This will be a short post today, I’ve a number of errands to do.
The topic today comes from this news item—Budget Negotiators look a Military Pensions. The democrats, looking to maintain and preserve their political allies, the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, as it is better known, want to cut military pensions. Instead of trimming civilian personnel—union members, they plan to attack those who have placed their life in peril to defend this nation. I cannot describe how much this disgusts me.
Budget negotiators looking at military pensions
By DAVID ROGERS | 12/8/13 4:47 PM EST
Can savings from military pensions be part of the solution to avoid deeper cuts from defense next month?That’s an important question facing House-Senate negotiators as they try to close out a deal this week to avoid another round of sequestration in January and restore some certainty to the appropriations process for the remainder of this Congress.
The two sides appear close but Democrats are anxious about the level of savings being sought by Republicans from civilian federal workers. Finding some money on the military side of the equation could lessen this burden and make the package more equitable too from a political standpoint.
Indeed, the Pentagon has the greatest stake in some agreement and faces a further $21 billion cut in its 2014 budget if nothing is done. There is a greater recognition too –in Congress and among the Joint Chiefs— that it must come to terms with personnel-related costs, which are eating up more and more of what money remains.“Forty-four cents of every dollar we spend goes to military personnel,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R.-Calif.) “You look at Detroit, you look at General Motors, you look at what happens when you build up these costs, but we aren’t doing anything about it in our [defense] bill this year.”On the retirement front, President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget opened the door for the GOP by proposing to increase what federal employees contribute to their pensions: adjusting the number upward in three increments from .8 percent of pay to 2 percent.When this was last proposed, Congress instead decided to charge newly-hired workers even more. The administration proposal seeks to impose its earlier plan on those hired before 2013. The estimated savings are about $20 billion over the coming decade.
The article continues at the website. The column says that 44% of the Defense budget goes to military personnel. That slants the issue, that people, our active and retired troops are expense items, cost line items that can be manipulated to balance the DoDs budget. It’s easy to turn people—veterans, into numbers and ignore the OBLIGATION this nation has acquired to serve these people when they are no longer on active duty as they were prepared to serve us when they were on active duty.
Our veterans are NOT numbers to be juggled to preserve union jobs. They are obligations upon the nation to support them, through decent pensions and through medical, physical care and treatment through the VA. Instead, democrats hold them hostage to preserve their power base in SEIU and other public sector unions. That must end.