washington scene
Over the summer, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel directed Pentagon planners to develop “a menu of [cut] options” for three different budget scenarios in the recent Strategic Choices and Management Review:
1. Palatable (but leaving a bad taste): the president’s FY 2014 budget submission of $150 billion over 10 years;
2. Breaking (as in breaking readiness): sequestration-level cuts of $500 billion over 10 years; and
3. Bending: an in-between scenario with cuts of $250 billion over 10 years. Beyond hardware options (cutting up to five Air Force tactical squadrons, reducing C-130s, retiring bombers, and potentially reducing the number of carrier strike groups from 11 to eight), Hagel said the Pentagon “has no choice but to consider compensation changes of greater magnitude for military and civilian personnel.” Measures planners are contemplating include (but are not limited to):
■ cutting forces by up to 202,000 active and reserve-component troops;
■ pushing military retirees to use private-sector health care insurance;
■ cutting basic allowances for housing;
■ reducing overseas COLAs;
■ capping military and civilian pay raises;
■ eliminating civilian pensions for retired military personnel serving in the federal service; and
■ ending commissary subsidies.
While debt reduction is a national priority, the Pentagon has been levied with a disproportional share of this burden. Servicemembers and their families already have sacrificed more for their country than any other segment of Americans.
House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) said, “We cannot keep asking the military to perform mission after mission with sequestration and military cuts hanging over their heads.”
MOAA couldn’t agree more. It is time for Congress to put partisan politics aside and develop an alternative debt-reduction package that more fairly balances required sacrifices and avoids disproportional penalties for servicemembers and retirees and their families.
Retirement Study Begins
The president issues his instructions for the commission.
President Barack Obama issued instructions Sept. 12 to the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission — created to jump-start efforts to overhaul the current military pay and benefits system.
In the FY 2013 Defense Authorization Act, Congress established the commission and mandated the president establish principles to guide the nine-member commission in its work.
In his letter to Congress, the president said the commission would not alter the current retirement system for those already serving, retired, or in the process of retiring. Along with a review of military compensation, the president asked that the commission look at the “interrelationship of the military’s current promotion system … as well as associated force-shaping tools.” The president said the commission must review “the full breadth of the systems,” including health care, military family support, and any federal programs that could influence the decision of current or future servicemembers to stay in uniform or leave the service.
34 MILITARY OFFICER NOVEMBER 2013
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