Posted on 08/04/2011 11:09:31 AM PDT by SkyPilot
Military pay raises, funding for veterans health care and the Post-9/11 GI Bill could be sacrificed to new fiscal realities as the result of the deal signed by President Obama on Tuesday to raise the federal debt ceiling, according to the Military Officers Association and veterans groups. The law requires the federal budget be cut $2.1 trillion over 10 years.
The White House said it plans to cut $350 billion from the Defense Department budget (excluding war funding) over the next decade. Retired Air Force Col. Michael Hayden, the association's deputy director for government relations, said this means "everything is on the table," including military pay.
While Congress historically has been reluctant to freeze military pay, the 2011 Budget Control Act signed by Obama on Tuesday makes it clear upfront that military pay is no longer off-limits in budget discussions. If the administration and Congress fail to make the required reductions then across-the-board cuts in discretionary funding will be triggered through a procedure known as sequestration. The law gives the president "authority to exempt any [military] personnel account from sequestration" but only if "savings are achieved through across-the-board reductions in the remainder of the Department of Defense budget," states a House Rules Committee analysis of the bill.
Hayden said, "this leaves pay raises up for grabs" as Defense crafts a new budget to meet cuts planned by the White House. He also expressed concern that cost-of-living increases for military retirees could end up sacrificed in the Pentagon budget-cutting process, although by law they are protected from sequestration.
Retired Air Force Col. Philip Odom, another deputy director for government relations at the Military Officers Association, said troops could face a pay freeze coming on the heels of a small 1.6 percent pay raise in the 2012 budget, the "second lowest increase since 1962."
Keith Weller, a spokesman for the Reserve Officers Association, expressed concern that the "super committee" Congress must establish to determine the budget cuts will use the new strict budget caps to increase fees for the TRICARE health insurance program for active-duty and retired military personnel.
"We don't want them to view TRICARE as a cash cow," Weller said. In January, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called for a "modest" increase in TRICARE premiums, which have been frozen at $460 a year for the past 15 years, compared to $5,000 a year other federal workers pay for health insurance.
Gates said Defense heath care costs have spiraled to $50 billion a year from $19 billion a year over the past decade, with the 10 million TRICARE beneficiaries accounting for much of that increase.
The budget control law lumps the discretionary budgets for the Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs departments, along with the National Nuclear Security Administration, the intelligence community management account and portions of the State Department budget, in a new "security" category capped at $684 billion in fiscal 2012. This marks a 6 percent, or $44 billion, cut for those entities, according to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation.
If these departments and agencies do not adhere to the budget caps then they would lose funds through the sequestration process spread evenly across their budgets, but with no clear delineation in how and where cuts would be made, the analysis concluded.
Carl Blake, legislative director of Paralyzed Veterans of America, said he has real concerns about the effect the law will have on veterans' health care.
Veterans Affairs Department pension and disability programs are fenced off from cuts or sequestration, Blake said, but not the massive 247,000 employee Veterans Health Administration, which is expected to care for 6.2 million patients in 2012. Blake said VHA operates under discretionary funding, which makes it a target for cuts.
Government Executive learned that John Carson, director of the White House office of public engagement, met with veterans groups, including the America Legion, Disabled American Veterans, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and the Wounded Warrior Project, to assure them that veterans compensation programs will be safe from sequestration.
But Joseph Chenelly, assistant national communications director for the Disabled American Veterans, said Carson did not address whether VHA or the Post-9/11GI Bill would be safe from cuts. Joseph Violante, legislative director for the group, said that despite the White House statements, "nothing reassures me that veterans programs are safe from cuts."
Ed Meagher, vice president for health care strategy at Computer Sciences Corp. and a former VA deputy chief information officer, said he doubted VA's requested $3 billion for information technology spending in 2012 will take much of a hit as the department counts on IT to save money through automation of manual processes, including the disability claims system. "At most, the IT budget might get nicked for $100 million," Meagher said.
He agreed that VHA funding faces cuts under the budget control act, and predicted those would come from new mental health projects, a number of which have been adopted to care for Afghanistan and Iraq veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. New projects, Meagher said, are easier to cut than established ones.
VA requested $6.1 billion for mental health care in its 2012 budget and $6.4 billion in its 2013 budget, both which account just under 15 percent of the overall health care budget of $46 billion in each of those years. Nextgov reported in March that more than half the Afghanistan and Iraq veterans treated by VA last year received care for mental health problems, roughly four times the rate of the general population.
Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told a hearing of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that the nation faces a $1 trillion long-term bill to care for veterans of those wars and warned against slashing program funding "in a shortsighted rush."
VA requested $11.1 billion for the Post-9/11 GI Bill in 2012, up $2.1 billion from 2011, with more than 260,000 veterans enrolled in the college year that just ended.
Michael Dakduk, executive director of the Student Veterans of America, said he is worried that budget hawks will flail the program.
Dakduk, a Marine veteran who served tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq, said that Congress supports projects like the GI Bill when the memories of war are fresh, but when those fade, attention shifts from caring for veterans to balancing the budget.
Hayden predicted an intense round of lobbying as various groups work to protect their piece of a smaller pie. But, he said, the stark reality is "everyone will have to suffer a little bit."
They had better include the benefits for ALL elected officials including the Ahole in chief. In fact he shouldn’t be allowed to collected any pension until he reaches normal retirement age like the rest of us.
...To my mind, they are just another classification of “government employee...
Oh, OK.
Yay. Let's join the Romney and Burr boys up ASAP. Does Charlie Schumer have any sons?
Yay. Let's join the Romney and Burr boys up ASAP. Does Charlie Schumer have any sons?
Yay. Let's join the Romney and Burr boys up ASAP. Does Charlie Schumer have any sons?
It’s the first time I saw it phrased that way, “living like a gypsy”; very well put and accurate as well. For me, that was the largest drawback of military service I think. I think the costs of scores of moves over twenty plus years is underrated. Of course, for those that enjoy the travel, it is an advantage I suppose.
I agree with you except on departmental cuts. I don’t see why the myriad of programs that are clearly noncritical (Department of Education, Peace Corps, Job Corps, etc.) are not eliminated first. How much exactly does Tricare for retirees cost? How much do they expect to save by adjusting it.
I don't disagree, I was promised free health care for life when I enlisted in 1954.
The point I was making is medicare is being ravaged to expand medicaid, just like Social Security has been ravaged by SSI. Service to country is no longer a plus, whether military or as a taxpayer.
When we have people on death row getting heart transplants, and sex change on the horizon, we have officially lost our collective sanity.
I think this will cause MANY things you mention in your post to come under review. The retiree tricare savings are supposedly 4B over ten years. Pell Grants this year are over 20B. Pell Grants versus retiree cuts I suspect will be a losing cause for Pell Grants.
Let's see.... active military tend to vote Republican. Maybe the vets as well.
Same thing seemed to happen to the car dealers.
Do you remember this video?
True and I agree with you. However, there are some on FR who believe that we veterans think we’re “special”, “elite”, “nobility”, etc. because of our service and the deferred compensation we receive. That we believe our compensation to be “sacrosanct” above all else and that we shouldn’t bear any of the burden.
So, I mentioned accepting a cut only as long as everything else was cut as well, not just the military. As a conservative who believes that we should all be in this together. I don’t think that I should be exempt from accepting some of the pain as long as the gov’t spending is cut across the board in order to get our financial house in order.
But it won’t happen. It will be done on the back of DoD.
As far as the TriCare savings, it’s purported to be in the $20-$30B range. An amount that could easily be gathered up by eliminating the programs you mentioned and many others.
Then you want to reply to me by FReepmail?
Weak.
To my mind, they are just another classification of “government employee,” and need to be brought into the solution process along with the rest of those in government service.
Guess what "the rest of those in government service" have that the military doesn't?
UNION representation, for the most part. Even those clowns at the TSA are protected by a union (or soon will be).
As for your reply to me by FReepmail, in my first post to you I was simply pointing out the inconsistency in these two statements in your post:
I love and respect our military personnel as much as anyone...
To my mind, they are just another classification of “government employee...
I'm rally disappointed to know that some of my fellow citizens think that way.
Enjoy your day.
rally= really.
It's really simple: Obama and the Democrats.
The same reason why illegals will continue to get fat Social Security and welfare checks (along with their Food Stamp debit cards, now called SNAP cards).
Veterans and the military are (mostly) their political enemies. Democrats are still smarting over military votes making the difference for GW Bush in the Presidential election of 2000.
By the way, thanks for the sacrifices your family made with all those military moves. We know that drill: bad schools, trying to sell or repair houses when the spouse is deployed or training, and everything else.
Also, today's PCS moves are painful - the military is not paying moving companies enough, so they are balking at supporting PCS moves. If you show up, with orders in hand to your local Joint Personal Property Shipping Office, expect to get hate stares, a hassle, a verbal dressing down, a paperwork nightmare, and then someone telling you that you should have showed up 2 months prior to getting your orders (which you can't legally do) because they are so far behind it will be months before they can move you.
I agree, but that won't happen, and it didn't happen just now. The debt deal didn't touch entitlements, and that is the way Harry Reid, Pelosi, and Obama wanted it. The GOP tried (I guess), but it was never going to happen. Again, those who earned their benefits get screwed - those who broke our laws to get here, and those who are just plain lazy, get protected by the Democrats.
As far as the TriCare savings, it’s purported to be in the $20-$30B range.
I heard the same. Everyone keep this in mind: last August, when Congress was not even in session, Nancy Pelosi called everyone back for a single vote, on a single afternoon, that gave away over $40 Billion dollars away in Federal money to state teachers unions and other state workers (as political payoff prior to the fall elections).
“It’s really simple: Obama and the Democrats.”
And what was Dubya doing from 02-06? He and the GOP controlled both houses of Congress as well as the Presidency.
The commercial I recall of the Vet returning home to an empty
baggage claim—and empty streets—until a veteran reached out and welcomed home a veteran reflects what many of my generation felt. We flew into a civilian airport in NC. (The
Military airfeild was closed for some reason) It was snowing and the pilot (again for some reason) did not park at the
terminal but on the hardpan. We deplaned and ran through the snow past a group of anti-War types who called us every name you could imagine and some did spit-and some did toss garbage at us. Inside we changed from our summer dress kaki or greens into civilian cloths as quickly as possible. It took many years for veterans to erect that long black wall in D.C. While attempting to be a good college boy — I walked out on a class in 3rd yr. English when the instructor
who admitted he had protested during the War. said to the class “the Vietnam War didn’t mean Nuthin’ —because we lost.” of about ten “Nam Vets eight of us walked out. My feeling was we Never lost on the battlefields -but we did lose on the college campus and in Washington. I ‘ve had to fight the Govt. more after my discharge than I ever dreamed
I would while I served. But that’s just the way it is.
Welcome Home —And I do thank you for your service.
So........those SEALs that died today in Afghanistan were just another form of “government employee”??? Seriously??? Do you realize how many of the military are on their 3rd, 4th, and 5th tours of the war zones right now??? Risking it all for their country? Don’t see too many government employees putting their #$$ on the line in that way. You don’t get paid for what you do, you get paid for what you may have to do. Don’t forget that.
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