Posted on 08/17/2011 5:43:05 AM PDT by shortstop
They want to cut military pensions.
The Obama Administration’s panel of smart guys has decided military retirement has to go.
Welfare can stay, free pills for Grama can stay, bogus SSI checks for life can stay, Food Stamps for soda and steak can stay, cushy federal civilian benefits stay, congressional compensation packages remain the same, but pensions for guys on their fourth tour, well, we can’t afford them.
You now what this means?
It means the military is a small and Republican-leaning voting bloc that the Democrats don’t care about alienating. It means that veterans have no political pull – on either the support or the consciences of the politicians.
To balance the budget, in the Obama world, we target millionaires and the military. And not just weapons systems, but the men and women who use them.
We pull the rug out from under them.
We take a low-paying, dangerous, high-stress crap job with a pittance of a pension, and we yank the pension. And by so doing we will reduce spending, over the next 20 years, by less than one-sixth of this year’s Obama budget deficit.
Put another way, over those same 20 years, the savings from nixing military pensions will be about the same as was given to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Citigroup and Bank of America in the bailout. We threw away in a foolish ineffective stimulus enough to pay military pensions for more than a century.
The big banks got theirs, and the soldiers are going to get the shaft.
SSI is a lifelong, guaranteed right, just like Food Stamps and any number of other welfare programs, and those programs absolutely dwarf the money spent on military pensions, but pensions go and welfare stays.
Because welfare recipients vote – if it’s not raining and you give them a ride – and they vote Democrat.
So their money is safe.
While reporters and politicians who’ve never been in the military opine about how we can’t afford military pensions anymore.
Let’s look at those pensions.
Currently, people in the military are allowed to retire after 20 years. They receive, as a pension, half of their base pay.
And what is that base pay?
Well, that depends on their rank, but the overwhelming majority of people in the military are junior enlisted people – low-rank grunts who get paid squat.
Here are some examples. An E-4 – the most common rank in the U.S. military – pays between $1,900 and $2,300 a month, depending on how long a person has been in the service. For those of you without calculators, that works out to between $22,800 and $27,600 a year.
That is less, in terms of spending power, than the money and benefits given to welfare recipients.
And, whereas GIs face the prospect of fighting and dying for our freedom, welfare recipients just sit around on their arses.
The most common retiree rank in the U.S. military is E-7, which has a base monthly pay, after 20 years of service, of $4,189. That’s $50,268 annually, or about what a New York State Trooper makes in his rookie year.
Of course, that same trooper will soon average $101,000 a year – if he never passes the sergeant’s test – and be eligible for 50% retirement after 20 years.
Just like an American combat veteran.
Except that half of $50,268 a year is $25,134.
Twenty-five thousand dollars a year.
In most of America, that’s not a mortgage payment. In most of America, that’s substantially below the welfare payout.
In all of America, that’s dramatically below congressional compensation and pension.
In all of America, that’s a crying, immoral shame.
The military is a lower-middle-class job. It is, financially, targeted at lower-income people, offering them a chance to step, barely, into the middle class, to get some college and maybe buy a house. The military is peopled by folks who, if they were less honorable, could have stayed home and made more money on public assistance.
And the Obama Administration is begrudging them a pittance of a pension.
The Obama Administration wants to push these people into a 401k – how much do people making $25,000 a year have left over to put into their 401k – and have that 401k be off limits to the military retiree until they are 65 or 70.
Apparently, the Obama Administration begrudges GIs their 20-year retirement. So let’s take up that issue. Why can people in the military retire after just 20 years of service?
Actually, the only people who ask that question are people who’ve never been in the military.
The military is the hardest, most dangerous and personally draining job our society has. It destroys families, it takes lives, it grinds down souls. It is very hard to be in the military. You are treated like crap, and your life is not your own. You do very difficult and dangerous things. Some sail off in ships for six months at a time, some are sent to war zones for a year at a time, all must uproot their lives and their families every two or three years to move off and start over at some far-distant post.
And some of them come home in a box, or with a hook where their hand used to be and a plate where their skull used to be.
And it is a young man’s game. Yes, older people serve, and some stay far more than 20 years. But the overwhelming majority of men and women in the service are young people whose duty is literally pounding the life and youth out of them. They give the best years of their lives and after 20 years many of them simply don’t have anything left anymore.
Cops all across America retire after 20, with better pay and retirement than servicemen, and they face less-stressful jobs.
How is that fair?
And how is it fair that an administration that was pushed into power with union money is targeting its largest non-union workforce for a benefits cut? Does anyone think for half a moment that the Democrat-affiliated, union-represented federal workforce would face similar unilateral cuts?
Absolutely not.
But there will be no negotiations, no asking of the troops, there will simply be a plundering, a breaking of promises, a deserting of our national honor.
And a repudiation of a sentiment of obligation felt since the disbanding of the Continental army and best expressed in Lincoln’s Second Inaugural:
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
To care for him who shall have borne the battle.
That started with Washington and will end with Obama.
If we are silent in the face of this outrage.
We have a massive, bloated, entitlement government. It is ripe for the cutting. And we are offered the veteran’s head on a platter. Let us refuse it. And let us turn our ire on those who take, but have given nothing. Veterans have earned their pension, let us pay them before we pay those who are “entitled” to welfare.
There are some prominent families that have sent their sons to war; there are not many. Honest military demographics are hard to come by, especially now that Prof. Moskos has passed.
There goes the career military force and all that experience. This is one of the stupidest proposals I have ever heard.
Then throw in discharging all those who do not enthusiastically embrace the new politically correct diversity, and you have a “bloodless” purge of our military.
Josef Stalin is smiling from the pit of Hell.
And yet his wife, whenever she is NOT vacationing (didn’t make it to Dover the other week, did she?) and Biden’s hapless wife wrap themselves around military families for the PR and good Photo-ops (like O’bummer)...
Military families need to say NO to being used and abused by this admin...
It's surprising so few FReepers understand that the pension crisis in this country is with Defined Benefit Pensions not 401K's. I think the debate should be what is the % the govt contributes to these fine men and women's accounts.
A 401K is the most liberating type of pension there is. It travels with the individual and can not be arbitrarily reduced by the employer/govt. OTOH, social security benefits will be changed by the govt.
Six Days in May.
“I understand the outrage at singling the military out, while continuing to pour billions for (much) less worthy folk in the rat hole...however, I’m fairly certain the income from a 401K, conservatively invested, after 20 years can exceed a 1/2 pay pension.”
You’re missing something—currently the military retirement annuity is based on a Principal which never decreases; a 401k annuity decreases the Principal. There really is no comparison here.
Obama knows it has been his attention to his promise to “fundamentally change America” and I cannot think of a single policy he has supported -nor law he has signed proudly to suggest he is anything but an ENEMY of Our Country And to accomplish his goal he must divide America, he must destroy our Patriotism— and must necessarily destroy our Military. He has done more HARM to America via his policy and his support
than any foreign Army has ever been allowed. And I am reminded of Abe Lincolns address to the Young Mens’ Lyceum
that we would live through all time as Freemen or die by suicide. America may have been beguiled by the Beguiler to accept the hemlock but I shall have no part in helping another drink it.
That truck driver making $200K a year is still costing less than the private in the Army who used to drive the truck. The difference is that the driver gets much of the cost directly, while the private costs in training, benefits, housing, etc.
The truck driver will be done in a few years, and then be gone. He will not cost anything more the day he stops working. The private will be a long term cost.
Similar thing in business. You hire contractors to do what you used to do in house, because it cost much less in the long term. My old job hired a bunch of contract engineers to do a project, and paid them $150K for a year. That is much less than they would have paid a full time engineer to work for the company for 5 to 7 years at $60K.
“There are some prominent families that have sent their sons to war; there are not many.”
I don’t meet them. Anyway, how many of these wealthy kids want to enroll in college to study Criminal Justice when they come home?
Bottom line here, I am talking about the majority of veterans, not the demographic exceptions
“I don’t know the exact numbers, but, the power of compound interest is a mighty thing...”
...said the old hedge-fund manager to the young soldier”.
Totally disagree, wmfights.
These pensions are not "benefits." They are deferred pay. As such, the government has an obligation to pay up.
The military is the one group mentioned in the Constitution that should be provided for. The military have received real compensation since Washington gave land grants to veterans for services rendered, NOT as a "benefit" but as a recognition that the pittance they received while fighting was nothing compared to the priceless labor performed.
This is COMPENSATION, deferred pay, and it shouldn't be lessened a single penny by market forces.
Any plan must include the government GUARANTEEING a certain payment per month despite the size of any 401k.
I have no doubt you are correct. The military represents everything he doesn't have character, strength, leadership, competence and values.
However, the defined benefit pension is a dinosaur. It is going extinct. This type of pension requires a steady growth in market share to pay for the ever increasing benefits that need to be paid out. A 401K is controlled by the individual is owned by the individual and once the contributions are made by the employer into it the employer can no longer touch the money or affect the benefits.
Under the current system a member has to become "vested" in order to receive benefits. If they don't fulfill those requirements they get nothing. However, with a 401K all monies put into that account travel with the individual. I think the latter system is more equitable especially for a combat vet that leaves the service early.
Totally disagree, wmfights.
These pensions are not "benefits." They are deferred pay. As such, the government has an obligation to pay up.
The military is the one group mentioned in the Constitution that should be provided for. The military have received real compensation since Washington gave land grants to veterans for services rendered, NOT as a "benefit" but as a recognition that the pittance they received while fighting was nothing compared to the priceless labor performed.
This is COMPENSATION, deferred pay, and it shouldn't be lessened a single penny by market forces.
Any plan must include the government GUARANTEEING a certain payment per month despite the size of any 401k. ALL money in the 401k to reasonably reach that level, premised on a lousy low-performing market, MUST be paid by the U.S. and not by the military member.
“Which is why we now use mercs for many roles.”
Countries and empires in decline have hired merceneries to do their fighting throughout human history.
start by eliminating Congressional pensions....
That’s interesting, I found that Criminal Justice was one of the more popular academic concentrations among ROTC students and returning soldiers. Typically, the more math involved (Biology, Physics, Finance, Chemistry, Statistics, etc.) the less inclined our cadets and veterans were to concentrate in it. This corresponded to the student body in general, with specific demographic exceptions.
Obamas job is to gut everything.
B U M P
If I recall correctly, there was a point back in early 2000 timeframe where they opened up the TSP for military folks, but it was pretty restrictive and I was on my to retirement, so didn't do anything with it.
Personally, I'd rather see the military folks get about a 14-16% raise, get expert financial counseling/planning and then be able to manage their retirement planning without the gov't dictating when and how much they're going to get.
Oh, and no raising all of the damn prices on base, dental premiums, uniform costs, etc. just like you bastards do everytime the military folks get a raise. You take it right back.
But, until the effin' PARASITES who feed off the host are eradicated, FUBO and all you other bastards who propose the military get their heads handed to them!
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