Lost in AmericaThe Burger King national headquarters announced this month that they will be pulling their franchises from our military bases. Soon to follow will be Popeye’s Chicken, Pizza franchises and the chain of barber and beauty shops which operates inside the gates of our military facilities. Reason? Obama’s mandate that all companies who do business with the federal government pay a $10.10 per hour minimum wage.
The companies cite the fact that a limited military customer base cannot sustain acceptable profit margins while still offering up a hefty share of profits to the Army and Air Force Exchange System’s Health and Morale fund and paying $10.10 an hour as Obama has directed for any contractor doing business with the DOD. For those who don’t know, hundreds of commercial franchises have operated on military bases for years. This partnership has been a boon to the non-profit AAFES system. All profits go toward programs such as organized athletic programs for the military and their dependents, exercise equipment, support for social clubs and the like.
Coming at a time of tighter defense budgets the withdrawal of commercial franchises is going to put quite a squeeze on the military health and morale programs. Every time a military grunt got a haircut, every time a military wife got a manicure or hair styling, with every burger or slice of pizza or chicken dinner sold, a portion of the profits went to this much needed program.
Alas, as with all things Obama, every time he does something to please his socialist friends, someone suffers. In this case it will be our military. While this will be a serious loss for our stateside troops, the troops who will be most hurt by this are our troops deployed to remote areas of the world where our military folks had little to look forward to but a Burger King Whopper and fries at a small concession that might bring them a little bit of home to their lives.
This should not surprise me at all but it does. I should have been prepared for this when Obama eliminated hot meals for our troops in Afghanistan even as he and Joe Biden were booking $500,000 per night hotel suites in Paris and London….or Obama’s total disregard for costs as he and Michelle have run up over $600 million dollars in vacation costs during his tenure.
Oh well, I understand the military’s food research facility up in Illinois is working on “Pizza in a Pouch” for the new cold ration packs. “Screw the grunts” seems to be Obama’s philosophy…even as he and Michelle host Jay Z and Beyonce at one of those fancy White House dinners.
http://justcommonsense-lostinamerica.blogspot.com/2014/05/burger-king-fleeing-military-bases.html
Sent to us by Bob.
This isn’t about a wage increase. This is more of the destruction of our country.If I remember correctly, this was done by illegal executive order.
The majority of the employees at the on base shops and food places like these are military spouses. They work there to supplement the BS wage that the military pays. I guess now the military folks can just quit buying food or paying their bills. There are numerous shops on post that are going to be effected by this.
Ironically, the E-1 through E-4 ranks make less than minimum wage with the hours that they work.
If that’s the case, Bulldog, they may be doing this to insure that all military families live on base because the extra salary is probably what allows most of them to pay rent elsewhere.
This way they can keep an eye on ’em, or hold ’em hostage.
Jolly Roger,
That makes sense. My daughter is married to an E-4. They have no choice but to live on post because they can’t afford to live off post. They have to shop at the commissary and PX because off post is too expensive.
We can’t wait for them to move back down here when her husband gets out.
Things would be really bad if he hated America.
Don’t forget that B/O allocated 20 Billion dollars for new choppers, which seems like a total waste of money. That kind of money could fix a lot of needed infrastructure. They seem to have bottomless pockets for whatever they want, but very little for anything worthwhile.
These Health and Morale org Pay their people bundles. At MCAS in NC the head man, in the 1990’s was paid $98,000 a year and little of the money from the contractors went to the troops stuff.
It seems a little ironic for troops to buy junk food and fast food and have the profits go to gym and fitness equipment. I agree that the defense budget needs to go to troops and troop equipment. Not million or billion dollar flop air craft and the President should give up some of his party cash for the troops. Maybe some of his pay should go towards the staffing of those places and pay their wages.