Paul Ryan’s military pay gambit backfires

Politico ^ | 12 Feb 14 | Juana Summers

[SkyPilot]

Under December’s budget deal, working-age military retirees — some of whom retire with pensions in their 40s after 20 years of service — would see those pensions grow at a slower pace. Their annual cost-of-living adjustments would be pegged to the rate of inflation minus 1 percentage point. But once they turned 62, they’d go back to receiving cost-of-living adjustments pegged to the full rate of inflation.

The provision wouldn’t kick in until late next year, a delay Ryan says was designed to allow the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to consider alternative proposals for reining in the military’s personnel costs. In other words, it was meant to force the committees to confront the toxic issue after years of dragging their feet. But the backlash could make it even more difficult to deal with growing personnel costs, which Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has said threaten to crowd out spending on other priorities.

Pentagon officials had declined to offer full-throated support for the pension proposal in the budget deal, urging Congress to grandfather current service members and veterans so that only future recruits would be affected. The bill approved Wednesday does just that.

From an economic and national security perspective, “it makes sense” to cut benefits for service members, said Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress. From a political perspective, “it doesn’t.”

“Other than Paul Ryan, nobody has stepped up to make that case,” he said.

The charged issue sparked strong emotional reactions on both sides, with advocacy groups for service members accusing lawmakers of breaking faith with those in uniform. Leading the charge is the Military Officers Association of America, the nation’s largest association of military officers.

[SkyPilot]

Two points about the article:

1. Compensation costs are not hollowing out the Pentagon's budget as Ryan and Chuck Hagel have repeatedly said. They are using a cooked book number by taking the projected costs only since 1998 projected through 2008 - during that time, Congress had to fix the disastrous REDUX that robbed post 1986 military officers and enlisted, and Congress implemented TRICARE For Life (TFL) that prevented retired military from being immediately booted from TRICARE when the reached Medicare age. But those were one time fixes. The personnel and compensation costs for military today are about 1/3rd, almost identical to what they have been since 1980.

2. Lawrence Korb is a George Soros financed hack through two Soros front groups: the Center for American Progress and the Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities. Both organizations are left wing Soros outfits whose stated goals are to gut the military, rob veterans, and destroy our defense capabilities so as to free up Billions in funding and give it away as socialism and welfare.

Paul Ryan's cynical attack on veterans and their families, all to "save" $5.7 billion over ten years, will not be quickly forgotten.

[GeronL]

Who didn’t think that was going to “backfire”?

[SkyPilot]

Ping - and good news.

It's over.

Senate votes to restore military pensions

The Senate vote was 95-3 in favor, following the overwhelming vote in the House last night. It now goes to Obama's desk.

Jet - I would appreciate a ping to our military and retired military giving them the good news. Thanks.

[mrsmel]

And to think of all the places where cuts could be made with much more justification. I have my own ideas on that, would love to see others’ suggestions.

[mrsmel]

And irony of all-it will backfire on Ryan, while Hussein will be quick to take credit for restoring it.

[SandRat]

DHS’s sniper ammo buy.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Ryan gets blasted again over military retirement jpay.

FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Apparently the Senate voted to restore military pay. Ryan still got blasted.

[Mr Rogers]

“The only senators who voted against the bill were Democrat Thomas Carper of Delaware and Republicans Daniel Coats of Indiana and Jeff Flake of Arizona.”

Yep. That would be Sen Jeff McFlake of Arizona. In truth, I’m not sure I could despise McFlake much more than I already did...but I guess he’s inched up from 99% to 99.5% despised!

[txrefugee]

Honestly ,who would think it was a good idea to team up with stupid Patty Murray for a budget deal....and worse, she talks you into committing political suicide by cutting military pay. Who was the stupid one?

[mrsmel]

I hadn’t thought of that one, excellent.

[mrsmel]

She’s still that stupid, but whoever coached her isn’t. Just like Hussein is that lazy and incompetent, but his puppetmasters (Soros? whoever else? Satan?) aren’t. The Republicans who want to betray Americans for money will have to learn, you will either have to completely surrender to the dark side, or you will lose sitting in the middle. You can’t do evil by half-way measures, just to quiet your conscience.

[SZonian]

Good news, but it shows the razor’s edge that is being walked with regards to military benefits...

Hell, there are folks right here on FR who believe a veteran “retiring” is still of “working age” (define that please you losers) and thus, shouldn’t collect a dime until “retirement age” [another nebulous definition that can be unilaterally and arbitrarily changed by the USG at any time].

Oh, and they’re shiftless and lazy, staying at home after “retirement” and “forcing” their spouses to go to work.

[I’m just repeating some of the garbage that I’ve read from other FReepers, so hold your fire.]

[beandog]

My father retired from the Navy after 20 years at the age of 37. I think that could be defined as still “working age”. He is now 82 and has been collecting retirement for 45 years. He also had several well paying jobs after that.

[Feckless]

retire with pensions in their 40s after 20 years of service

Retired at 37 with 20 years and 24 days.....

[SoConPubbie]

My father retired from the Navy after 20 years at the age of 37. I think that could be defined as still “working age”. He is now 82 and has been collecting retirement for 45 years. He also had several well paying jobs after that.

And more power to him!

Sorry, but any idiot who thinks that we should be saving money by reducing benefits to those who put themselves in harms way (Whether they were involved in an active war or not) is nothing but a sniveling coward and needs to be called out.

[blueunicorn6]

Good news, but we have a lame duck President who doesn’t like the military. These Congressional sneaks could all vote for it knowing full well that Obama would veto it, and then they shrug their shoulders.

[mrsmel]

But that never seems to apply to civilian government workers.

[beandog]

Not making a comment on whether he was entitled to it or not. Just commenting on retiring while still of “working age”. The military was the best thing that ever happened to him.

[DJ Taylor]

Paul Ryan is up for re-election in November, and Veteran groups should be uniting to ensure he’s eliminated in the Primaries.