Obama Administration Targets Military for Pay Reductions

[SHH 1313]

disclosed that the Obama administration is “pleading” with Congress to give military personnel a much smaller increase in pay than lawmakers have proposed.

Outrage: Obama Administration Targets Military for Pay Reductions

Visualizing Obama's budget cuts. [VIDEO]

So reducing next years pay raise from 1.9% to 1.4%. Before you know it they will make retiree's pay more for TRICARE or replace it, with Obamacare.

This will be the lowest pay raise in history since the Carter admin in 1973.
I hope this amounts to Political Suicide for the Admin, when it is election time.
In January of this year, Congress got a pay raise of $4,700, bringing their salaries to $174,000

[retdetsgt]

I'll probably get flamed for this, but the military has gotten some good pay raises over the years. Even the Pentagon has said enough is enough on that. Giving big raises to the military has always been a favorite thing for Congress to do because it makes them look like they're supporting them. Besides, the cost of living didn't go up 1.9% and they got a 3.9% last year.

Especially when you look at the fact that Social Security recipients didn't get any raise last year and won't this year either although their Medicare premiums continue to go up. And a lot of people depending on that money are worst off financially than most military people.

[retdetsgt]

In voting to continue a 12-year string of annual military raises set higher than wage growth nationally, the subcommittee ignored pleas from Defense officials not to drive up personnel costs this way and thereby squeeze dollars available for equipment, supplies and other readiness needs.

But Davis said the extra half percent raise will continue to narrow a pay gap with civilian peers, which stood at 13.5 percent in 1999 but will be down to 1.9 percent in January.

Days earlier, outside pay experts told the Senate personnel subcommittee that the “gap” argument ignores the hefty gains made to military housing allowances over the past decade. Military pay, they said, already is very competitive, particularly in this distressed economy.

If housing allowances are included in pay comparisons, said a Congressional Budget Office analyst, military compensation has exceeded private sector pay growth by 11 percent since 1982, the year that the Reagan administration declared “pay comparability” had been achieved.

Future military pay raises could be harder to approve | Tom Philpott - The News Tribune

[manahmanah]

It's not that they're not getting a pay raise, they're not just getting as big a pay raise. Hell, my dept had to GIVE UP 5% pay. This is also the first year there was no VA disability raise.

[kels]

The military usually gets the shaft when the Democrats are in office.
I still remember my brother being sent to Bosnia during Clinton reign
with TWO magazines and 60 cartridges for his M16.
(normal combat load was 10 magazines....)
There was a shortage of everything in the military when Uncle Bill was in office..

[retdetsgt]

From what I've been told, Bush sent the Army in poorly equipped when they first invaded Iraq. Clinton was bad, but it's not just the Democrats.

[Cat_Doc]

Hell, my dept had to GIVE UP 5% pay.

We have not taken a pay cut, yet, but it is still on the plate. And, we have not gotten a merit increase or COLA in the last three years. I wouldn't be complaining too loudly right now about getting a 1.4% increase.

This is reminding me sooooo much of the Carter years. Grrrrrrrrr.

[retdetsgt]

Yeah, just as my wife was retiring the first of February, the state instituted mandatory unpaid furlough days for employees. They were having to take at least one a month at her pay scale. Since she was retiring Feb. 1, they made her take two in January.....

The dumb thing is that OSP and the state corrections people also have to take those days and they have to pay OT to cover for them. The government never ceases to amaze me.

I'm actually doing okay and will get a 2% July 1st. We get a max. of 2% or what the cost of living rise was over the last year, which ever is least. However, if the COL is 3%, we get to put 1% in the "bank" for later. I've been retired long enough that I have several % in the "bank" so I'll still get it. People that retired this year get nothing.

The Carter (and Nixon to some extent) years were a bear. That was a real struggle with inflation and high interest rates everywhere. Six and seven percent raises didn't even cut it then.