Posted on 01/06/2014 4:32:25 PM PST by SkyPilot
Led by Paul Ryan and Patty Murray but abetted by Barack Obama, Congress recently gambled with our nation’s future for an extremely modest short-term gain.
In doing so, it was given aid and comfort by knowledge-starved pundits, axe-grinding editorial boards, and self-anointed armchair analysts everywhere, as it left the military and veteran community standing with their jaws on the ground in despairing disbelief. Exploiting pressure to strike a budget compromise, Ryan and Murray entered into an unholy alliance to reduce veteran pensions – including those already vested under previous covenants – by an average of $84,000 to $120,000.
They obscured this act, as often happens when attempting to mislead, by employing complex-sounding budget doublespeak to minimize the magnitude of the associated moral breach as well as the consequences to veterans and families. In a way, this debacle can be seen as part of our nation’s continual inability to comprehend and bear the costs of being a global superpower with quasi-imperial interests secured by less than one-half of one percent of its population. But the particulars in this case suggest something more disturbing lurking behind the standard wallet-grabbing Congressional milieu: a startling absence of strategic deliberation. When such a deficit impairs elected leaders responsible for national security, potentially grave consequences attend.
Good strategists always ask of any potential course of action two key questions. First, what will this do for us? And second, what will this do to us? Given the dearth of statesmanly impulse at the national level in modern America, it is perhaps unsurprising that in crafting the recent budget, Paul Ryan and Patty Murray asked only the former question, leaving the latter for others to worry about.
The provision at issue retroactively renegotiated the deferred compensation of more than two million military veterans...
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
An E-6, probably the most common retiree, makes around $1,500 a month before taxes. Do the math. Is there a million dollars there?
With cola’s and med benefits, of course there is.
Now where do you think that money comes from?
Most likely, like most folks who get a check from government the answer is “i don’t care as long as it keeps coming”.
So you’re “fiscal only” and damn the troops conservative? I’ve met your kind before, both here and in real life. I have no use for you people. Crawl back to where you came from. Next war, I’ll be pinging you to enlist, got it?
You do know that those “med benefits” were supposed to be free and are now just a bad insurance policy that the retiree has to pay for, like Obamacare, right? And the COLAs are usually around 1%? There is no million dollars there unless the individual lives to be 245 years old, if then...
The article is not clear on the matter of retired pay.
The figure of $120,000 is for the entire lifetime payout, not per year.
No one is becoming a millionaire on US Military retirement benefits. I guess most of us are thousandaires, though.
“The figure of $120,000 is for the entire lifetime payout, not per year.”
Yes, so if it were a 5% reduction that translates to a $2.4M retirement package.
“So you’re “fiscal only” and damn the troops conservative?”
No, I’m an American, and a veteran. Is that ok with you?
“You do know that those “med benefits” were supposed to be free and are now just a bad insurance policy that the retiree has to pay for”
You do know that what you pay for your medical as a retiree is a mere small fraction of what other Americans pay for their insurance, don’t you?
You will still bitch until someone takes care of every little thing, won’t you?
We’ve already funded the retirement of retirees. The military may have the only pension fund that has been fully funded with no sign of going in the black. And while I would cheerfully still be in the military, that wasn’t an option - by law.
Military retirement is a deferred payment plan. And since relatively few stay in 20+ years, it is cheap - a pension fund where only those staying in for 20 years or more collect, and where the duty is such that people rarely stay in that long.
And the bottom line is that it was fully funded during the time we were in.
Now Congress wants to raid the pension fund. By cutting payments, it can say the fund is overfunded, and transfer money from that account into current spending - on tax rebates to illegals who didn’t pay taxes, or Obama phones, or the Dept of Education, or anything else that buys votes.
Maybe you don’t think that is corrupt. I do. If an “evil corporation” did that, the CEO would go to jail. Military pensions have been fully funded. Period. This is Congress raiding it, so they can spend that $600 million each year on Hispanic voters, or on welfare moms.
And anyone in the military needs to look at what Congress is doing to current retirees, even when there is no shortfall, and learn how much modern Americans - including a lot of Freepers, it seems - value their service. I used to strongly recommend young people consider the military as an option. No longer. My 16 year old daughter is the only family member without military service. Recruiters ought to LOVE me and my family. But no more...
Heck! If the people on FreeRepublic don’t care, who will?
For a 2.4 million total retirement package, I’ll have to live until I’m 98. And I’m one of the highest paid military retirees around.
Now, explain what good things the Congress is going to do with this $600 Million each year. Cut the deficit? Reduce taxes? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This has one function, and one only - to punish those the Democrats dislike, and reward those they do. And the idiots in the GOP think it is swell...:>(
An enlisted service member or even an officer may be pulling 18-20 hour days until further notice. There is no overtime, no maximim hoursd or even at times meals. Twenty years active duty in actual time worked would likely average out to 30 plus years in civilian federal job.
Yet our so called budget balancing LIBERAL TWITs in the senate in both parties choose to take from those who have the least and do the most for our nation in exchange for for their own stinking political gain. Those harmed in service to the United States are owed an moral obligation as do they the ones who have already put in "CONTRACTED" obligation and are still actual members of the armed forces which is something you don't see to realize. Fact: A retiree in the armed forces unlike any other federal employee is subject to mandatory involuntary recall at any time after said retirement.
There are dozens of alphabet federal agencies needing to be closed down entirealy that serve no Constrirurional function. Have they strarted there first? No!!! The Congressional retirement system needs to be ended and term limits put into place. None of this is happening. Not one part of it. Yet you think we should give Schmuck Ryan his friend across the asile an attaboy for taking away from those who have given this nation the most? Paul Ryan is a disgrace to congress along with Murray and the other likes of them.
I'm not a military retiree. But I'm DS&T of seeing our military destroyed by limp wristed Flowers who are destroying both armed forces and our nation by defunding Constitutional functions and increasing at the same time Unconstitutional offices and programs.
Priorities???? What Priorities? You call cutting armed fores pay and benefits the least in the federal system a necessary & needed priority? Hell man it's been cut year after year since 1989. Remember persons with 16 years vested military service being booted out in the mid 1990's? Less persons doing more. Is that cutting not deep enough for you yet? Let's see some real cuts elsewhere first including Ryan and Murray's own wages and perks. Hypocrites they all are.
“The military may have the only pension fund that has been fully funded with no sign of going in the black. And while I would cheerfully still be in the military, that wasn’t an option - by law.”
It was “funded” with non-negotiable bonds which is another way of saying “pay later”
Now we have to pay and we don’t have the money.
So what do we do?
If the story is correct, we’re talking about multi-million dollar retirement packages funded by taxpayers. We can’t afford to pay.
It’s not anything but fact. Right now we are pretending to afford it through borrowing, but we won’t be able to do that forever.
So again, I ask, what do we do?
“BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Laugh at the article. They make the claim that a lifetime cost to an individual will be $120k in lost pension payments.
I picked a 5% figure (but I don’t think it’s that high, but I don’t know for sure what it is)
That means the lifetime payout must be $2.4M for the math to work out. That seems a bit excessive, and apparently you agree.
“It was “funded” with non-negotiable bonds which is another way of saying “pay later””
IOW, the US Government issued bonds and promised to pay them. Has the US Government announced it is defaulting on the debt it owes? I think not. The only ‘default’ is cutting the size of the pension fund, which then allows the US government to transfer the money into current operations.
I have no idea where you came up with $2.4 million, other than pulling it out of your butt. I had higher rank and more years in than the vast majority of retirees, but I’d have to live to 98 to get $2.4 million in retirement.
And yes, by the time I hit 15 years, the retirement was a big part of why I stayed in. Otherwise I’d have gotten out so I could make more money as a civilian.
Please explain the good things Congress is going to do with these ‘savings’. PLEASE. Otherwise, shut up!
“I picked a 5% figure”
IOW, you pulled it out of your butt.
“IOW, you pulled it out of your butt.”
I picked a figure I knew was high so the numbers would be lower, because I knew they’d show a multi-million retirement package, because that is in fact the equivalent for most federal, military, state and municipal pensions.
You don’t have to believe it. Most people are financially illiterate or there would have already been a revolt of things like this that caused us to have 17+Trillion debt, and why our unfunded liabilities are pushing $100Trillion.
“the retirement was a big part of why I stayed in”
That’s the problem. Too many people serve their country for what it does for them.
If we had a vibrant private sector we could, perhaps, pay “selfless” patriots like you everything they want.
But we don’t. And we can’t.
Get mad at me all you want. It changes nothing. We’re broke.
“Too many people serve their country for what it does for them.”
A man who doesn’t look at what happens to his family is a man who isn’t worth squat. Yes, I looked at the total cost/benefit, including the possibility of retirement - assuming I lived that long. My last combat tour was at 49 - the age my Dad died in Vietnam. Like him, I had the option of retiring instead of going into combat, and this self-serving greedy bastard WENT, like my Dad before me. Unlike my Dad, I also came home!
“It changes nothing. We’re broke.”
No, we are not. We are spending money on things like Obamaphones, or tax rebates for people who never paid taxes. We are giving endless jobless benefits. We are shelling out uncounted billions in disability fraud. We gave vastly more money to GM in the bailout, supported by the GOP & Democrats alike, then we will ‘save’ by cutting the retirement benefits of the military. But then, government, democrats and the GOP-E like the UAW, and hate the military. As do some Freepers.
I’m still waiting to hear what good things you think Congress will do with this $600 million/year ‘savings’...
So enlighten us then. Do you work for free? I bet you Ryan and Murray believe they earn every darn cent and perk they get plus more. Now what do they risk personally? Nothing but perhaps returning to heaven forbid a corporate job requiring work.
Again those serving in the military especially in the enlisted ranks do so at a far less wages per hours worked than any civilian government employee. Name me even one federal agency that has been cut to anywhere near the extent the military has in active service has been cut since 1989. Name me even one agency that has been cut. It takes what twenty years vested time to draw retirement in the armed services? Some civilian jobs offer better. Or again I ask you are those in the military who retired are they actually retired? NO! Can the EPA for example by federal law call back it's retirees on an involuntary basis? No! No existing federal agency can do that.
When an armed forces member retires they have choice A or B. Choice A is to accept retirement under condition of a reservist status. Choice B is to simply get out with no compensation. How many federal workers do you see putting in twenty years with no compensation to follow?
If you start removing what little incentive that is left to remain in the armed forces for twenty years you destroy an essential part of military readiness. NCO's are a must for the services to function effectively. They have the knowledge and experience to not only do needed task but to train and lead others as well. This isn't corporate America where you can hire off the streets for those skills.
You want to talk cost? Jimmy Carter was paying $18K plus next rank reenlistment bonuses. That was just to keep a warm body there. Why? Because conditions and pay got so bad even lifers were leaving. It hurt the services substantially.
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