Military Tributes - Why do we pay?

[billisonboard]

Pentagon Paid Up To $6.8 Million Of Taxpayer Money To Pro Sports Teams For Military Tributes

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Defense doled out as much as $6.8 million in taxpayer money to professional sports teams to honor the military at games and events over the past four years, an amount it has “downplayed” amid scrutiny, a report unveiled by two Senate Republicans on Wednesday found.

Arizona Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake began looking into the Defense Department’s spending of taxpayer dollars on military tributes in June after they discovered the New Jersey Army National Guard paid the New York Jets $115,000 to recognize soldiers at home games.

Our defense dollars at work.

[mollyanna58]

Appalling, both that the DOD would pay it, and that greedy sports teams would take money to honor those in military service. 

[Tennesseer]

The money cheapens the patriotism.

[mroped]

That is a clear example that a true capitalist wouldn't pass up an occasion to make a quick buck. Even if that means spitting on the grave of those that made sure that one can be a true capitalist!
Morals? What morals? Money talks!

[Deleted]

It makes me sad to find out that sports teams / venues weren't doing the right thing "just because it's the right thing to do"... but were instead providing it as a paid service TO the DOD.

I already wasn't really too impressed with sports in general... now I'm even less so.



I wouldn't have minded had this just been "costs associated with operation of military equipment (Navy Blue Angels / Army Golden Knights / Air Force Thunderbirds / et cetera) during event" (because that cost does need to be taken into account, obviously)... but that's not what it sounds like it was based on the article.

[NoNamePerson]

Not that it makes it right but NFL said they are repaying monies. Don't know about other sports just saw blip about NFL. 

mashable.com/2015/11/05/nfl-paid-patriotism/     (whole article)

"In a letter dated Nov. 2, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell pledged a thorough audit by the league, saying that any payments deemed inappropriate "will be refunded in full."


ETA: Have not clue how reliable this "mashable" site is. It is just the first one that I opened but there were others and it pretty much says what I heard on TV     

[resolution]

It just means they are concerned the negative publicity may cost them revenue.

[happyhoix]

I wonder, though, if the military had approached these teams and asked for a few minutes to honor vets, if the teams wouldn't have done it for free in the first place.

I work for a very frugal company. We squeeze nickels. However we were acquired by a very wealthy company, and I've been at some of their facilities.

They have a totally different mind set about money. They get a budget each year and feel obligated to spend every penny. They replace perfectly good equipment with new equipment just because. They don't try to sell the perfectly good old equipment but pay someone to haul it off, because it just doesn't occur to them that they could make money on it. They don't think about money at all, except to make sure they spend all their budgeted money every year, so make sure they get the same or more money the following year.

I suspect the military is the same way, based on reports of wild over spending for simple things like hammers and toilet seats. I wonder if there wasn't some 'publicity' department that had a budget to promote good feelings for the military, and they offered the money to sports teams, who probably would have done the same thing without the money, but would be stupid to turn free money down.

I think we as a nation would see a tremendous tax savings if we took a bunch of accountants and managers from lean manufacturing facilities and put them in charge of the appropriations in the military. They would never have approved this kind of expenditure. There is already a tremendous amount of good will for our men in arms. Sports teams would have been glad to tap into that for free, I think.

[NoNamePerson]

I see a major cluster f&&& with trying to return money to the Military      Everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to figure out what to do.

Not knocking the men who serve just the idiots who "manage"

[ArchietheDragon]

People should be jingoistic for free. 

[Virgil Showlion]

Supporting the military ain't as easy as it used to be.

[Tennesseer]

Nov 6, 2015 8:34:37 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

I see a major cluster f&&& with trying to return money to the Military      Everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to figure out what to do.

Not knocking the men who serve just the idiots who "manage"

The sports teams can donate the money to legit veteran charities or to Make-A-Wish (for example).

[NoNamePerson]

Nov 6, 2015 9:54:58 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

Nov 6, 2015 8:34:37 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

I see a major cluster f&&& with trying to return money to the Military      Everyone running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to figure out what to do.

Not knocking the men who serve just the idiots who "manage"

The sports teams can donate the money to legit veteran charities or to Make-A-Wish (for example).

That would be ideal but I think they said they would repay/refund the money - to me that means they will be returning it to the entity that paid them. Never saw anything about donations - just refund/repay. Maybe I overlooked that option. 

[Tennesseer]

Nov 6, 2015 10:04:39 GMT -5 NoNamePerson said:

Nov 6, 2015 9:54:58 GMT -5 Tennesseer said:

The sports teams can donate the money to legit veteran charities or to Make-A-Wish (for example).

That would be ideal but I think they said they would repay/refund the money - to me that means they will be returning it to the entity that paid them. Never saw anything about donations - just refund/repay. Maybe I overlooked that option. 

You probably read it right. It seems silly thoughto give it back to the government as it most likely will get lost and wasted. The military approved the monies to the sports venues so there is really no legal reason for the teams to give it back to the government.

Donating to veterans groups or other worthwhile charities would do the most good with the money.

[ArchietheDragon]

At one one-thousandth of a percent of their overall budget, I have a hard time caring more than one one-thousandth of a percent of my day about it.  Since I have already exceeded 100 times that I have to stop writing. 

[mollyanna58]

Nov 6, 2015 10:13:02 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

At one one-thousandth of a percent of their overall budget, I have a hard time caring more than one one-thousandth of a percent of my day about it.  Since I have already exceeded 100 times that I have to stop writing. 

Yeah, but you add up one one-thousandth of a percent here and one one-thousandth of a percent there and sooner or later you're talking about real money.

[Deleted]

Nov 6, 2015 10:13:02 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

At one one-thousandth of a percent of their overall budget, I have a hard time caring more than one one-thousandth of a percent of my day about it.  Since I have already exceeded 100 times that I have to stop writing. 

I'll take that challenge...

I work at a Motel. We have an ice machine that's broken. It's been broken for just over 2 years. We got an estimate to replace it almost immediately. That estimate was that it would have cost about $3,500.00 to replace it (with a new one with a 5 year warranty).

Instead of replacing it, the owner decided it would be cheaper to buy ice daily from the store @ ~$5.00 a day... because ~$5.00 is cheaper than $3,500.00.

$5.00 (a day) * 365 (days in a year) * 2 (years) = $3,650.00 spent on ice (and counting).

The point being... little amounts, spent over time, add up if you add them together.

[billisonboard]

Nov 7, 2015 8:53:22 GMT -5 deminmaine said:

On the face of it this is an appalling waste.

I'm wondering if this is not part of the recruiting/ marketing budget of the Pentagon? Gotta keep finding new cannon fodder don'cha know?

My understanding is it is part of recruiting/marketing budget. I have no problem paying for a flashy sign in the stadium that says, "Be All You Can Be." The problem is when there is an event that announces "The NFL Salutes Our Miltary" and then hands the military a bill for the event. If my tax dollars are paying, the NFL shouldn't get credit for "supporting our troops".

[Deleted]

Nov 7, 2015 10:02:02 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Nov 7, 2015 8:53:22 GMT -5 deminmaine said:

On the face of it this is an appalling waste.

I'm wondering if this is not part of the recruiting/ marketing budget of the Pentagon? Gotta keep finding new cannon fodder don'cha know?

My understanding is it is part of recruiting/marketing budget. I have no problem paying for a flashy sign in the stadium that says, "Be All You Can Be." The problem is when there is an event that announces "The NFL Salutes Our Miltary" and then hands the military a bill for the event. If my tax dollars are paying, the NFL shouldn't get credit for "supporting our troops".

I agree. If the NFL (or other sports entity) "supports" then they should be the one providing the support. Charging for an announcement isn't "supporting"... it's business as usual.

They don't say "The NFL supports Nike"... but they (apparently) bill them the same way they bill the Military.

[NastyWoman]

The military approved the monies to the sports venues so there is really no legal reason for the teams to give it back to the government.

Paid for tributes are nothing more than advertising.  Our veterans deserve far better from us than this! From the sports teams POV it does not amaze me all that much that they took the money. These are the same people that think nothing of extorting tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars from the cities they arebased in for new stadiums or else they'll take their team elsewhere  Their greed knows no limits IMO.

[bobosensei]

Nov 6, 2015 8:24:00 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

I suspect the military is the same way, based on reports of wild over spending for simple things like hammers and toilet seats. I wonder if there wasn't some 'publicity' department that had a budget to promote good feelings for the military, and they offered the money to sports teams, who probably would have done the same thing without the money, but would be stupid to turn free money down.

Sure, the DOD absolutely wastes money.  At the end of the year everyone with a budget scrambles to spend every penny on whatever they can, because if they don't then they won't get the same amount the next year.  Well, don't they realize they don't need the same amount if they aren't legitimately spending it.  And then when the budgets get cut they lose people and valuable equipment, but everyone is still frittering away a lot of money on things they don't need.  It is infuriating.

When my DH was in military command and gearing up to deploy they had to get all of their equipment left behind moved into different storage units.  He had some guys do an inventory and they found an entire storage shed filled with cleaning products.  Like boxes upon boxes of window cleaner, and I'm talking thousands of bottles not like 50.  He had to figure out what to do with it, and it was difficult because storage was hard to come by.  People were suggesting that he just have it dumped and recycle the bottles.  He didn't, of course, but that just shows what the attitude of the military and government organizations can be.