This is just despicable. Of all the things the Federal government wastes money on, where are they looking at cutting? Retired military members who gave decades in the service of their nation:
“That brings the focus back to a military pension system that already represents a huge unfunded liability for the government. And unlike the civilian side, it demands no direct pay deductions from active duty military personnel.”
Unlike the civilian side? Do the salaries of Senators, Representatives, Supreme Court Justices, Presidents and Vice Presidents include deductions that go to to pay for their lifetime pensions? No they do not.
“Instead Congress appropriates billions each year to a military personnel line-item knows as “retired pay accrual.” In 2014 this amounts to nearly $16.8 billion for the active duty military –roughly two thirds for enlisted personnel and one third, officers.”
“That translates into about $12,334 per individual assuming an end-strength of 1.36 million personnel. Put another way, it’s roughly 32 cents on top of every dollar of base pay.”
“Even so, this doesn’t come close to the $50 billion which the Congressional Budget Office estimates is paid out each year to military retirees and their survivors. And since benefits continue to be a function of pay, critics have long argued that some contribution is warranted given the higher salaries of the all-volunteer force.”
“A second issue is that the system only benefits those who serve 20 years or more, meaning a fraction of those who serve ever benefit. Historically it is far more likely that officers will collect a pension than enlisted personnel.”
“The situation is far too complex to be resolved in a short-term budget deal, but if officers alone were asked to contribute 2 percent of their base pay to the retirement system, for example, it could save at least several billion dollars over 10 years.”
Military “lifer’s” suffer long overseas deployments, often under the worse conditions, that greatly affect their family relationships. Receive little respect from the politicians, press, liberal civilians in this country, not to mention the people in the foreign lands where they serve at great risk. More than any Americans, they have been targets of every terrorist fanatic the world over, and they are expected at a moment’s notice to pack-up and get deployed to war zones. They see their coworkers suffer combat injuries, loss of limb, life, and receive great mental anguish, yet get little more than shiny medals in compensation. Yet this journalist at Politico is whining because deductions are not taken from their military pay to fund military pensions? Has this twerp ever looked at the military pay for enlisted or officers compared to the private sector? Has he no shame that the vast majority of active duty enlisted military with families qualify for food stamps!
Meanwhile this “outraged” putz sits in front of his computer, (no doubt sipping a warm latte, ) and has the unmitigated gall to tell us that ‘it’s not fair that money isn’t taken from our servicemen and women’s pay,’ while the funding for entitlement programs the left relies on to buy votes with continues to skyrockets in amounts that make military pensions look like chump change. Any politician, Democrat, Republican or Independent that supports this is unworthy of the sacrifices made, and lacks the moral integrity to hold office.