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Barack Obama famously declared that as a former teacher of Constitutional law, he actually respects the Constitution, unlike his predecessor in the Oval Office. Subsequent events make it fair to wonder exactly how he shows this respect.

Some on the Left barely conceal their disdain for the world-changing handiwork of dead white males. Reverence for the Constitution isn’t universal even among its chief custodians. Justice Ruth Ginsburg raised eyebrows when she advised Egyptian civic activists she wouldn’t look to the US Constitution as a model today. She pointed instead to the constitutions of South Africa, Canada, and the European Charter of Rights and Freedoms, praising them as “great work,” more recent and more generous in protecting “human rights.” The late Justice Thurgood Marshall also was cautious about putting too much stock in Constitutional guidance, asking a PBS interviewer: “What does the Constitution say about rocket ships?”

Actually, the Constitution says as much about rockets as it does about horses and buggies: basically nothing. The Constitution is not the US Code of Statutes, setting out the federal law. It’s more like the rule book or citizens’ owners’ manual that governs the government. It’s a uniquely successful compact in history. But it remains vital only as Americans understand it, support it, and demand politicians do likewise.

Citizens who accuse President Obama of violating the Constitution should have a clear idea what they mean. This would include being able to explain to a friend or child basic constitutional principles and describe the ways they are threatened. Here’s my attempt at a simple, easy to share explanation:
Life is hard and sometimes dangerous. Government can help protect peace and security, but it’s important to think seriously about what government should be and do, as our Framers had to when they organized America.

The big thing they realized is government is unique. Some things need governing, but others just involve voluntary cooperation. Lots of people or groups--like street preachers, hotdog vendors, corporations, your mother—have things they want you to do: repent, buy stuff, call home. But government decides things you have to do or can’t do, at the risk of fines, jail, or, at some level of resistance, getting shot.

Government’s essence is controlling people—forbidding things, requiring things, and extracting the taxes to pay for things. Our Founders realized the power to control people, as opposed to offer or invite in voluntary exchanges is potentially dangerous. It must be limited and channeled, as in the apocryphal wisdom of George Washington: like fire, government is a dangerous servant and fearsome master.

The Founders figured out controlling people involves three different kinds of power: making rules, enforcing rules, and resolving disputes between people and between the enforcers and the people. They also realized the controllers could be kept honest and fair only if those different powers were kept apart: the people who make the rules shouldn’t be the ones who enforce them; the enforcers shouldn’t decide disputes between themselves and the people.

That’s why the Founders arranged separation of powers. They created Congress in Article I, the Executive in Article II, and the Supreme Court and judiciary in Article III.

Our Founders also realized the young nation sat at the edge of a continent it might grow to fill. Even the 13 colonies had a diverse mix of heritage, religion, resources, climate, industry, and so forth. They determined people should govern themselves as locally as possible. Daily government was left with the states. The national government would be limited to matters that truly needed to be nationally uniform. It was delegated only enumerated powers.

The Founders crowned their structure with a Bill of Rights, identifying some, but not all, of the sacred liberties and protections needed for the free pursuit of happiness. The finished work was an intellectual revolution more spectacular than the military revolution that made it possible. The path has not always been smooth or safe. But most people agree, it’s the most successful system of governing ever designed.

Some clever and sophisticated people today say the Constitution is outdated. It was designed for a small, simple society. Our modern world needs something more complex. This claim is curious, both as a matter of observable history and of theory.

If you hear such criticism, you might challenge it. Historically, ask if any other national system has lasted longer, or produced better fruits, including freedom, due process, stable government, opportunity, prosperity, and a magnetic draw to people around the world.

On theory, ask what has changed in the world or human nature that suggests government’s controlling powers shouldn’t be limited. Or why it makes sense to mix the powers to legislate, enforce, and judge. Ask too, if rigid, centralized government across diverse states and communities, geography, cultures, and economies makes any more sense than before.

The critics likely will talk about how things should be different; but they won’t show that anything has ever worked better than the United States Constitution. But the Transformer and his supporters find it very inconvenient. And for some, that’s all that matters.

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When President Obama proposed healthcare reform that added 30 million to the insurance rolls while promising lower costs, most people who passed fourth grade math raised an eyebrow, if not a ruckus. The simple realities of supply and demand, coupled with the burden of government mandates, could only push healthcare costs skyward. With Obamacare now in effect, those early concerns have come to be realized through skyrocketing premiums, as confirmed by a recent Morgan Stanley survey of 148 national insurance brokers.

Premiums are up as much as 100 pecent in some cases, and this is after Obama promised "savings." One can only imagine what would happen to the cost of a commodity the President promises to make Americans pay more for. Unfortunately, we don't have to imagine, as this is exactly what Obama promised his energy plan would achieve.

In January of 2008, candidate Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle that "under my plan... electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket." No sanguine language here about savings, just a flat out mission to make Americans pay through the nose for energy. It's no coincidence that under Obama gasoline prices have doubled, and have remained above $3 per gallon throughout his two terms.

Now to make good on his promise to make electricity cost more, Obama's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have issued brutal new rules on emissions for electricity generating power plants, just what the doctor ordered for skyrocketing electricity prices. This is a story largely ignored by the mainstream press who never miss an Obama chip shot on to the green or a grip and grin in some remote diner. But Americans are catching on fast.

On HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy declined to disagree with the host's contention that Obama was waging a "war on coal." Indeed, it was candidate Obama who in the same Chronicle interview stated, "If somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can. It's just that [my plan] will bankrupt them." The President makes no bones that his aim is to make producing electricity cost-prohibitive, but in the end it will be you, me, and everybody with an outlet and a light switch paying the bill.

The EPA's war on coal is no less than a war on seniors and our nation's most vulnerable. Seniors on fixed and diminishing incomes pay a disproportionate share of their monthly budget on utilities, and Obama's EPA will serve only to make them poorer and more vulnerable. A recent Harris poll found 88 percent of seniors are at least somewhat concerned that the new EPA rules will force them to pay more. Sharing this view is a U.S. Chamber of Commerce analysis showing the new EPA rules will cost Americans $17 billion a year more to pay their electricity bills, and hit the economy with $50 billion a year in new costs.

As recently as six years ago coal accounted for about 50 percent of America's electricity, and now stands at 40 percent. Obama wants it below 30 percent, a chokehold on energy production which is nothing short of pulling the emergency brake on the economy and letting America's most vulnerable go flying through the windshield.

Seniors of limited means are least able to absorb the increasing costs of energy and electricity, as we've seen from far too many stories of elderly dying in their homes or requiring hospitalization during severe weather conditions. Clearly the President and the EPA are willing to gamble with the lives of seniors for the sake of their extreme ideology.

A study of the Administration's new power plant emissions rules revealed job losses of 442,000 by 2022, and a loss of 40 percent of electrical capacity generated by coal in the next 15 years. What's even more alarming is that the environmentalists at the EPA can't even point to a tangible, achievable benefit to these new proposed standards. The truth is these additional regulations are of benefit to no one, and do nothing to address the fact that developing nations like China and India will double their power-plant emissions in short order with Americans essentially subsidizing their increased production.

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Just once?

Wouldn't it be great if Obama acknowledged that U.S. firms are overburdened by the highest corporate tax rate among developed countries, and as a result are becoming less and less competitive?

Wouldn't it be great if he said he wants to fix this tax imbalance in order to grow the economy faster and give U.S. businesses a leg up on the global scene?

Couldn't he just say that?  Nope.

He could say it like this: "Look, I don't want to drive businesses away. I want to keep businesses here. I understand the importance of business. I understand that you can't have a good job without a thriving business. And I get that businesses require capital investment. And I understand that the investment and the business must have a high rate of return, after tax. When that's the case, the company expands, jobs grow and families have more income to pay for health care, education and the good life."

Instead, Obama mocks businesses. And now he's hauling out an election-year populist whine about "economic patriotism." He's attacking companies that merge with foreign businesses and reincorporate in lower-tax foreign countries. It's called inversion. And Obama wants to stop it in the name of patriotism.

In an interview with my CNBC colleague Steve Liesman, Obama talked about how businesses are ungrateful for "the range of benefits that have helped to build companies, create value (and) create profits." He complained that these firms are moving their "technical address simply to avoid paying taxes."

That sounds a bit like, "If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

But the issue isn't avoiding all taxes. If a U.S. business reincorporates overseas, it still pays the same record-breaking 35 percent tax rate on its U.S. income. The difference is that it doesn't pay 35 percent on profits made in foreign countries. That's the double tax it is trying to avoid.

We are the only nation that has this goofy system. And it reduces after-tax profits and renders our companies less competitive. That's why nearly $2 trillion in cash from American companies is sitting overseas.

But Obama could turn this around in a blink. He could say, "We need that cash to grow the economy, create more jobs and, yes, to build more infrastructure. So I'm going to grant a small repatriation fee of 5 percent to bring that money back and put it to work at home."

He could then say, "And to make American business number one, we're gonna drop the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent -- with full cash expensing for new investment -- and scrap all other deductions and special credits. In other words, we're gonna end crony capitalism and corporate welfare, just as I pledged in my 2008 campaign. And that includes the Export-Import bank. "

He could then say he understands from numerous studies that 70 percent of the benefits of a corporate tax cut will flow to working wage earners while the rest will flow to lower-priced consumers. And he could add that we're going to allow pass-through S-corps and LLCs who now pay the personal tax rate to reincorporate and take advantage of the new lower C-corp rates.

And that's when he could argue that American companies must come home and stay home.

Nobody, including myself, likes the idea of foreign-based inversions or foreign-parked cash. But corporate tax reform is the solution, not corporate punishment.

The president sometimes gives lip service to corporate tax reform. But he never follows through. There have been a dozen good proposals down through the years. But Obama keeps blaming Republicans in Congress, even though he has been completely disengaged from any serious talks about tax reform.

Five years ago, Simpson-Bowles had a good corporate tax reform. The president ignored it. Democratic Sen. Max Baucus developed a corporate tax-reform package when he was chair of the Senate Finance Committee. It was completely disregarded by the White House. And Republican Dave Camp, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, delivered a comprehensive tax reform that included corporations. It wasn't perfect, but the White House overlooked that too.

And now it looks like corporate tax reform is dead again this year. The Obama Democrats will try to push through a bill to stop foreign re-incorporations. It will never pass. And they'll keep trashing business and turning up the flame on the class-warfare burner. Divide the country and bash success. The same old tired themes.

It's a pity. Why isn't it patriotic to stand by large and small businesses, which are at the heart of the American free-market economy? Just this once, can't we get the story right?

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With her husband’s approval rating dipping lower every day, and a smaller electorate expected this November, Michelle Obama has the right to worry about the fast approaching 2014 midterm elections. Hence why the First Lady released a misleading, borderline desperate video this weekend.

“Equal pay for women, immigration reform, raising the minimum wage, and ensuring that women can make their own decisions about their bodies and their health care. My husband is working so hard on all these issues. But he needs leaders in Congress who will work with him – leaders who care about what’s going on in your lives and who will fight for you every single day.”

Apparently those heartless House Republicans could care less about their constituents.

Yes indeed, just like Mr. Obama has done Mrs. Obama right?

Mrs. Obama then got straight to her point:

“We need you to be as passionate and as hungry as you were in 2008 and 2012.”

That in itself is pretty desperate...

One year she notably forgot? 2010, a year when Americans were very passionate. They were passionate about the ugly economy. They were passionate about the high unemployment. Oh yeah, and they were especially passionate about the government getting between them and their doctors. That’s why these incensed voters turned our country red.

A new CNN poll puts the Democrats’ peril in perspective:

In the generic ballot question, the Democrats have a 4-percentage point 48 percent-44 percent edge over the Republicans among registered voters. The generic ballot asks respondents to choose between a Democrat or Republican in their congressional district without identifying the candidates.

A smaller electorate could heavily favor the Republican Party. Single women, younger voters and minorities - who are generally consistent Democratic voters - typically vote in fewer numbers during midterms, according to wcti12.com.

She can keep urging her supporters on, but it’s clear voters aren’t “passionate” about the party who pushed through this disaster.

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Corporate Deserters

President Obama was beating the drums on Thursday in Los Angeles regarding corporate tax deserters, companies that move headquarters or tax shields to another country in order to escape high US tax rates.

The LA Times provides the details in President Obama Hits 'Corporate Deserters' in Populist L.A. Speech.

Tearing into companies he dubbed “corporate deserters,” President Obama on Thursday launched an election-year push to make it harder for U.S. companies to avoid paying taxes.

Under a bright sun at a trade and technical college in Los Angeles, Obama issued a <snip>ing assessment of a “small but growing” group of companies taking advantage of a “loophole” in corporate tax law by reorganizing overseas, often in low-tax countries.

Obama accused the companies of “renouncing their U.S. citizenship” and “fleeing the country” while sticking U.S. taxpayers “with the tab.”

“You shouldn’t get to call yourself an American company only when you want a handout from the American taxpayer,” Obama told a crowd gathered at the Los Angeles Trade-Technical College. The speech capped a three-day West Coast trip primarily focused on raising money for Democrats ahead of the midterm elections.

Obama’s target on Thursday was so-called inversion transactions, a practice that allows U.S. companies to reincorporate overseas, either through a merger or purchase of a foreign entity, and thus avoid paying U.S. taxes on its foreign earnings.

Who Cares About Legalities?

The president acknowledged the practice is legal, but added “my attitude is, ‘I don’t care if it’s legal -- it’s wrong.’”

Well, who gives a <snip> about legalities anymore? Certainly not president Obama, as he has proven many times over.

Besides, as we all learned from President Nixon "When the president does it, it's not illegal".

No president has been a finer student of Nixon philosophy than Obama.

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@ speedy, no matter how much evidence you show, these right wing nut jobs will always save face, but fail miserably in the process. And sometimes when I post facts about an LP member, the administrators delete the FACTS because they don't want that individual to get exposed by other members. This site is operates under a Fascist censoring format. It's futile to post anything of value here.

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IS he really that juvenile.?    Yes, I really think he is. To prove a point):

By President Obama and His Administration

1. Obama Administration uses IRS to target conservative, Christian and pro-Israel organizations, donors, and citizens.

2. In an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment, the Obama Justice Department ordered criminal investigations of FOX News reporters for doing their jobs during the 2012 election year.

3. President Obama, throughout his Presidency, has refused to enforce long-established U.S. immigration laws. For example . . .
   
   
   
   • More than 300,000 captured illegal aliens had been processed and were awaiting deportation. But, incredibly, Obama stopped these deportations and ordered the U.S. border patrol to release many of these illegal aliens in violation of law and without explanation.
   • Congress rejected Obama's so called DREAM ACT – which would have granted permanent residency to many illegal aliens. So Obama enacted his own version of the DREAM ACT by Executive Order, thus directly defying Congress. According to Obama's Executive Order, illegal aliens can stay in America if they are under the age of 30, have been in America for at least five years, are enrolled in school or have graduated from high school, and have committed no felonies.

4. Obama has refused to build a double-barrier security fence along the U.S.-Mexican border in direct violation of the 2006 Secure Fence Act. This law requires that "at least two layers of reinforced fencing" be built along America's 650-mile border with Mexico. So far, just 40 miles of this fence have been built – most of it during the Bush Administration.

5. Obama's unconstitutional assault on your Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

   President Obama issued, in one day, 21 separate Executive Orders that attack and undermine your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

   Especially egregious is President Obama's Executive Orders amending the ObamaCarelaw to allow doctors and hospitals to investigate which patients own a gun. This outrageous Executive Order could allow the federal government to track and monitor law-abiding gun owners simply because they sought medical care.

6. Obama's assault on Christians and religious freedom.

   Obama's Health and Human Services Department has, on its own (without Congressional approval), issued a mandate that all health insurance plans must include coverage for abortion-inducing drugs. As a result, pro-life employers and taxpayers are now effectively required by law to pay for abortions.

   This mandate is an unconstitutional attack on the protections for freedom of religion and freedom of conscience in the First Amendment and the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This mandate also directly violates the ObamaCare law enacted by Congress, which prohibits any and all taxpayer funds from being used to pay for abortions.

7. Obama forced ObamaCare on an unwilling public through bribery and lying about its cost.

   Obama managed to secure passage of ObamaCare by one vote in the Senate by bribing senators. He bribed Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska with the notorious "Cornhusker Kickback." He bribed Senator Mary Landrieu with the infamous $300 million "Louisiana Purchase."

   In addition, Obama knowingly and blatantly lied to America and to Congress about how much ObamaCare would really cost. The cost of ObamaCare to the American people over the next 10 years will not be less than $1 TRILLION, as Obama promised in his nationally televised speech to the nation. Instead, the real cost of ObamaCare to the Federal Treasury is $2.4 TRILLION, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

   But the true cost of ObamaCare is more like $10 TRILLION when you factor in the cost to the states, the cost to individual Americans who are now required to purchase Obama-approved health plans (the "Individual Mandate"), the cost of exploding health insurance premiums, the $716 billion ObamaCare steals from Medicare, and the increased cost to businesses of complying with ObamaCare mandates.

8. Operation Fast & Furious.

   "Operation Fast & Furious" was the Obama Administration's gun-running scheme that put thousands of American-made semi-automatic weapons in the hands of Mexican drug cartels and resulted in the death of at least one U.S. Border Patrol Agent, Brian Terry. Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress and the public, claiming he didn't know about his Justice Department's Fast & Furious operation.

   Congress has now held Holder in contempt for defying congressional subpoenas and refusing to turn over thousands of Justice Department documents on Fast & Furious. President Obama asserted Executive Privilege to try to protect Holder. But for Executive Privilege to apply, Obama would have had to have known about Fast & Furious, making the President as culpable as Holder.

   Investigators suspect that Fast & Furious was an effort by the Obama Administration to discredit lawful gun ownership in America by purposefully creating gun crimes, thus inducing public outcry for gun control. When it put thousands of semi-automatic weapons in the hands of Mexican drug cartels, the Obama Justice Department knew these guns would be used to commit crimes, perhaps even kill some Americans. Then Obama could say: "See how dangerous these guns are. We must ban them."

9. "Federal Communications Commission (FCC): Regulated the Internet despite a court order from the Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. stating that the FCC does not have the power to regulate the Internet." (SOURCE: Report from Nine State Attorneys General)

10. "Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Imposed Cross-State Air Pollution Rules on the state of Texas at the last minute and without an opportunity for Texas to respond to the proposed regulation. EPA overreach was based on a dubious claim that air pollution from Texas affected a single air-quality monitor in Granite City, Illinois more than 500 miles and three states away from Texas." (SOURCE: Report from Nine State Attorneys General)

11. "Department of Justice (DOJ): Rejected state voter ID statutes that are similar to those already approved by the Supreme Court of the United States. DOJ ignored section 8 of the Voting Rights Act which calls for protections against voter fraud, and used section 5 to administratively block measures to protect the integrity of elections passed by state legislatures." (SOURCE: Report from Nine State Attorneys General)

12. "DOJ: In violation of 10th Amendment, sued to prevent Arizona from using reasonable measures to discourage illegal immigration within its borders. Arizona has a large number of illegal immigrants, compared to other states, and needs to be able to act to reduce the number." (SOURCE: Report from Nine State Attorneys General)

13. "DOJ: Went to court to stop enforcement of Alabama's immigration reform laws, which require collection of the immigration status of public school students, require businesses to use E-Verify, and prohibit illegal immigrants from receiving public benefits." (SOURCE: Report from Nine State Attorneys General)

14. "White House: Made "recess appointments" to the National Labor Relations Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau when Congress was NOT in recess. The Obama Administration has ignored the ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that the appointments are unconstitutional." (SOURCE: Report from Nine State Attorneys General)

15. "Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC): Interfered with a Michigan church's selection of its own ministers by trying to force the church to reinstate a minister who was discharged for her disagreement with the religious doctrine of the church." (SOURCE: Report from Nine State Attorneys General)

16. "Department of Energy (DOE): In 2009, the Obama Administration arbitrarily broke federal law, violated various contracts, and derailed the most studied energy project in American history at Yucca Mountain by denying it a license, thus costing the American people more than $31 billion." (SOURCE: Report from Nine State Attorneys General)

17. Department of the Interior (DOI): Forced Glendale, a family-oriented town in Arizona, to become another Las Vegas against its will by granting "reservation status" to a 54-acre plot in the town, where the Tohono O'odham Indian Nation plans to build a resort and casino." (SOURCE: Report from Nine State Attorneys General)

18. Without Congressional approval, Obama gutted the work requirement for welfare recipients passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

19. In the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, Obama illegally shortchanged bond holders in favor of Labor Unions, despite U.S. bankruptcy laws that specify that bond holders be first in line to be paid back.

20. Eager to use the killing of Osama bin Laden for political gain, Obama exposed the identity and method of operation of the Navy SEALs team that conducted the operation in Pakistan, thus exposing its members to a lifetime of risk because they have been targeted for assassination by Islamists. A short time after Obama exposed the Navy SEALs' method of operation, 22 SEALs were shot down and killed in Afghanistan. It is a violation of law for the President or any American to reveal classified military secrets.

21. President Obama established an extra-constitutional top secret "kill list" of people (including Americans) who can be summarily killed on sight – presumably by drones -- without due process. Once on Obama's kill list, an American citizen can be targeted and executed on the opinion of a single government bureaucrat. That's not how our legal system is supposed to work.

22. Obama Administration officials twisted the arms of defense contractors to not issue layoff notices in October of 2012 so as to avoid causing bad news for Obama right before the election — even though federal law (the "WARN Act") requires such notices. ; Not only is this a violation of the WARN Act, it's also an unlawful use of federal officials for campaign purposes.

23. President Obama intervened militarily in Libya in 2011 without the Congressional approval required by the War Powers Act.

24. Obama knowingly lied to Congress and the American people about the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya. The President and his representatives repeatedly said an anti-Islamic video sparked a spontaneous uprising in Libya that resulted in the killings even though Obama knew that the attack was a well-planned military-style assault by al Qaeda on the anniversary of September 11.

     

25. Michelle Obama's family trip to Africa in June of 2011, including a private safari at a South African game reserve, cost American taxpayers $424,000 for air travel alone. Mrs. Obama brought along both her makeup artist and hairstylist, as well as her mother, a niece and nephew, and her daughters, who were listed as "senior staff members."

If there was any doubt that President Obama has no respect for the military, his latest actions should surely settle the dispute.

Obama has become notorious for his distrust and overall disdain for the armed forces, demonstrating his feelings by attempting to cut their pay raises, ignoring the VA scandal, and leaving one Marine to rot in a Mexican prison.

The president’s disrespect hasn’t gone unnoticed by men and women in uniform.

During a speech Obama delivered at West Point, less than 25% of the cadets rose to their feet when he was introduced to the crowd.

It looks like those cadets, along with every other member of the military has another reason to despise their Commander-in-Chief. Obama sent soldiers serving in Afghanistan their pink slips, saying their “services are no longer needed” by the country.

via Red Flag News:

In a stunning display of callousness, the Defense Department has announced that thousands of soldiers — many serving as commanding officers in Afghanistan — will be notified in the coming weeks that their service to the country is no longer needed.

Last week, more than 1,100 Army captains — the men and women who know best how to fight this enemy because they have experienced multiple deployments — were told they’ll be retired from the Army.

The overall news is not unexpected. The Army has ended its major operations in Iraq and is winding down in Afghanistan. Budget cuts are projected to shrink the Army from its current 520,000 troops to 440,000, the smallest size since before World War II.

What is astonishing is that the Defense Department thought it would be appropriate to notify deployed soldiers — men and women risking their lives daily in combat zones — that they’ll be laid off after their current deployment.

As one Army wife posted on MilitaryFamily.org, “On some level I knew the drawdowns were inevitable, but I guess I never expected to be simultaneously worried about a deployment to Afghanistan and a pink slip because my husband’s service is no longer needed.”

Disgraceful. There are about a million other things that the federal government could cut to make room in the budget, including the salaries of current members of Congress.

No soldier or his family should ever need to be concerned about their bills or their spouse losing their job, especially when there are plenty of useless jobs that should be cut first. If the government is looking for suggestions, a good place to start is with every employee of the IRS.

The soldiers who sacrifice their time, health, and sometimes their lives, deserve far better. Our country will always be in need of their service. The same cannot be said of the politicians in charge of running the country, whom, after a stunt like this, need to be handed pink slips of their own.