Obama opposes larger pay raise for troops
While the House Armed Services Committee, chaired by Ike Skelton, passed a 1.9% pay raise for the troops this year, the White House supports a smaller pat raise according to Government Executive.com;
“The administration values the service members of the U.S. Armed Forces and believes that the president’s proposed 1.4 percent pay increase is appropriate in light of other benefits and other forms of compensation, is targeted to avoid hindering the department’s ability to focus on recruiting or retaining for key skills, and will ensure the availability of financial resources needed to sustain our combat power at a time of war,” the White House stated.
I think I said before the election that the first thing to suffer under Democrats will be the troops’ and retirees’ pay and benefits.
Now Democrats were fond of calling reductions in spending increases a “cut” during the Bush years. So can we call this a cut in the troops’ pay?
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Military issues
Gotta have that money reserved for payoffs to cronies to get some of his agenda passed, I guess.
So will they stop increasing payments to contractors like KBR that hook up faulty wiring in shower trailers that has gotten Soldiers and Marines killed?
Fuck these jokers.
Well, Casey, it depends if their contract is coming up for renewal, or not. While I won’t say any specific contractor names, I do know that it doesn’t matter which contractor you want to list, they are all doing the least they have to do under their contract. That’s business when you are dealing with the gummint. It’s happened before and will happen again. Believe it, or not, I turned down working for a contractor in the past. Probably because I still had memories of the ones I saw while I was in.
Well, you already called it Jummy Carter’s second term. Too bad he doesn’t have a canal to give away.
Military Family Support: $8.8 billion in funding (a 3% increase).
Defense Department Medical Program: $30.9 bilion (5.8% increase).
Military Child Care Service Availability: $1.36 billion. This number is up $87 million.
Counseling and Assistance Services: $1.9 billion to expand availability, up $37 million.
Spouse Career and Education Programs: $84 million to programs, tuition assistance and internship programs. This is up $12 million.
Oh yeah, and for us medically retired (Chapter 61) veterans who wanted to do 20 years (actually 30 years) but were put out due to injuries, we will get concurrent receipt.
I’m all for pay raises for the troops, believe me, but I don’t think this is as horrible as it might seem. In fact, I’d say that this pay increase is actually more beneficial than “raises” in prior years. The nominal increase should not be as important as the “real” increase–the nominal minus inflation. Considering there was negative inflation (deflation) of about -0.5%, in 2009, the real increase is about 2% under Obama’s proposal and about 2.5% under the HASC’s. Compare that to the increase in 2007 Bush proposal of 3% (cited in the Army Times article below) when inflation was about 3.5% in 2006, meaning the real increase was actually negative. The military, in real terms, actually received a pay cut.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/05/military_payhike_whitehouse_070516/
I’m not a huge Obama fan and I certainly wasn’t a Bush fan, but numbers aren’t always what they seem.