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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: joseffy who wrote (22431)	1/3/2014 2:57:47 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 23908

I wouldn't cut back pay from levels that are already being paid out, but growth has to be restrained going forward or the growing pensions and health benefits combined with increasing pressure on military budgets from the feds awful fiscal situation will start to turn the military in to more of a pension organization than a fighting organization. In many areas of government (some cities provide an excellent example of this), when there is a push to pay more (whether its needed to bring in a sufficient number of people, or whether its just political pressure, like the public sector unions forcing up costs in Detroit or Stockton, CA) the temptation of politicians is to raise long term costs from pensions and more generous future health care coverage, rather then current pay. Raising the current pay is often more affordable (since it could be raised by a smaller amount, and if it ever gets too expensive you can cut back on current employees but you can't easily "cut back on" retirees), but the bill comes due now. Raising future compensation, satisfies the political or labor market need to raise compensation, and the bill comes due when the current politicians are long gone. With the military the pensions and other deferred compensation are not as out of whack as they have been in a number of cities and counties, so the adjustment doesn't have to be as dramatic. But if nothing is done these costs will get out of control and gobble up the defense budget. (Some of them are outside the defense budget, for example in the VA, but if its costs soar it will likely put pressure on the military budget anyway.) The proposal at hand is a one percent cut in growth per year. Spending will still climb, and will still grow as a percentage of military spending, but it might be a bit more manageable. Actually its less then a one percent per year cut in growth since at 62 all the extra growth that would have happened kicks in and the checks get much bigger, and then after that the full former COLA level is restored. But why some restraint here is necessary, it shouldn't be an area where the feds keep going "back to the well" to try to save money. At some point it really would become abandoning veterans. We need similar restraint on long term costs for civilian retirees. Social Security, Medicare, and costs for federal civilian retirees etc. That will save a lot more, but political is much more difficult because there are so many more civilian retirees.