Pentagon Budget Slashes Benefits for Active Duty Personnel
as Obama Wants Pay Raise for Civilian Fed Employees
by William Bigelow 25 Feb 2014,
10:25 AM PDT
Welcome to Barack Obama’s America,
where the Pentagon budget slashes benefits for active duty personnel while
Obama wants a pay raise for civilian federal employees. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s new defense budget includes cutting
healthcare copays and deductibles for active duty personnel and their families,
as well as slashing subsidies military families get when they have to buy
housing and low-cost goods.
Hagel said, “Congress has taken
some important steps in recent years to control the growth in compensation
spending, but we must do more,” citing payroll costs’ growth being 405 more
than private sector payrolls. He protested the nation is no longer on a war
footing, saying:
Today DOD faces a vastly different
fiscal situation … We must now consider fair and responsible adjustments to our
overall military compensation package. This is the first time in 13 years we
will be presenting a budget to the Congress of the United States that’s not a
war-footing budget.
Next week, Obama is expected to
offer civilian federal workers a 1% pay increase in 2015, which he can offer if
Congress does not block it during the appropriations process for 2015. One
administration official said:
A 1% pay increase in 2015 is
consistent with what the president proposed in last year’s budget and the
increase that civilian employees received at the start of 2014. It reflects the
tight budget constraints we continue to face, while also recognizing the
critical role these civilian employees play in our country.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) said:
This modest COLA [cost-of-living
adjustment] would go a long way in further recognizing the value of federal
employees and help bring to a close years of pay freezes. Federal employees
have been undervalued and underappreciated for too long.
Dan Holler of Heritage Action
criticized the action, saying, "The president’s proposal is misguided.
Absent a broad-based reform that allows pay to rise for good workers while
reducing overall benefit costs, a pay freeze is appropriate."
Holler had some strange
bedfellows; President Colleen Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union,
which represents Internal Revenue Service workers, said, "I strongly
believe that federal employees deserve more, and this amount is
inadequate." American Federation of Government Employees President J.
David Cox said, "A 1 percent pay raise for federal employees who have seen
more austerity than anyone else is pitiful." Jessica Klement, legislative
director with the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association,
wants the increase to be at least 1.9 percent.
Opposition to Hagel’s plan came
from Paul Rieckhoff, the founder and CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of
America (IAVA), who asserted, “We know the Defense Department must make
difficult budget decisions, but these cuts would hit service members, making it
harder for them and their families to make ends meet.”
The Military Officers Association
of America estimated that Hagel’s plan, along with a 1% ceiling on pay hikes
and an estimated 5% annual increase in housing costs, would cause an Army
sergeant with a family of four to lose $1,400; an Army captain would lose
$2,100.
Hagel’s plan would close more
bases in 2017, reduce the active duty Army from 520,000 members to between
440,000 and 450,000 over the next five years, cut the Army National Guard from
355,000 to about 335,000, cut the Army Reserve from 205,000 to 195,000, and cut
the Marine Corps from about 190,000 to 182,000.
The Air Force’s A-10 “Warthog”
attack jets, which give ground troops close air support? Gone. The Air Force’s
entire fleet of U-2 manned spy planes? Retired, with the unmanned Global Hawk
aircraft replacing them. Navy littoral combat ships? Cut from 52 to 32.
Hagel concluded, “Sequestration
requires cuts so deep, so quickly, that we cannot shrink the size of our
military fast enough.”
Chuck Hagel
Chuck
Hagel is the secretary at the U.S.
Department of Defense for the Barack
Obama administration, married to Lilibet
Hagel, and was the chairman for the Atlantic
Council of the United States
(think tank).
Note: Lilibet Hagel is
married to Chuck Hagel, and was a trustee
at the Meridian International Center.
Lisa
B. Barry was a trustee at the Meridian International Center,
and is a director at the Atlantic
Council of the United States
(think tank).
Julia Chang Bloch
was a trustee at the Meridian
International Center, and is a director at the Atlantic Council of the United
States (think tank).
Mary
L. Howell was a trustee at the Meridian
International Center, and is a director at the Atlantic Council of the United
States (think tank).
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Atlantic Council of the United
States (think tank), the Planned Parenthood Federation of America,
the American Constitution Society, the
Alliance for Justice, and the Center for American Progress.
George
Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, and was a supporter for the Center for American Progress.
Ann
Lewis was a VP for the Planned
Parenthood Federation of America, Barbara
A. Mikulski’s chief of staff, and is Barney
Frank’s sister.
Barbara A. Mikulski’s
chief of staff was Ann Lewis, is a U.S. Senate senator, a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on
Defense, and a member of the Senate
Committee on Appropriations.
Barney
Frank is Ann Lewis’s brother, was
a member of the U.S. House of
Representatives, and Robert Raben
was his counsel.
Robert
Raben was Barney Frank’s counsel,
a director at the American Constitution
Society, is a director at the Alliance
for Justice, and the president of the Raben
Group.
Melody
C. Barnes was a principal at the Raben
Group, the EVP for the Center for
American Progress, the domestic policy council, director for the Barack Obama administration, and is Barack Obama’s golf partner
Marvin Nicholson
is Barack Obama’s golf partner, the White
House trip director at the Barack Obama
administration, and was a caddy at the Augusta
National Golf Club.
18 Holes of Corruptions (Past Research for the Augusta
National Golf Club)
Friday, February 21, 2014
George
P. Shultz is a member of the Augusta
National Golf Club, and an honorary director at the Atlantic Council of the United
States (think tank).
Chuck
Hagel was the chairman for the Atlantic
Council of the United States
(think tank), and is the secretary at the U.S. Department of Defense for the Barack Obama administration.
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