Military retirees, at least those of my generation, were promised full inflation protection of our retirement benefits. In other words, my military pension is adjusted by the government’s inflation rate. This rate generally seems to be much less than actual inflation, but that’s another story. Anyway, the budget agreement caps the annual cost of living (inflation) adjustment to 1% less than the actual inflation rate. For example, let’s say the government calculates annual inflation at 1.3%. Retirees would get a 0.3% increase that year. This means an effective 20% reduction in military retired pay at 20 years after retirement.
I’m not personally opposed to making sacrifices for the benefit of the nation. After all, I’m a military retiree who made all sorts of sacrifices while I was in the service. That said, this budget didn’t make any dent at all in government expansion, and the reduction in military cost of living adjustments is only predicted to save $6 billion over 10 years. So our nation can afford to hand out $ billions per year in free Obamaphones to the “poor and needy” for example, but they can’t afford to honor promises to military veterans.
Did Representative Ryan win any concessions from the left for sacrificing veterans? None that I can see. That’s why he’s being lambasted by conservatives, and rightly so! It’s not about the cut. It’s about not getting anything significant in return for the cut.
I think that will be undone legislatively as veteran's benefits are as much a third rail as Social Security. But, it did have to become a "squeaky wheel" to be addressed.
It is sad that Patty Murray got credit for the initiative to address this.