Army Desperately Spin Doctoring Recruitment Numbers

So before last month, the Army abruptly lowered its recruiting goal for the month by about 15% — to 6,700 new recruits — and they still missed the goal by about 25%. Oops.

But they weren’t too worried:

Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, spokesman for the Army’s chief of personnel, said in an interview that despite the recent setbacks the Army remains cautiously optimistic that it will make up the lost ground this summer — traditionally the most fruitful period of the year for recruiters — and reach the full-year goal of 80,000 enlistees.

To do that, they’d have to bring in 9,760 recruits a month for the rest of their recruiting year.

But wheeeeee! Check it out! The latest figures are in: For First Time in Months, Army Meets Its Recruiting Goal.

Senior Army officials said in interviews earlier in the day that the Army exceeded the quota of 5,650 recruits by about 500 people.

By lowering their target by another 1,000, they managed to beat it by 500. Congratulations! And keep up the good work!

I’ve often mentioned the “Lucky Duckies” — of which I’m a proud member — those citizens who are living under the income tax line. But today it’s time to give a shout-out to those few thousand Americans who really know how to play the game: The Nontaxpaying Affluent.

According to the IRS, there were 5,650 “high-income” Americans who paid no federal income tax in 2002. “About one in every 436 high-income Americans paid no taxes in 2002, up from one in 531 in 2001 and one in 1,010 in 2000.”