“he was promised”
I’m sympathetic to anyone who thought they were going to get something and it didn’t turn out to be the same deal they thought they were going to get. I’ve been there and done that.
There isn’t enough money to pay everybody everything they were promised by someone in government laying claim to someone elses future productive work.
There IS a superseding promise in our Constitution that limits the governments ability to take other peoples hard work and give it to someone else.
If you are counting on government promises, you’re likely to land somewhat short of those expectations - no matter who you are or why you were promised something by the government.
Another way to put it is that government promises do not amount to anything - especially when government must extract the fruits of anothers labor in confiscatory proportions to fulfill such a promise.
Government doesn’t just betray our military - active and retired, but it betrays those who actually must pay for it all - at great peril to their own retirement and well being.
There aren’t enough of us to pay for everything - and at this point there is a good chance that all those “promises” of some future benefit - military or otherwise - will in fact amount to nothing in the future.
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...
This isn’t just about a promise not kept. I assumed everyone here on FR understood the importance of our military and their service.
I used the word “promise” in the true sense of the word. A promise to the brave who choose to don a uniform and vow to protect our Nation.
Again I say... cut every other program, including the disability fakers and welfare queens, and birth control and abortion sluts,.....then we can talk about cutting money off the backs of our heroes.