Posted on 01/06/2014 4:32:25 PM PST by SkyPilot
Led by Paul Ryan and Patty Murray but abetted by Barack Obama, Congress recently gambled with our nations future for an extremely modest short-term gain.
In doing so, it was given aid and comfort by knowledge-starved pundits, axe-grinding editorial boards, and self-anointed armchair analysts everywhere, as it left the military and veteran community standing with their jaws on the ground in despairing disbelief. Exploiting pressure to strike a budget compromise, Ryan and Murray entered into an unholy alliance to reduce veteran pensions including those already vested under previous covenants by an average of $84,000 to $120,000.
They obscured this act, as often happens when attempting to mislead, by employing complex-sounding budget doublespeak to minimize the magnitude of the associated moral breach as well as the consequences to veterans and families. In a way, this debacle can be seen as part of our nations continual inability to comprehend and bear the costs of being a global superpower with quasi-imperial interests secured by less than one-half of one percent of its population. But the particulars in this case suggest something more disturbing lurking behind the standard wallet-grabbing Congressional milieu: a startling absence of strategic deliberation. When such a deficit impairs elected leaders responsible for national security, potentially grave consequences attend.
Good strategists always ask of any potential course of action two key questions. First, what will this do for us? And second, what will this do to us? Given the dearth of statesmanly impulse at the national level in modern America, it is perhaps unsurprising that in crafting the recent budget, Paul Ryan and Patty Murray asked only the former question, leaving the latter for others to worry about.
The provision at issue retroactively renegotiated the deferred compensation of more than two million military veterans...
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
“However, the number is ridiculous.”
Talk about obtuse. The number in the budget....the one I provided you.....is the SOURCE of the controversy.
It’s the difference between a $1.7M retirement package and a $1.6M retirement package. It’s reported as “military must sacrifice $100k” but the bigger story of the size of the retirement package is concealed. Why?
THAT is what you are complaining about. The difference between $1.7M and $1.6M.
You can claim it’s ridiculous, but it’s not MY number - it’s the one in the actual budget - allocated to an “average” military retiree.
So you agree with me that a million dollar package for federal, military, state and municipal retirees is excessive, even as you deny it is even so.
At least we’ve found common ground.
“Talk about obtuse. The number in the budget....the one I provided you.....is the SOURCE of the controversy.”
Only for you. Those of us who are actually involved know that both numbers are nonsense.
“Its the difference between a $1.7M retirement package and a $1.6M retirement package. Its reported as military must sacrifice $100k but the bigger story of the size of the retirement package is concealed. Why?”
What is concealed is that the size of the retirement package is much, much less than either figure. Many of us are trying to tell you that retirees do not get anything approaching a million dollars over the course of their lifetime.
“THAT is what you are complaining about. The difference between $1.7M and $1.6M.”
No, it’s not. What I am complaining about is your gullibility in believing either figure.
“You can claim its ridiculous, but its not MY number - its the one in the actual budget - allocated to an average military retiree.”
So, bureaucrats and politicians don’t lie? We can just take their word for anything? Listen up—I would have to live to be one hundred and ten (110) years old to collect a million dollars. I am unlikely to make seventy.
Our retirement packages do not make us millionaires, regardless of what lying leftist bureaucrats and politicians say.
“So you agree with me that a million dollar package for federal, military, state and municipal retirees is excessive, even as you deny it is even so.”
At the value of the dollar today, it would be high.
“At least weve found common ground.”
Yes. Now, if you can explain how $20,000 a year for ten years is a “million dollar package,” then we’ll be ready to sit down and have a beer together.
” Now, if you can explain how $20,000 a year for ten years is a million dollar package, then well be ready to sit down and have a beer together.”
let’s call it 40 years, with COLAs + medical. Easily reaches $1M.
You are the type of guy who is getting more from your military pension than you can spend. So when you pass your children get a larger inheritance. This is how it should be rather than your pension system being raided by Democrats for their various vote buying schemes and to illegal aliens and their anchor babies
Far better that your children and grandchildren should get this money (eventually) Set up a revocable trust to bypass the probate lawyers (aka parasites)
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