Dempsey complicit in destroying the military
Chief Tango sends us a link to Stars & Stripes which reports that Marty Dempsey is doing his damnedest to make sure that military service costs service members more than it’s worth;
He called the current retirement system unsustainable.
“Manpower costs are becoming overwhelming,” he said. “They will overwhelm modernization and training if we are not careful.”
The general said he doesn’t want to be known for “taking a machete” to servicemembers’ paychecks, but, “I don’t want you being the most well-compensated military on the planet that doesn’t train,” referring to other possible cost saving measures.
If you are a pilot, you join the Air Force to fly, he said. “And if I got to park that [plane] … how long are you going to hang around?”
Well, if there’s no one around to park that plane, how is that going make us ready, Marty?
So, Marty’s solution is to make retirement at 30 years with mandatory sign off at 40 years. And he wants to make the Thrift Savings Plan the retirement vehicle. Currently, the services don’t match TSP contributions, so basically troops will be funding their own retirements. And, thinking about the debate to privatize Social Security, which is essentially what Marty wants by forcing the troops to invest their retirement money in markets (which I don’t think is a bad idea, but hold on…), why are the same people who complained about Bush’s plan so willing to foist essentially the same thing on members of the military?
“Military compensation is the primary tool by which we induce people to serve in an all-volunteer force,” he said. “So any changes should be made based on the best available evidence of how it will affect the force.”
Yeah, right, like all of the other crap they’ve been forcing down the throats of the troops in the past few years. The only thing that matters to this crowd is how it will affect their next OER and how pleased their political masters will be when they turn the military into a useless tool which charges into the slaughter for them.
All of the training funds in the world won’t help a hollow force. And we’ve already seen that training, along with personnel costs were the first cuts before they even mentioned cutting the flag officer billets and cutting their staffs. So don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining, Marty.
Category: Big Army
General Martin Dempsey: Proof that the Peter Principle is in full effect….
And he wants to make the Thrift Savings Plan the retirement vehicle. Currently, the services don’t match TSP contributions, so basically troops will be funding their own retirements.
And that’s fine. IF they are paying civilian competitive salaries.
a useless tool
You mean like the current CIC?
Fuck you, Martin Dempsey, you spineless ass-licking toadie. As lousy as the senior leadership was at MNF-I back in 2006, I’m glad I did not have to serve under you at MNSTC-I…
@2, I am sure Dempseys TSP is doing quite well with Government matching… you have to wonder does he even realize troops do not get that, or does he just not give a shit that they do not? I am leaning more towards the latter now.
Then they want to cut the real benefits the retirees do get. So you pay for your own retirment plan and get shafted even more on any other benefits like medical.
Marty is so awesome, he got confirmed unanimously by the Senate on 1 Aug for another 2 yr term as BO’s fluffer…er I mean chairman.
Back when they thought that 40% retirement (REDUX) at 20 years AFS was a great idea, affected service members were leaving in droves. It got so bad that they scraped the idea, and gave us a choice. The robust civilian style retirement that they’re floating around? Even if its better than what they’ll find in most civilian employment, it’ll pale in comparison to REDUX.
If REDUX resulted in a serious amounts of people saying “no” to military service, what makes them think that their “bright idea” retirement package will?
Who’s going to want to remain mobilization assets for life for a reduced retirement package like that? None of those guys did a mass survey of the troops… they figured that quantitative analysis models and equations would accurately predict what we’d do.
The cold hard reality is that if they go ahead and put their “bright ideas” into action, they’re going to have to bring back the draft.
The Dumpster’s legacy is assured. At his inevitable retirement or his funeral, whichver comes first–and I don’t care which does– he will have the fellow stars and a few pols present (but not his master who will be playing golf or speaking to an Ivy League audience at $100,000 for the 20 minute yap. And that’s it.
I’m thinking of sending Dumpster a doggie bowl with his name on it. Do you think he’ll actually get it?
Oh, heck, why not just get rid of the military altogether? It’s peacetime, right? We don’t need no soldiers no more. They just use up money that could be spent on guns and ammo.
General “Dumbsey” strikes again.
More proof that when you get to that level you can sell out or you can lead. Dempsey sold out out. What does he give a crap about? He’s going to get his retirement, plus probably a nice fat civilian job at some defense contractor or in the next Democrat administration.
This is the kind of a** kissing officer this administration just loves. Dumpster gives Bam plausible deniability as they both continue to screw over the troops.
They’re already reducing troop strength, sacrificing training and readiness for those that are left and encouraging others to not re enlist through their goofy ass social engineering. Why not piss off the tiny percentage who are left and those who might want to volunteer by jacking them around on their benefits.
This guy is f***ing brilliant.
I’d like to ask Dumpsey just what it feels like when one sells their Soul like he did!!
This is the same idiot who is for a 1% raise over a 1.8% raise. Wow…what a great boss to work for!
Fucking over the troops to make some imaginary budget numbers work in a hypothetical scenario that might possibly happen in 2043…
When The Burning Times come, watching the attempts at survival by The Perfumed Princes of Potomacland will be comedy gold.
Oh, sure. It makes so much sense to cut benefits to those who have earned them. Give them to freeloaders instead – you know, those folks who have contributed nothing of value to society.
Reward the unproductive while punishing the productive. Rinse, repeat.
Are all those folks suicidal? They seem to have no interest in the survival of this nation.
I have 10 years before my Reserve Retirement check kicks in at age 60.
I wonder if I’ll even see a penny of it.
Same thing with Social Security.
/*weeps*
Social security has a constituency of everybody, military benefits have a constituency of us and there are more of everybody than there are of us which is why our political bosses will cut our benefits and never Social Security.
Anyway, issues like this are why I have a jaundiced view of “thank you for your service”. It’ doesn’t involve any actual sacrifice and politicians are smart enough to see how the preferences of the largest part of the population lie with regards to the “gimme stuff” game.
Only E9s are currently able to stay in until. That means 99% of enlisted soldiers will never be eligible for retirement.
Once again, one of the highest paid soldiers in history campaigning to screw the rest of the force. What was that first Army Value again? Oh yeah, Loyalty.
Jonn you spelled “responsible” wrong. Headline should read “Dempsy responsible for destroying military”. Maybe he’ll visit this site and tell us to “prove it”
But Dempsey assured the Yokota airmen that personnel serving today won’t be negatively affected by any potential retirement changes.
“I’m talking to a group of individuals who will not be affected by that,” he told them. “…if someone came into the service with an expectation, a commitment to a particular retirement program, that should be honored.”
Whatever changes are made, today’s servicemembers will still be able to retire at 20 years, Dempsey said, but noted that not many servicemembers stay in uniform that long.
Based on trends, only about 17 percent of servicemembers stay in for 20 years, he said.
While those currently serving will still have the option of retirement at 20 years, the new enlistees could see retirement programs with benefits after 10, 20 or 30 years of service, he said.
“We want to make it so individuals have more choice at the front end,” he said. “If you are a young fellow you might be able to say I would like that program better than the one I’ve got.”
The issues are truly beyond Dempsey’s ability to comprehend. Likewise, the issues are beyond most FOGO because no one in DoD is willing to consider new solutions. So, true to form, Dempsey is spending the late summer (townhall season for Congresscritters) making the pitch for more dollars.
If the old personnel system is unsustainable, it won’t be sustained. It can be changed or it can crash. Asking for more dollars that are not there won’t help.
Nationalizing everyone’s savings accounts, 401K and TSP (this is a real suggestion, btw) won’t help.
The BRAC did next to nothing.
Abandoning billions in equipment in A-stan and Iraq won’t help.
But Dempsey, like every CJCS before him, holds out his beret like some pauper. That he’s mentally impoverished is for sure.
From time to time, beginning with the war that formed our nation, Veterans have taken to the streets. I now understand why, better than I ever did before.
Before I signed up, I had a nice $10/hr job that let me live comfortably and pay my bills. After joining, as a lowly E-2 in BCT, my dad had to fight to keep me from going to collections. Car payment, credit card payment, student loan payment, and rent for my little apartment were too much for E-2 pay. I was earning less in the Army than even Minimum Wage! He ended up having to sell the car and sign the paperwork to break the lease on the apartment so I didn’t have my credit ruined while in BCT/AIT.
So, since lower enlisted are paid dick, and face about five years until they get to NCO pay rates, how are they supposed to save for retirement? What about if they are married?
That’s the problem when you let someone who makes at least $143k per year decide how people who make $28k per year should save for retirement.
Funny this jackass says that. I did some research on defense costs a few months back. If you took the purchase price of the Navy and Marine Corps F-18 Hornets alone ( not the operational and repair costs) you could “retire” 600,000 service members at the age of 40 and pay them 3,000 a month for the rest of their lives ( about 35 years).
When a service member gets done his or her first hitch they need a better incentive to stay in then this asshole is trying to offload. A lot of these veterans are perfectly capable of getting out and working for themselves getting a new trade, a degree or starting a business. It’s only the security of a fairy decent pension and health plan that keeps then in. Take that away and there’s no way that ol’ Sammy Serviceman is going to spend 30 years humping a ruck, fixing complex helos or running a 300 man unit when his pension is going to be less then social security.
I like the 30/40 year retirement idea, so long as it didn’t apply to combat arms and any physically strenuous combat support mos. Seriously, a finance clerk shouldn’t be able to retire at 20 years and 50% pay the same way a grunt can.
@7-IF they bury Martin Dumbass in Arlington, do you have any idea what the penalty for pissing on a grave in a national cemetery is?
Don’t give a centimeter. Don’t concede that anything might be minimally acceptable. And why? Because no one is negotiating with anyone on this, least of all with those directly affected. It is a dictate–so screw ’em.
So the government wants service members to finance their own retirement while other government employees and politicians get fully paid five star Cadillac plans. It makes one think that there are those in government who really are trying hard to destroy our military.
@25.
Good point.
Give combat veterans the same retirement as congress has!
UNRELATED STORY:
Couldn’t find the article online, but in today’s Washington Times (page 3 of the POLITICS section), it says one of two V-22’s assigned to HMX-1 was dispatched on its first Presidential support mission last weekend. Instead of whisking Barry and his family away to their latest 1-week vacation in Chilmark, (Martha’s Vineyard) MA, the V-22 and its crew were dispatched to provide airlift for the Obama’s dog, “Bo”, who was following in trace as it seems – to join up with the rest of the family. The Marine V-22 crew landed at the White House, picked up the dog, and flew it to Massachusetts.
Fuggin’ unbelievable.
I stand corrected…
The dog was transported on the V-22 as part of the “advance party”, arriving before the rest of the family.
Actually, Beretverde – the military retirement package is a bit more generous than that Members of Congress get.
Since 1980, military personnel get a pension calculated at 2.5% of high-3 average salary per year of service. Pension starts immediately on retirement.
In comparison, Members of Congress who were first elected since 1984 get 1.7% of high-3 average salary for each of the first 20 years of service, plus 1% per year for each year of service above 20. That pension also doesn’t start immediately unless the Member is 62 years old or older (it can start earlier, but there are reductions for each year below age 62, and can’t start before age 50 except for disability).
A Congressional pension can be earned with less service, but it won’t be huge under those circumstances.
They also pay for their health insurance, just like any other Federal employee.
http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/retirement.pdf
There’s one helluva lot about which to criticize Congress, but getting a “better pension than the military” isn’t really one of those things. A Member of Congress who serves in Congress for 20 years gets about the same pension as an O6 who retires after 22 years of service.
“A Member of Congress who serves in Congress for 20 years gets about the same pension as an O6 who retires after 22 years of service.”
The O6 doesn’t get the “speaking honoraria” (aka “legalized bribery”), opportunities for sweetheart insider trading, et cetera…
So, with this new retirement plan Marty’s pushing, all the stars and bars don’t have to worry about their cush pensions blowing away, and the rest of us schmoes are left playing the market? (Don’t try to tell me about the G Fund, that’s getting raided to patch the budget now that they’ve dried up Social Security.) I’m 27, I never expected to see a dime of Social Security. I thought that if I served my country, I might be able to earn something that would go towards replacing that income. Was I mistaken? If my only retirement option is a goddamned IRA, that I could have gotten working anywhere(likely with matching contribution), WTF am I still doing in the military?
Does anyone know anybody that’s paying to hack the chinese and WON’T fuck me in the ass?
Romans 1:18-32
Pray for America…
Matching tsp up to 10 percent SELL all the old outdated surplus to our allies, get rid of the pork in Washington, and allow for better training opportunities for service members so they can have a good career when they get out. Dammit!
BOHICA…
@33…thanks for the info.
Poobah: true, but irrelevant. Insider trading and “speaking engagements” are outside income, irrespective of pension.
Frankly, a better comparison (in terms of numbers and level of responsibility) is Congress and FOs/GOs. Many of the latter do a fair amount of public speaking after retirement. And many also end up with “very nice” employment and investment opportunities afterwards.
I’ll go out on a limb here (I haven’t researched the full numbers) and say that a retired active FO/GO today usually has a better pension than a Member of Congress. A Member would have to serve 36 years or longer – with 20 of those years as a Member of Congress – to get even 50% of their salary as a pension; their salary is not that much higher than a FO/GO’s to begin with. In contrast, very few GOs retire with less than 30 years service – and thus 75% or more of their salary as a pension.
Again: there’s much for which Congress deserves criticism. But having a “princely” retirement system isn’t one of them. It’s good, but it’s hardly the best out there when talking pensions.
This is my leadership…I weep for the future. Full of complicit morons who piss on their own.
I have been prepping for retirement since I made the decision to become a careerist. Roth IRAs, investments, etc. A retirement is like a table, the more legs the more stable it is. BUT, making the Soldiers, Sailors Arimen and Marines of the future sacrifice to pay for the fiscal sins of the past is a horrid, putrid idea to even suggest. Fuck you Marty…