Panetta recommends pay cuts for troops
On his way out the door, Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta takes a parting shot at the troops by recommending pay cuts, says CNN;
Panetta will recommend to Congress that military salaries be limited to a 1% increase in 2014. The Pentagon has calculated that the Labor Department’s 2014 Employment Cost Index is expected to be above 1% but wants to still cut back on pay because of “budget uncertainties,” a department official told CNN. In 2013, a 1.7% increase was approved, based on the index, which has been the basis for military pay for the last several years.
Three Pentagon officials have confirmed details of the plan to CNN. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have also agreed to Panetta’s proposed pay plan. Final approval for the pay would come from Congress in the form of the 2014 budget.
Notice that the Joint Chiefs have signed on to the plot, too. This from the guy who used to spend $36,000 every weekend to spend it with his family while the people he commanded were stuck in a faraway shit hole and wouldn’t see their families for months at a time. Now he’s suddenly worried about defense spending.
Of course, it could be a ploy to make Hagel look good when he comes in and says something different. But, like I said when Panetta took the job two years ago, he was nothing but a political hatchet man for the Administration. It took them two years of “insider attacks” to finally decide to let the troops arm themselves in a war zone, and now he wants to cut their pay.
I almost typed a bunch of shit that would have had the Secret Service pounding on my door, so I’d better stop here.
Thanks to ROS for getting my blood pressure up this morning with her link.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Military issues
Feb. 1967, I went to talk to the recruiter about the Navy. Asked what the pay was when he finally stopped the sales pitch. He cleared his throat, said it wasn’t very much money: $97.00 per month for an E-1.
I said I’d take the job and signed up.
@42=I saw that too. Cut everyboy’d pay to pay for benefits of “spouses” that federal law doesn’t even recognize. And DADT repeal was just about allowing all people to serve “honorably” My personal retirement countdown began 1 Jan 2013.
Looks like I should start selling all my crap just to find a dirt cheap apartment closer to base, so I can ride a bicycle back and forth to work just to be able to eat. I wonder how that will effect the privatized housing and all single NCOs who live off base here? New Jersey isn’t cheap.
Do you all know the difference between bacon and pancetta?
Bacon is smoked. Pancetta isn’t. So that works out to Secy. Pancetta is trying to ‘smoke’ the military as the door closes behind him.
@SFC Holland: I’ve never been a soldier and I’m a pretty ‘left’-leaning person, but I find this sort of thing inexcusable. In my opinion it’s a combination of laziness and politics and since I doubt this was done by decree, and rather by budgetary committee, I think the people responsible should be held in utter contempt.
If someone can’t find that extra 0.7% of personnel costs within the massive barrel of contractor add-on fees, missed deliverables and better ideas, they’re not doing a good job. And the politics enters when someone says, “Let’s cut XYZ”, and the politican or General in charge of those programs says, “Oh, not THOSE. They’re important. Cut somewhere else.”
Sadly, the enlisted types that will face the worst of this don’t have an advocate for them in that process. It sucks. Panetta should be that advocate. Maybe Hegel, other issues aside, will be better.
PFC (E-2) $417 a month. I was contract for having two years of college! Of course a beer at the e-club was $.75 and a pack of smokes at the PX was $1.75…I think. Rollin’ in doug!?!:)
He’s effectively weakening the force. At this rate, I don’t see any incentives for junior enlisted to reenlist. We keep on having people in positions of power that don’t seem to understand that the military isn’t something you can crack into for funding and act as if we’ll always be ready. We’re just loosening the belt and waiting for the next time we’re caught with our pants down. Funny how history repeats itself.
Well, now we know how Panetta intends to reimburse DoD for the cost of his weekly flights to his home. He could have simply mandated a single fatigue/combat uniform and use of tents to house trainees and he’d’ve saved several hundred million over 2 years.
Oh well. Must be nice to be free from accountability, or is the OIG and the US Attorney going to visit him after he leaves?
#55 Anon,
Hegel, as SecDef??
Good G-d, man, he’s the most incompetent thing to crawl down the sidewalk since I-don’t-know-when. If you’ve listened to any of his hearings, he’s worse then useless. Waffling, stonewalling, shifting positions, ummm’ing, memory lapses. I keep expecting to hear, “It all depends on what the definition of is, is”, to come out of his mouth.
And just today I heard that he’s been working for a company with foreign ties and funds, and he refuses to give up the information as to who’s paying him. Real trustworthy. Can you say, “conflict of interest”? I knew you could.
There are SO many things wrong with upChuck Hegel, it’s a wonder Obaomao is still standing by him for SecDef instead of cutting him loose. But what can you expect from the Marxist-in-Chief who’s doing his best to bring down the country around those massive Dumbo ears??
To echo 2/17 Air Cav, “Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad Damit.”
Well, this news item should come as no surprise, in view of everything else going on:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/06/16873226-navy-to-pull-aircraft-carrier-from-persian-gulf-over-budget-worries?lite
I sincerely hope that the people we have over there are not left high and dry by this — what was that word? sequestration? Yes, that was it!
Man, I got $87.50 a month back in 12/66 as a PVT E-2!
This was just posted on FoxNews : http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/07/panetta-sounds-dire-warning-on-defense-cuts-during-libya-hearing/
According to SecDef: “This budget uncertainty could prompt the most significant … military readiness crisis in more than a decade,” and “one of the greatest security risks we are now facing.”
Yet he is recomending pay cuts for Troops…..
-Ish