs a deal for EU help with those natural resource leases vs Trump getting them. I don't believe Trump can think 10 steps ahead chess style, he seems more like a modestly successful reality TV star.

I do think people who have the money to do so, i.e. high W2 earners but also, and first, the extremely wealthy & highly profitable corporations need to pay more taxes, yea. If for nothing else to stop deficit spending every single year, but also to maintain our nation's quality of life and top dog place in world affairs.

finally some common sense. This Ukraine grift is over.

It's still unbelievable to me that anyone ever thought our involvement in this conflict was winnable, or that the intent was ever to "win" against Russia. I've been arguing this for 3 years. The net result will be a loss to the West. It just is what it is. The security and interests of the American people were never a factor in Ukraine. It always was a corrupt state ripe for the manipulation and exploitation by people who stood to gain billions of dollars. All of us have been conditioned to think since childhood that Russia was capable superpower bent on world domination. And even after it has been demonstrated that they don't have that conventional capability, the propaganda still works. People still believe it. Zelensky himself said he doesn't know where $100 billion dollars went. It was allocated by our leadership, but it never showed up. The Ukrainian media themselves just admitted they were 90% funded by foreign interests such as USAID. How many times are we going to be "gotten" by these giant scams? It's now being reported that nearly every department of our government is rife with scams, lies, corruption, waste, etc. But they got this one right? The same propaganda machine that suckered half the population during COVID was the same propaganda machine that was pushing funding for this war. I understand how it works. It's a compelling belief: We're the noble good guys fighting to the good fight against the forces of evil. That's what I always believed in the early stages of my career. Eventually, you've gotta grow up a little bit and face reality. “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts." Now that this whole thing is being dismantled, we're gonna have people equivocating and performing these amazing feats of logical gymnastics. "We were just trying to drain the Russian economy, not really win." So we spent hundreds of billions of dollars of US taxpayer money, half of it vanishes to who knows where before it made it to the battlefield, and the ROI is massive because a million Russians and Ukrainian men were killed? There is no ROI for you and me. None. What is our record for direct US engagement in third world foreign conflicts recently? How is Iraq doing? How is Afghanistan doing? How is Libya? How is Syria? But somehow we expect that if don't directly engage and instead give Ukraine hundreds of billions in money and equipment to fight a conventional conflict against an enemy that isn't a third world shithole --- that they're going to have a better result? It's mind-numbingly ridiculous to even think there was a reasonable expectation this was going to go well for the "good guys". Draw the border on the front lines. Let Russia boast over their acquisition of a few hundred km2 of destroyed rural farmland. The real benefit to the US will be the cessation of wasted $billions.

of course he's not....he's winning