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01-23-2008 08:39 AM |
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheMercenary
(Post 423478)
I know about the tax thing because I did it for 20 years. None of us are really Texans, in fact 90% are probably not Texans. We did not do it by registering to vote, we did it by checking the box on the paper they pass around on your pay stubs to state where you would like to claim your state of residency, well Texas is what everyone put because of the lack of state tax. I would venture to say that many military people do not vote at all, at least not until the 2000 election.
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Many in the military vote... probably a higher percentage than the general population. Something about the military pay raise being tied to who's in office. Second, you actually have to have a legal reason to claim Texas. Read the rules. Residency is required. One way to 'prove' residency is registering to vote. I claim Texas residency, I've lived there on and off for 30+ years, and I used to be registered to vote there. I am a Texan by birth. I'm really a Texan! I voted absentee from Texas in 2000 and 2004... and neither election was my ballot counted - the margin between candidates was so large that there was no need to count absentee ballots - it would not have changed the election. I'm now registered in Virginia where I live, and will vote in person so my vote will actually be counted.
Back to my original point, where my statement of fact that a large percentage of the military comes from Texas, but some claimed that was a lie... here's proof. One is a recent article (bottom line, Texas ranks #1 in recruiting), and an older table (Texas is #2 in 1999 and 2003). And that's just recruiting. That doesn't count the number that change their residency (and voting) to Texas when they get stationed there.
BTW, another favorite state for military to claim is Florida. Again, tax purposes... and a lot of people get stationed there. In fact, the states with the most military personnel stationed there are Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, and California (see DoD, Selected Manpower Statistics, Fiscal Year 2002 http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/M01/fy02/m01fy02.pdf). Between 5% and 13.8% of the military population is stationed in each of these states. Over a third of the armed forces is concentrated in these 6 states. There's a fairly high chance that if you stick around the service long enough, you'll be stationed in at least one of those states. So those that get stationed in a tax free (or military tax free) state like, hmmm Florida or Texas, tend to claim and then keep that residency over any other state they land in. In 15 years, I've been stationed in 5 of those 6 states. Got Texas residency and kept it for the last 12 years, through 6 more moves. Kept my voter registration there until last year.
Tennessee and Pennsylvania also have good tax laws favorable to the military, but many don't claim those states because they never lived there and there's a much smaller chance of ever being stationed there (Tennesse has less than 1% of the force there, and Pennsylvania has less than 2% of the force there).
People in the military have a much higher incentive to vote than the general population. Our entire livelihood depends on the outcome of elections. Reagan gave us raises. Clinton slashed the force, forcing many out, while increasing our op-tempo to wonderful places like Bosnia and Kosovo and Haiti. There is a real fear among military personnel that a democrat will come in, withdraw from Iraq (which is a good thing) and then completely slash the DoD like Clinton did (bad for career military who will loose their job). And lets not forget the democrats have a history of bashing the military, like Kerry - "You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." Not exactly winning over the military vote. That encourages military members to get out and vote and ensure idiots don't command our forces.
I'll probably vote democrat and pray my job doesn't get slashed.
Quote:
San Antonio Express-News
January 23, 2008
Texas Is Top State For Army Recruiting
By Sig Christenson, Express-News
The good news on the Army recruiting front is that Texas is No. 1. The bad news: the young boots are less educated.
A report released Tuesday by the National Priorities Project found that Texas and Harris County produced more Army recruits last year than any other state or county in America. Bexar County ranked fourth, sending 814 people to boot camp.
But the number of "high-quality" recruits has continued a downward slide nationwide since 2004. Recruits in that group hold a traditional high school diploma and score in the upper half of the Armed Forces Qualification Test. Only 44.6 percent did that last year, down from 60.9 percent in 2004.
"All of this is going to impact on the ability of the (Army) to perform the mission," University of Maryland military sociologist David Segal said. "They are not going to perform as well in Iraq, and they are far less prepared to go anywhere else."
The nonpartisan Northampton, Mass.-based group analyzed Army Recruiting Command data on more than 67,000 first-time recruits who entered basic training in the 2007 fiscal year. It found that 70.7 percent of recruits nationwide graduated from high school in 2007, down from 83.5 percent in 2005.
Army Recruiting Command spokesman Douglas Smith said the service's numbers for recruits with traditional diplomas were higher than those in the National Priorities Project's report. He said 79.07 percent of active-duty recruits held high school diplomas last year.
But Smith agreed the numbers reflected a general downturn in graduates from the past — 81.2 percent in 2006, 87 percent in 2005 and 92.45 in 2004. He said his office had not seen the report and declined to comment.
One apparent difference in the numbers is the Army's inclusion of recruits with military experience. Once small, the segment of prior-service recruits has risen substantially since 2005. The National Priorities Project's Anita Dancs said her group has not included them in its analysis because the primary focus of past Pentagon and congressional research has been on first-time recruits.
Dancs said Texas recruits with a high school diploma were higher than the national average, at 75 percent. The state ranked 16th in "Tier 1" boots, those with a 12th-grade education or better.
Bexar County and Harris County, which produced 1,025 recruits, bested the nation last year in that category, too, but Texas reflected the nationwide drop in both the number of recruits and their quality — 85.6 percent Tier 1 recruits in 2005 compared with 76.1 percent the following year.
The number of Texans joining up, meanwhile, peaked at 2.4 per 1,000 in 2006 and fell to 2.2 last year, Dancs said. Harris and Bexar counties showed a similar drop-off, but both were higher than the national average of 1.6 per 1,000.
Dancs did not have education data for the Houston and San Antonio areas from previous years. But the Army's Alamo City recruiting battalion reported that just half of all active-duty boots and one in three reservists were high school grads.
The San Antonio Recruiting Battalion, No. 1 in the nation the past three years, signed 1,510 active-duty recruits in 2007 and 333 for the Army Reserve, said Maj. Neil Mahabir.When asked to explain why fewer recruits here held diplomas, he said, "The demographics in San Antonio and our region may be a lot less high school graduates."
National Priorities Project Executive Director Greg Speeter blamed the war in Iraq for the downturn, saying youths "are naturally thinking twice before signing up to fight an unnecessary war with no end in sight."
Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ted Stroup, deputy chief of staff for the Army from 1994 to 1996, said a dichotomy is developing as the war rages in Iraq and Afghanistan. People support the troops in public, but authority figures known as "influencers" may be warning young people away from service.
"You could say that 2008 may be the make or break year for Army recruiting," he said.
"Just on the basis of chance I would have expected to see one or two states go against the trend, and I'm just not seeing that here," said Segal, the University of Maryland military sociologist. "It means that it's a very robust trend. It means the Army is really in trouble, and I think the Army knows that."
The last time the Army looked this bad was in 1980, he recalled, when the service's then-chief of staff Gen. Edward C. "Shy" Meyer warned Congress that the service was going "hollow" — becoming a shell of its former self.
"I don't think it's hollow yet, but that's the direction we're going in," Segal commented.
"We are weakening the Army, we are straining the Army, we are nowhere near a hollow army," said Brookings Institution analyst Michael O'Hanlon, who added that the Army is "in far better shape" than in that era.
But former Reagan administration assistant defense secretary Lawrence Korb disagreed.
"The Army is low quality," he said, noting that the service allowed 1,620 felons to join last year. "I think when you get down that low, you're broken."
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