ANY PERSON OUT THERE THINKING OF A MILITARY CAREER, THINK AGAIN! Just do your four years, LEARN a skill that can get you employment on the outside and WALK. You CANNOT TRUST the government to keep any promises to you what you might have in 20 years. Oh, wait, they are wanting to do away with the 20 year retirement. You have to set up a 401k plan now.
I'm sorry you had to learn that the hard way. I thank God for career military folks. You're the backbone of our Armed Services and it makes me sick to see what's being done.
L
They plan on taxing 401K if the Democrats have their way. You might as well bury your money in the back yard or put it in the freezer.
I understand your anger at cuts in military pay as my father is retired USMC and my mother is retired civil service. They served and retired in the era of low pay. Past Congresses made promises the current Congresses are willing to ignore.
Much the same has occurred in private industry. I went to work for a corporation in 1978. When I enrolled in the benefits program I was told about the defined benefit pension plan, the employer match to the employee savings program, retiree medical program, low deductible medical insurance, and annual cost of living adjustments in that era of high inflation. I was a non-union employee in a company based in the south so my starting salary was about 30% below what my peers who went to work in Chicago, New York and LA received, not to mention my benefits were lower.
I spent almost 20 years with that employer, demonstrating loyalty and rising in the organization. During that time the benefits package i was “promised” when I joined the company was trimmed dramatically. The retiree medical plan, the cost of living adjustments all went away. All of the domestic manufacturing operations were sent offshore and waves of downsizings in the home office resulted in individuals taking on what used to be the job of 3 or 4 people. Pay increases for the rank and file were non-existant while senior management pay increased double digits every year. By the time I reached my early 50’s my employer was aggressively downsizing management employees aged 50 to 65. I actually sat in senior management meetings where the “cost” of carrying employees over age 50 was openly discussed. Six weeks prior to my 20th anniversary with the company I too was downsized. It turns out that had I made it to 20 years of service, my defined benefit pension plan payout would have been 25% higher than it was with my termination date being at 19 years and 10 months. My next full time job came with a 35% base pay reduction, and dramatically reduced benefits as well as a relocation.
My point is that government employees, military and civilian, are now beginning to experience what private sector employees have been living through for three decades. A rising standard of living for both private sector and government employees requires resources only possible in a high growth economy. For two decades our government has pursued regulatory, trade, foreign policy, environmental, and immigration policies which have brought growth in the US economy to a standstill and a declining standard of living for all but the most wealthy citizens for over a decade. Now that impending economic collapse requires cuts in spending must be made, our leaders have decided we cannot cut medical care for illegal immigrants, welfare, foreign aid, never ending invasions of other countries, public housing, countless worthless academic studies, bloated bureaucracies, and other wasteful discretionary programs. Congress is choosing to cut military pay and benefits in the same way corporate executives chose to send American private sector jobs overseas while giving themselves huge pay increases and bonuses.
Quite frankly, Congress and the President care more about making sure the executives at Goldman Sachs and Citicorp receive huge bonuses than they do about providing promised health care for military retirees. If this were not true, Goldman Sachs would have gone through a bankruptcy after the financial crash of 2008 and the current executives would have been fired for taking the risks that brought down the company.
One of the downsides to a low manpower all volunteer army supplied with 21st century technology is there aren’t enough retirees for their votes or campaign contributions to matter. Congress responds to two things — money and votes in that order. No doubt the combined campaign contributions of the Wall Street banks far exceed the combined contributions of active and retired military. The Democrats in Congress know most current and ex-military will not vote for them so they have no issue with making cuts to military benefits as they aren’t relying on the votes. On the flip side, the Republicans take the military vote for granted so they can “compromise” on military benefits knowing they’ll get the votes anyway.
When I was graduating from high school and considering a military career, my father who was then serving at the Pentagon, could even then see how events would unfold over time. He strongly urged both his sons to look to the private sector for a career as he didn’t believe the politicians could be trusted. As it turns out our nation has evolved to where the elites running government, the media, corporations, and academia cannot be trusted. We are rapidly evolving into a third world feudal society where the elites control wealth and the citizens enjoy the equality of poverty. In any organization or society where the growth rate becomes negative, the elites will take first from the masses before turning on each other.
It really ticks me off. We stayed for the benefits. Desert Storm destroyed my husband’s sense of smell, I lost a baby after the war when I returned to the ME. Not sure if I would have lost it otherwise. 9 women lost their babies at the same time and rumor had it local women were miscarrying as well. Maybe the fires, I don’t know. We sacrificed so much and this is what we get. First in line to get screwed.
...You CANNOT TRUST the government to keep any promises...”
You are absolutely correct and it’s been going on for a longer than most folks realize; Just ask the Sioux nation.
Politicians are for the most part useless lawyers that couldn’t make it in the real world of lawyerdom. They are, in essence, the lowest of the low. Literally bottom dwellers and crooks. In order to feel good about themselves, they have to exert control and power over those that cannot, or will not, do anything about it. Politics is the perfect answer for them. In politics, they can lie, cheat, steal, even murder, with impunity while making the rest of us in the country suffer for it. Then, they smile, pat each other on the back for a job well done and run for re-election. Despicable creatures to say the least. Their promises are just hollow words.