Military pensions are funded in advance. That started in 1984. All of my retirement pay was paid in advance during my time in service.
“To promote better management, in 1984, Congress directed a switch to an accrual method of funding retirement. Under this procedure, each year the services transfer into a fund the amount necessary to pay for future retirements.”
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB3005/index1.html
By cutting the COLA, they save money both by needing to fund less now for future retirements, and by taking back money already pain into the trust fund. What Congress and the GOP are doing is the same as taking money out of someone’s IRA...
“Military pensions are funded in advance.”
No they are not. They use the same accounting as social security, namely (from your link) “The money in the fund is invested in nonnegotiable government securities”
In other words, the money is simply recycled within the government and spent.
That means that military pension payouts are funded out of current year funds - that also means that when there isn’t enough money in any current year to come, they won’t be paid as expected, if at all. As in Social Security, there is no “lock box”
So, yes, they promised. A government promise is meaningless unless there is a prosperous private sector to pay for it all.