Though the military has virtually always had a blanket ban on gays serving, it was in 1993 that they were “allowed” to join the armed forces, so long as they kept quiet about it. Now, an idea of how much that cost, in dollars and cents: $193.3 million in the six years between 2003 and 2009, according to the Government Accountability Office, tasked with creating expense models for Congress. That’s how much taxpayers put forth to replace some 3,660 troops, at an average cost of $52,800. Of course the actual dollar amount is much higher when you consider the many more thousands of discharged gays from before 2003. So when you next see any of the Republican lawmakers who are trying to keep DADT alive a little bit longer by requiring all four military branch chiefs to certify its repeal, call them the ultimate of conservative slurs: overspenders.
lvglife365
Only in the good old US of A where if isn’t done wrong – it’s not right!!!
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This is not the first GAO report on the costs of DADT, but it’s bound to be just as wrong. After the GAO’s 2005 report on such costs, a “blue ribbon panel” including former Secretary of Defense William Perry, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Law…rence Korb, and Palm Center Director Aaron Belkin, did a study of the study and found that the GAO had underestimated the costs between 1994 and 2003 by AT LEAST NINETY-ONE PERCENT.
Based on the panel’s estimates at the time of, again, AT LEAST $40 million a year, over 17 years it would come to at least $688 million. And, of course, that doesn’t take into account the cost of discharging over 100,000 gays over the 50+ years BEFORE DADT.
I hope we’ll see another “reality check” on this newest report. Until then, no one should read the current GAO report without comparing it to the methodology of the panel’s 2006 report available online at:
http://www.palmcenter.org/files/active/0/2006-FebBlueRibbonFinalRpt.pdf
Thus far, I’ve identified at least one major flaw—that 3664 does not include discharges from the Coast Guard, and only some discharges from some years from the Reserves and National Guard. Servicemembers United discovered last year that the numbers typically released by the Pentagon each year didn’t include Coast Guard and Reserve/National Guard discharges. While they weren’t able to uncover total Reserve/NG numbers, they found 21 more discharges in 2008 JUST from the Coast Guard. Were such indefensible undercounting applied to last year, Dan Choi would “statistically” still be IN the Army National Guard.
[img]http://images.theage.com.au/2010/12/19/2101625/military-420×0.jpg[/img]