Posted on 05/10/2010 1:46:11 PM PDT by Eleutheria5
President Barack Obama — who came to power with the help of government employee unions across the nation and has lavished on them hundreds of billions in stimulus funds to keep them on federal, state and local payrolls with no strings attached — is moving to cut spending on salaries for military personnel.
This weekend The Washington Post headlined story, "Pentagon Asking Congress to Hold Back on Generous Increases in Troop Pay,” disclosed that the Obama administration is “pleading” with Congress to give military personnel a much smaller increase in pay than lawmakers have proposed.
The Pentagon contends that Congress simply has been too generous with troops during the past decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
How about a 20% across the board DECREASE in govt payroll= to make them in line with private sector pay
Didn’t Peanuthead Carter do this? I vaguely remember a large pay increase once Reagan came into office to make up for Carter screwing the military.
Well we gotta pay for Greece (and Wagyu steaks) somehow, right? /s
Say what?!!
That’s the kind of stuff that happens when you have to cut spending, can’t touch entitlements and are unwilling to renegotiate contracts. The military budget is one of the few government programs that can actually be cut without having to worry about some judge stopping it. Add in a POTUS who believes that America is a bully nation and you have a budget ripe for trimming.
Just when I think there is no way I can despise the SOB-in-chief any more than I already do, I find out that I really can. What a worthless glob of flesh!!!!!!
I’m surprised it took him this long. When Clinton was inaugurated, two of his first initiatives where allowing gays in the military (the backlash caused him to fall back to “don’t ask, don’t tell) and and order for no pay raise for the military. The armed forces were already angry about his draft dodging and “loathe the military letter”, but the rest of his actions made them despise him.
Obama is well on his way to outdoing Clinton. He just views the troops as a “pretty good photo op” as he puts it.
Hey now, how am I gonna keep up the payments on that yacht down in Port Aransas? NOT.
Colonel, USAFR
We Don’t Do It For The Money.
Are you mad?
Counting benefits and early retirement government leeches make some THREE TIMES what a similar employee in the real economy would earn.
Plus, they get to do 1/4 the work.
I haven’t seen this of FR but my niece whose husband is in the AF says they are doing a Reduction in Force too.
With the Obama administration, "of the people, by the people and for the people" pertains ONLY to "specific people."*
*Chicago style government with Cuban and Venezuelan influences. Exclusions to stimulus fund and/or Obama's stash are taxpayers, military members, tea party supporters, middle class America , the infirm and elderly, the entire middle class, including small business owners and anyone who has "more" than those to which Obama has pledged "redistribution of wealth."
I was an E-3 when Reagan was elected and we got a 25% (lower and junior enlisted) pay raise right off the bat. Talk about a moral boost.
There’s an earlier thread on this subject that has some great comparisons to what people in the Post Office are paid as well as other government employees.
I’d provide some link to it but don’t know how.
How about getting rid of Congressional and Exceutive branch pensions. Most retired as millionaires, and a large number acquired their wealth while in office.
There seems to be an underlying contempt for the military by the administration, especially those that have no experience with it, or no understanding of its functionality and purpose. People schooled in the arduous and complicated regime of Community Organizing tend to forget that typically a security force (police) is needed in order to make Community Organizing relevant.
Now, if by chance, those individuals attain high office, there is their mistaken belief that they can take those irrelevant, but well-meaning, experiences, and translate that into some type of foreign policy on an international stage in hopes of a implementing a world peace of “kumbaya”.
just another instance of adding an additional chain on the guard dog to the backyard fence, and slowly starving it to death.
One day when we will need it, or the nuclear missiles we are downsizing, it will be too late.
IIRC Carter had many solders and their families resorting to welfare to get by.
He knows the military hate him, and rightly so, the alien moron.
This is especially rich, given that the lefties criticized McCain in 2008 for saying that their (election year) proposal to give returning vets unlimited ‘free’ college funding regardless of time in service was “too generous.”
This administration isn’t even trying to hide its agenda anymore.
“Just when I think there is no way I can despise the SOB-in-chief any more than I already do, I find out that I really can. What a worthless glob of flesh!!!!!!”
That’s the spirit: Yes, we can!
Funny! . . . channeling negative feelings into positive action!!!
This is terrible.
If they do it to the military how about cutting all of Congress’ wages too?
And Obama’s?
And the cabinet members?
And the White House staff’s?
What they hint of...is that the payraise chart for the past decade has been extremely strong. And they’d like to lessen any payraise this year...probably even for next year...at a lesser rate (say 1 percent just to give something.
You have to remember this...there is this retirement bucket at the end of this entire career. So every bit you raise the marker in the bucket...you have to fill in more later to cover retirement. It’s the same trend that you see in California with pay and pensions with police departments and fire departments.
Go look over at military medical care and TRICARE. Their expenses are going up each and every year. They really can’t imagine how the system will cover cost in a decade. So they will come up in 2014...and very likely find a funnel to pump retired personnel over to ObamaCare...because they simply don’t have the capital to continue the game on retired military personnel.
Face it...the California situation ought to be examined by each and every one of us...because the Feds are about five years behind them in terms of a colossal mess to clean up.
It seems to me that this is one of the most bogus reports I have ever read. They include the ‘tax benefit’ one gets for being in a combat zone AND housing allotment. We don’t do that with teachers ( who only ‘work’ 9 months a year AND get health and pension benefits out the behind).
And I thought the French were cheese eating surrender monkeys....
Wow. I joined in 1984 so we already had the pay increase, yet, I remember being dirt poor the entire time I was in, made about $7 at the time.
I can see November from my house.....
hmmm....let’s see....egomaniacal leader, growing more unpopular with the public by the day, starts jerking the military around by cutting their pay...we know how this would end in most countries on the planet....
‘Didn’t Peanuthead Carter do this?’
i was in the USN during the Carter years. he didn’t cut out pay, but gave very low cost of living raises.
The pay was lousy at the time. An E5 with two kids qualified for food stamps.
That was what made me vote for Reagan. I was politically apathetic at the time, but I wanted a president that would support our troops.
Our military is sacrificing greatly and they don’t need another slap in the face.
Just do a high light, copy and then paste of the URL in the comment box DO NOT USE HTML in any way. Just paste it and it will form a link. Do a preview to see if the link turns purple. You are in business.
From yesterday: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2510383/posts
Didn’t quite a few lower enlisted men/women’s families live in tents under slick wille and had to go on food stamps?
They are still UNDER paid for the risk they take, and they have to pay income tax, SS and Medicare tax same as the rest of us.
Back to basics:
A company that had a profit of $100 in the year 2008 & then in 2009 has a profit of $500, that is a 500% increase in profit!!!
Runaway profits!! TAX them to the hilt!!! They cannot make a 500% profit from one year to the next!!!
Military pay is far from high- & has always been low. Paying re-enlistment bonuses to those who are experienced in the Middle East conflicts to keep them in the service is appropriate. Same thing happens in private business & on Wall Street.
This is another of NObama’s true colors coming out.
Clinton said he “loathed the military”. NObama also has absolutely no respect for the military.
Wonder which side they might be on when NObama tries to declare martial law?
This could end up being an unintended consequence.
What will the Taliban do when they see soldiers on the battlefield walking a picket lin because they are on strike?
This is terrible.
If they do it to the military how about cutting all of Congress’ wages too?
And Obama’s?
And the cabinet members?
And the White House staff’s?”
Who knows how much money is being paid to the CZAR’s & their staffs????
Lots of medical costs in the military is due to the types of explosives the insurgents are using in the Middle East.
Somewhere, today, I read that a US Postal Carrier makes more than a Sgt with experience.
This is not good but I do not expect fairness from this administration.
“we got a 25% (lower and junior enlisted) pay raise “{
Come to think of it, if I thought the pay was low in 1984, take off 25%, and just wow. That is an insulting pay chart.
I had troops that qualified for food stamps as corporals. Many divorces.
Postal workers make more.
My son-in-law is a marine and was just deployed to Afganistan.
My daughter got an “automated” phone call telling her to ship him military underwear, socks, and food (just no pork products), with a long list of toiletries. They said to ship a box regularly since some would not make it (get stolen). Also, he will need to repay after deployment the cost of the airfare to get him to Afganistan ($3,200). He’s a sargent and makes about $1,800/mo. His technical skill set as a civilian could net him an easy six figure job. No, it’s not about the money. But these soldiers are far from overpaid. And apparently not provided basics such as underwear. And they have to pay to fly to the war. How much cheaper can Obama get. It makes me sick.
I should add, with the cost cutting measures, my daughter was told if he gets killed or wounded, no one will call or visit. She will get an automated message.
I call B.S. on this troll.
I work on a military base, see and talk to the troop every day, nits from the post are deployed to the Theater of Ops and if there were such a need the Base Chaplains and Commanders would be reaching out to the predominately retired military Community; There has been no buzz neither has there been any sort of outreach to the community asking for help.
While I won't go so far as to call the poster in reply #41 a troll, I do SERIOUSLY question the veracity of the tale of woe told.
Perhaps you are confused. Military members do not pay for their airfare for deployment- though if they come home for R&R they may have to pay for part of their airfare on that trip to and from.
As to the care packages, items are suggested as being part of care packages- but they are furnished what they truly need in the way of underwear, soxs, etc. It could be he wants different items than what is furnished.
Death notifications are done in person. There have been many hoaxes about this.
Your daughter should consider herself lucky: my cousin's cousin told him that his cousin's wife received her notice via 3rd-class bulk mail. It was mixed-in with a pile of coupons in one of those light blue Valu-Pak envelopes.
LOL!
"I regret to inform you . . . ."
Is this some sort of sarcasm thing jerk? In no manner shape or form would any branch of the military inform next of kin that a loved one had been wounded, or killed in action, this way.
Any automated phone call I would disregard.
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