In a story on Morning Edition, I heard this:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that pension and health care costs are eating the U.S. military alive.
His solution is to raise fees for military retirees - people who were once 'promised' free health care for life. The concern of many is that once we start raising these fees, it will become the only solution and the fees will be raised year after year without an end in sight. Left unsaid is how we will manage to continue paying retirement salaries. Will those be cut? And for which generation of troops?
This follows quickly on the heels of Admiral Mike Mullen and his statements about cutting pay and benefits before cutting hardware. Actbriniel brought us that news only a few days ago.
Guess what folks. I think there are three potential solutions other than the ones presented by either Secretary Gates or Admiral Mullen. They are Congressional solutions, for the most part, but one, in particular, could be managed by President Obama alone.
Here are the three things I propose:
- 1. Before raising health care costs for the military, we need to fix the Health Care System in the US in the first place. High costs are not unique to the military system. They are rampant throughout the US and are a problem for every government retirement program, state and federal. Now is a great opportunity to push Congress to fix the problems inherent in the system rather than just raise the costs on the military members who have served.
- 2. End the WARS. All of them. Or one of them. Or two of them. Or all three. If we can't afford to pay for the costs of our military health care and benefits, then we obviously shouldn't be involved in wars in other countries that are bleeding our coffers dry. And, for future wars, we need to plan ahead and start putting money into a trust fund to care for the veterans of those wars. We need to finally acknowledge that war has costs beyond the battlefield and an intelligent nation would save towards that day.
- 3. Institute a War Tax. This tax would pay for the health care and benefits of our military members. I don't think there are many in this nation who are willing to argue that our military members do not deserve their retirement salaries or their health care. I would argue that many would be willing to return free health care to our military retirees as well. At the very least, we should get the richest 1% to pay into a fund to save our military. How about it? The richest 1% can support the 1% who serve.
These are all Democratic talking points. This issue is in the news big time. Republican leaning military groups are talking about Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen being correct - but the everyday military family member isn't. This is an opportunity to build good will with the military community.
Write your congressmen - all three - and let them know that you do not support the solutions of Secretary Gates or Admiral Mullen and that you propose the above solutions instead.
Let's see what kind of change we can begin to make.
I incorrectly referred to the Admiral as McMullen in earlier versions of this diary. My apologies for the mistake.