Posted on 08/15/2011 4:20:01 PM PDT by Newbomb Turk
A Pentagon task force is proposing the largest overhaul of the military retirement system in 50 years that will do away with a traditional pension system, opting instead for a 401(k)-style contribution program
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
If you are a not a member of the military, ask yourself these questions.
Does your civilian employment require you to miss your children growing up for years at a time ?
How many times have you pulled 24 hours of continuous duty in a war zone while you wife, son or daughter had a birth, birthday or anniversary ?
When was the last time you put on 80 pounds or restrictive protective equipment and worked outside in the 115 degree heat for days on end where people were actively trying to end you life?
How many times has someone tried to blow up the vehicle you are driving as a part of your employment ?
Do you work regularly overtime for free ? Weekends, Holidays, National Emergencies ?
Can you go home most every night after your work day ?
Does and can your employer regularly weigh you and say that at 5 foot 11 you can only weigh 193 pounds or your terminated ?
Do many of your co-workers commit suicide because of things they have seen or done at work ?
And I ask you this final question. Are your prepared for little Johnny be called to active military conscription ? Because the current Congress and President are going to destroy the volunteer military.
Military pensions aren’t entitlements, they’re earned benefits, and playing around with them in any form or fashion while still giving away the store to the federal employees (and congress) is insulting to all of our armed forces.
Congress should be required to have the same benefits as our fighting hero’s. Make that the law!
I’m sure they are ‘considering’ this from above
meanwhile, the largest waste of our money, bar-none, is local, state and federal employee pensions.
why the hell should people that haven’t risked their lives, excluding police and fire, receive lifetime pensions? did they sacrifice anything while working the job? were they making far below average salaries?
no
they are just parasites sitting in coushy office jobs making above average salaries while having no fear of ever losing their job.
not to mention they start collecting their luxury retirement package when they leave the position... collecting it for the rest of their lives
It all must end
Do this for social security as a pilot program first.
Or maybe the members of the executive and legislatures should give up their pensions first. They need only six years of service to qualify!
To hell with American citizens that have given a life of service to their country. We have welfare queens and illegal immigrants to pay for!!/sarc
Total BS...what did we expect from the commie who is the SOD....it’s time to invoke the 25th...and stop the insanity...
There is more, but by golly you have a good start on it.
There should be something in there regarding women taking up
billets that should be reserve strictly for the fighting man.
Women causing a reduction in the physical standards for fighting men.
Women and pregnancy reducing combat readiness.
Women in general in a fighting force.
Women in general in a PC fighting force.
No one is denying that women can’t do the job.
One is questioning the wisdom of allowing it.
Call me sensitive.
I just spent eight hours in front of my computer, no break, no lunch, to meet a deadline for another department.
I worked for my pay today, thank you very much, and I deeply resent being called a parasite.
RATS in the Pentagon. Need RAT traps and RAT poison to get rid of them.
Watch out for rationing of medical care next. Even now they gather ‘voluntary’ data from non-retired (ordinary) vets which can be used by the death panels for rationing purposes at the VA.
If they keep screwing around with the Military, they won’t have one. Is that the real target?
Do they really want people in the Military to opt out?
This comes from the bus campaigning idiot who wanted the Military to buy their own health insurance, and go to war with it.
Now he wants them to start a 401K.
Make that Mother Lumper buy a 401 k to retire from the White House and make him buy one big enough to hire his own security.
I have said this before and I will say it again. Washington DC has outlived it’s purpose. We no longer need this centralized form of government. We nee to dissolve it, send all the lawmakers home, and hire a small staff to run operations. But we no longer really need a president, congress or senate. They are the biggest waste of time and money
Sadly, tragically for all of us...he and his cohorts are marxists and destroying our military and fundamentally changing our nation away from its constitutional and traditional moral foundation is their goal.
Obama despises this nation as a free, constitutional republic based on fundamental moral principle. He wants to bring that down and build some kind of marxist command economy socialist hell hole on its ruins.
Yup, us veterans are a much smaller constituency than the illegal/welfare queen/kings out there. 0 will not stand for us, we can only “hope” the conservatives will!
...And of course the average Service member has so much time and the instant communication at hand to manage a 401(k) during a deployment. s/off... The military is the last place anyone should consider this. They don’t get the pay, the time off, or have the personal freedom that civilians (especially politician type civilians) get.
No, we need our congress and our President to represetn us as the founders intended at the national level...we just need to elect individuals who are dedicated and committed to the fundamental principles this nation was founded upon. If we do that, prosperity and liberty will return...and we have to make it happen.
I believe we ot a start in 2010...I believe we will go much further in 2012.
I agree. Messing with military pensions will gut our armed forces. The lifers are the backbone of the military.
I think this is a great idea. The current military retirement system is complete BS. If you serve anything short of 20 years you get nothing...zero, zilch, nada. Very few actually make it to twenty years so basically the non-retirees get nothing for their service in terms of building a retirement. They have to start from scratch in the civilian world, putting them well behind their peers.
Under the proposed changes everyone who serves and leaves before retirement age takes with them a head start on building a retirement.
I say do it and I wish I was offered such a plan when I raised my right hand.
If the program applied to the rest of the federal government employees, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. That, however, is very unlikely to happen.
Messing with the military ain’t smart. That’s like a quarterback dissing the offensive line. You want those folks to like you. When they stop liking you, it can hurt!
I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom! You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives!
You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall! You need me on that wall! We use words like "honor", "code", "loyalty". We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline!
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "Thank you," and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!"
“Do this for social security as a pilot program first.”
Pound sand. Social Security is about all I’m going to have left. My employer did away with our pension plan some years back, opting to put matching funds, up to a point, into a 401K, which has taken a giant dump no less than three times in the last ten years. Swell!
SS is not an entitlement program, much as the congress and the press want people to think. I’ve paid into it from my very first paycheck fifty years ago. I could damn sure have done better on my own and at least it would be my money, not an IOU from the general fund.
“I think this is a great idea. The current military retirement system is complete BS. If you serve anything short of 20 years you get nothing...zero, zilch, nada. Very few actually make it to twenty years so basically the non-retirees get nothing for their service in terms of building a retirement. They have to start from scratch in the civilian world, putting them well behind their peers.”
Wrong, every service member has the option to contribute to a Thrift Savings Plan. If they leave with nothing after serving less than 20 years it’s on them. Look, 20 years of military service is not easy on a person physicaly or mentaly. I did 22 years in the Marine Corps. I left with a bad right shoulder, bad knees, hearing loss, and back issues. I earned every damn penny I recieve in my monthly pension check, and I would do it all over again. Leave the military pension system alone. It’s not the problem.
And allow the service branches to restrict married members to E-5 and above.
Under the proposed changes everyone who serves and leaves before retirement age takes with them a head start on building a retirement.
I say do it and I wish I was offered such a plan when I raised my right hand.
Back in the 1980's when I was a West Point cadet, my econ professor told us about a scheme to give every service member an IRA instead of a traditional retirement account. Based upon the assumptions of growth in "your account" as a soldier--you were getting ripped off. And besides, you aren't vested until 20 years. And if you serve 26 years as an officer, it didn't pay to stay in longer unless you made general on average because of life expectancy.
The Econ Dept. at USMA proposed this change--and a lot of colonels reportedly loved the plan and wished that they could have avoided being grandfathered. Les Aspin, then chairman of the House Armed Services Committee killed the plan in favor of cutting the assumed rate of growth of your account.
I think that this sort of idea, if well conceived, can do better for both the taxpayer and our serving men and women. So I won't throw stones until I learn the details.
This is actually a complement, the Military has more retired military than active military due to the cut backs in the military since 1988 and it is a large strain on the budget. If the program was a 401k plan with higher pay and employer matching, the retired would have everything they have now if not more without making it a line item in the Military’s budget.
This is a little late to fix the problem but if I was a retired ex-military, I wouldn’t want to be a line item in the Military’s budget (with a Democrat in charge).
That being said, they have to keep their promises down to every red penny to the guys that gave for this country.
They shouldn’t even consider doing this if the goal is to reduce current expenditures for retired military.
RE: I think that this sort of idea, if well conceived, can do better for both the taxpayer and our serving men and women. So I won’t throw stones until I learn the details.
You are exactly right.
Hey if you want to be at the whim of the politicians good graces to fund your retiremen in the out years like a welfare hag, have at it. I’d rather control my own retirement where they couldn’t touch it or de-fund me.
True patriotism is something other than:
“I don’t care if it bankrupts the nation, I demand every penny I was led to expect!”
I don’t think this is a good idea for the reasons you mention.
At first, I recoiled from your position, but you do make some very valid points.
I served in peacetime,two enlistments, and observed a lot of ROAD warriors “milking it” through to retirement at twenty.Those that were not ROAD would have stayed active for 30 or more, if given the chance.(some did)
OTOH, my young Marine friend served one enlistment, in two combat war zones.
I count his service much higher and harder than mine.
We have had an all volunteer military force for over twenty years now, and I think it works better than the old draft force.
I think some changes in “retirement pensions” might be a good thing.It deserves more than an automatic negative knee jerk reaction from us old timers, who have no recent combat experience.
Military enlisted personnel have very little money to but into a plan like this.
The current military retirement system is complete BS. If you serve anything short of 20 years you get nothing zero, zilch, nada. Very few actually make it to twenty years
Don’t completely agree with the first sentence, as I am one of few who managed to survive 20 years, however, I do agree there ought to be perhaps a combination plan to assist those who do not make it to retirement, but consider this:
Those in the military, thinking ahead, have always had the option for a traditional IRA. The tax deduction alone should inspire everyone, including those able to make it to retirement to have a traditional IRA with the full 2,000 dollar contribution.
After that, very few of the younger enlisted force would be able to save even more for a 401K contribution.
Just considering the IRA contribution, someone leaving the service after ten years, would have approximately 20,000 dollars, plus interest, plus reenlistment bonuses saved, for a nest egg.
Back in the day, the restriction was certainly higher than it is today, but I think the age for getting in has risen a bit so that means more already married folk are volunteering.
Tough one.
Federal employee pensions are paid for ~ state and local pensions aren’t.
Indeed. I served over twenty years and I get a check each month for my twenty + years of service, subject to the whims of politicians who can cut me off whenever they wish, but I also know there are a magnitude of others, particularly prior enlisted service members, who are passed over for promotion, forced from service or decide to leave service and they have no retirement fund to take with them. They are simply booted out of the door without the transferable retirement benefit most professionals take for granted...and believe me when you perform military service you are as much a professional as any executive, attorney, or physician. It is a complete travesty that our young men and women have been abused in this manner for so long.
Yes, some jobs do. Ask any Merchant Mariner, or wage-earner assigned overseas.
Get me a crying towel, Marge. Bath size. Hugest we have.
Let's ask any fireman (most are volunteer, btw) shall we? Or any logger, or deep diver, or miner. Or tree trimmer, or mason. YOU TRY DOING A STONE MASON'S JOB IN THE HEAT OF AUGUST, BOYO.
That is a hard reality, and it is something all of us need to work on solving and minimizing. But every job carries it's peculiar risks, and some are quite substantial. We work, as individuals and as a society, to solve those problems.
Many of the improvements to safety and to those IED come out of all of us non-military folks who work in regular jobs inventing and producing them. Thank us!
You're joking right? You can't be that out of it to realize that an awful lot of folks still holding jobs or who have their own businesses are working very long hours, including weekends and holidays. Most of us are NOT government workers.
You have bested my post by thousands of times, sir.
“I could damn sure have done better on my own and at least it would be my money, not an IOU from the general fund.”
This is exactly why they need to make the change!
I do agree they must phase it in for those under 50 ONLY!
RE: I do agree they must phase it in for those under 50 ONLY!
It would only effect those entering service or those recently entering service. Others would remain under the old rigid Darwinian system.
Rebel, I did 21 years in the Marine Corps, so your response to me doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I appreciate your service.
BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good for you, this will go a long way to reduce the costs or the Fort Eustis/Fort Lee homes for unwed mothers and all the counterparts in the sister services!
Do you imply that we should pay our naval personnel on par with merchant mariners. What civilian occupation would correspond with somebody deployed with an infantry brigade to Afghanistan? What is the average workday for that profession. When you compare masons to infantryman you simply reveal ignorance of both trades.
I’m comparing apples and oranges. Both are fruit, both are sweet, both grow in orchards on trees. I hope that explanation helps you.
I’m a retired federal officer. After four years active duty in the Air Force, I joined the Defense Department as a civilian. In time, I rode in Hueys with the troops in Vietnam, served in Panama during the Noriega Operation, in Military Attache Offices in embassies in the middle east and Latin America. I did a lot of TDY in Africa, too. While I never had to hump an 80lb pack, I have eaten a lot of C-Rations and MRE as a civilian. I spent 25 Christmases overseas. My late wife and I had Marine Security Guards over for Thanksgivings and other celebratory dinners/cocktail parties; we also sent plates of turkey dinners to the Marine on Post One. I stood rotating watches all over. Now, please let me enjoy my pension.
Eh, you’re wrong in this regard. Those who are choose to leave the service or are told to always have the option of serving in the reserves. They take with them a myriad of benefits from the VA, the two most valuable in my estimation being the mortgage and the educational benefits. I’ve never been in an area where the reserves were not looking for good prior service personnel, the Army Guard & Reserve especially.
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