Source: Debt Commission Fights Over Freezing Military Pay, Slashing Benefits

Freezing military pay and making military families pay for their health care. Boy, there's an issue that will play well in November.

If you want to see accessions (succcessful military recruiting) fall off a cliff, this would be a good way to go about making it happen.

It'd be like an airline starting an ad campaign entitled "Smaller, Less Comfortable Seating, and No Beverage Service Whatsoever."

Freeze military pay and make them pay for health care means a helluva lot less recruits and a helluva lot less folks sticking around who are in it now. So either that means a draft or the US would drastically have to lessen their war mongering and "nation building".

How much does the US spend on "private security contractors" compared to the lowly enlisted kid?

Excellent reporting, TPM. This is your best story in a long time. I hope it receives the proper attention.

As for the substance... this is not looking good. The CEO of Honeywell (or anyone like him) should never have been on this commission in the first place. But then, there never should have been a commission in the first place. It's time for Obama to stand up and say that Social Security benefits will not be cut no matter what the commission recommends. Indeed, given the number of unemployed people pushing 60 right now, the retirement age should probably be temporarily lowered.

This is yet another example of Obama's spinelessness. This "commission" is his coward's way out of actually standing up for something or of making tough decisions.

I'm guessing he's about run out of hippies to punch so now he's going for the troops.

As soon as Vietnam ended, military promotions were almost frozen for a couple of years so as to discourage people from re-enlisting or capping someone's chances of going up one more grade just before they retired. They also cut back on morale, recreation and welfare funds too which left soldiers to fend for themselves at their own costs.

Since the 90's a retiree doesn't make 50% of base salary at retirement...it's about 35% and doesn't get to 50% until they reach 65. But then it's reduced to offset social security. And the minimum retirement rank was increased from E-5 to E-6. That might change too. Also, they not longer have immediate access to military hospitals as they use to. There's a kind of military HMO for dependents and retirees.

Once the wars end, there's going to be a major realignment. The Navy and USAF will be parred down significantly seeing how there aren't too many naval and air forces out there to fight against. And since peace time implies less need for military hardware, a lot of military career positions will mothballed with no chance of retraining since the reason for the action is to reduce the number of soldiers.

So the military members will get the short end of the stick again. Only this time there's significant economic damage that they're caught in the middle of and it's going to put them between that rock and a hard place.

But the real sticking point for Democrats is many soldiers lean republican because they think republicans look out for them and the demise of military forces and hardware are because of democrats. Seeing how democrats are the majority, and reduction in pay, services, hardware, career options will be on their watch, they will fault the democrats even though republicans are the ones driving he issues.

This is what Obama's attempt at bipartisanship with republicans gets us.

Not sounding like the Change I had Hoped (and voted) for.

Cut military pay so we can spend more money on advanced weapons systems that we can turn around and sell to countries that might some day use them against us.

Brilliant!!

You guys are so gullible or too damn cynical to think rationally. Election or not, there is no way that military pay and benefits will be cut. Social Security will not be gutted and granny isn't going to end up eating cat food (death panels will get her first). The GOP are deficit frauds and the Dems aren't insane enough to piss off their base (the real base - not you all in blogosphere). Once upon a time "commissions" were laughed at and dismissed. For some reason, this one has some of you pissing your pants.

Here's a question for the President: Why the HELL is there a Military Contractor on this commission in the first place!

A better and far reaching act would be to just drop all military pay to about 4 dollars/hr and eliminate all benefits.
... should take about fifteen minutes to drop the volunteers to about a thousand soldiers... with NO reason to keep feeding the bottomless pit...

Over 40 years ago, I signed a blank check, payable to the citizens of the US and payable in my blood. Their end of that agreement was my retirement and medical car. Any one of them could have made the same agreement and, if they honorably fulfilled the terms, reaped the benefits. I paid through low pay, long separations from my family, deprivation and danger.
Screw these fat cats. I'm not going to apologize for my earned benefits. Too bad they can't say the same.

The trouble with congress is that they are all millionaires who like to think they are average joes; in fact they cultivate that image of being an average joe as a way to "relate" to voters. So congress thinks "I can provide for my own retirement, why can't everybody else?" and "I can put my kids thru college, why can't everybody else?" or "I can provide for my own health care, why can't everybody else?. But they are not average, congressional pay is about 4 times average.

I wish they would try to "relate" to average voters by trying to live on $40K and provide for their own retirement, kids, and health out of that limited resource. Well, at least they could make policy based on how average Americans balance their budget. For many, retirement savings comes after all the stuff that must be paid for NOW! Housing, food, medical care, transportation, and the like. Those people would die in harness were it not for Social Security and Military pensions.

I mean super carrier not supper carrier although if we have those we could sell them too. and do we really need manned bombers now that we have drones?

Well...even though it may require a pay freeze, we absolutely *must* require troops in Afghanistan... how utterly foolish and ridiculous! If we really must carry out our mission in Afghanistan (an utterly dubious one)well, then we must pay the piper. 100 percent. No excuses.

Emily
http://emilyscoffeespot.blogspot.com