There is mixed messaging out of the Pentagon today. Since CBS news picked up the story about the proposed gutting of the military retirement system, military community members have taken to the phones and the internet to express their shock and disbelief.
In an attempt to control what some are calling rumors, the Pentagon is spreading an article by Jim Garamone far and wide. In it, both Adm. Mike Mullen and Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, say that there is no immediate plan to affect retirement. And many military families are breathing a sigh of relief.
However, the article is undercut for a single reason. The quotes come from speeches made before CBS reported on the Defense Business Board proposal.
The news that needs to be spread far and wide is that yesterday, Secretary Panetta had this to say:
"It's the kind of thing you have to consider, in terms of retirement reforms in the broad form," he said. "But you have to do it ... in a way that doesn't break faith ... with our troops and with their families. If you're going to do something like this, you've got to think very seriously about 'grandfathering,' in order to protect the benefits that are there."
Panetta vowed to protect the benefit. "But at the same time, you know, you've got to look at everything on the table," he added.
And Admiral Mullen added this:
“There’s no immediate plan to affect retirement,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen is quoted in a Pentagon news release. Mullen said any changes “should be studied carefully” and “should be grandfathered” to keep faith with those currently in the service.
It is unclear when Admiral Mullen added the statement about grandfathering. It wasn't reported in his original speech to the troops in Afghanistan but it exists in the press release that came out on August 15.
Seems like there might be a little public relations nightmare going on. They are hoping to save what they can by offering 'grandfathering.' You see, that would shut up the majority of the troops calling in to find out what in the hell is going on. Grandfathering would mean that only the new military, that doesn't yet exist, would be effected. Well, no matter. If we accept this plan, either now or for retirees in 20 years, it will end the military as we know it.
Now is not the time to sit back and relax. Now is the time to keep hitting our Congressmen hard with questions about this proposal. The full report is due out later this month, but Congressmen are already making decisions about whether to investigate this proposal any further. We need to frame the arguments now, while we have the opportunity.
Last night, I was supposed to write a diary that would give you a short and concise list to help you in your district meeting with your representative or senator.
I failed. Instead, I found myself writing a letter to my congressman. I will actually send copies of this letter not only to Representative Don Young, but to Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich and, I think, to President Obama himself. I will wait until after it has been critiqued by all of you... maybe you can help me improve it.
Dear Congressman,
I am a military wife of a 21-year career Air Force Officer currently stationed overseas. I would visit you in person, if I could, but am unable to afford the plane fare. So forgive me for sending only this letter.
My friends and I are in an uproar. We have heard that Congress has been presented with a plan to gut our current military retirement system. We are worried and we are scared. We are afraid that the military as we know it will no longer exist if this plan is approved by you and your fellow legislators.
Let me explain.
Currently, our military retirement system provides us with a dignified retirement. The money we receive after 20 years of service is enough to help us start our second phase of life. It might be enough to send our children to college or to pay the mortgage on the home we might finally be able to buy. It is not enough by itself to support a family of four in a middle class lifestyle. But it helps.
The proposed plan put forth by the Defense Business Bureau would provide much less to a retiring family. Actually, the plan would provide so little that we would be fortunate to be able to buy a new car, much less put our kids through college. And, even then, we would be forced to wait until the age of 57 to do so.
The plan is based on assumptions that are just not true.
The Defense Business Board claims that "military compensation is higher than that of average civilians with similar education levels." They have a nice graph to prove their point.
When our recruits start on day one, they have the same education level as most other high school or college graduates. By the time they have finished basic training or OTS, they are no longer average. By the time they have finished their first tech school, they are an expensive commodity that we need to keep. If you were to take an average soldier and give him a job at Xe, he would be paid tens of thousands dollars per year more than the government can seemingly afford. But we don't leave the service in droves to serve with Xe. Why? Because of the pull of that 20 year retirement plan. Private companies don't offer those anymore.
Many assumptions are based on the poorly performing private sector.
For example, we are supposed to rejoice in the fact that "Retiree Healthcare (Tricare) is significantly more generous than civilian programs." The health care system in the US is broken. Civilian programs are exorbitantly expensive and our government has failed to rein in costs. And the Defense Business Board claims that this is a reason to take away our current retirement benefit. Because Congress cannot find solutions to the health care issues of our nation? I think not.
Another assumption made is that "Military Retirement exceeds levels in the private sector." As with health care, the private sector has done a poor job in recent years of providing dignified retirement plans for it's employees. I don't believe this is a fact to take pride in. The American Middle Class will soon become an endangered species if we continue to allow the gap between the richest and the poorest Americans to grow. Rather than cut military retirement, we should be looking for ways to improve private sector pension plans. After all, most major corporations are making more money than ever and their CEO's are living high on the hog. This is not a reason to gut military retirement.
Congressman, I have my ear to the ground. I know military families. This plan will decimate the US Army, the US Marine Corps, the US Air Force, the US Navy, and the Coast Guard. Current members will not stay and new recruits will not arrive. We see our current retirement package as part of the whole deal. You see, we families put up with a lot. We like military life overall, or we would have left long ago. But the truth is we move every couple years and uproot our children. We spend years away from the men and women we love, due to their assignments. Those aren't just deployments. There are other job requirements that mean our loved one is not by our side. We worry in ways that I can't even begin to explain when our men and women deploy. We hold our crying children at night and we refuse to eat at the dinner table because it's a reminder of the person that is far away from home and we just can't bear to think about them anymore. We don't have careers because the lifestyle makes that just a little impossible. We stay because our husbands and wives are valued and because they love their jobs. If you take away our retirement and replace it with a 401k, I would have serious doubts about the value of my husband's service; it would be a clear sign that Congress does not care.
If Congress decides to take our valued retirement, that deferred pay, away from us and have us invest our own hard earned dollars in a 401K plan instead, then I would ask Congress to whom do we owe our allegiance? Currently, we look to the US government for our benefits. We know, that at the end of the day, the US Government will be there. The Congress, the President, the Supreme Court - our nation will always be there. What happens when that benefit is being held by Wall Street? Our future will be locked up for decades in an institution that the Founding Fathers have never heard of. Are you asking that we change our allegiance? That we look to corporations instead? The vast majority of the military would rather leave active duty service than do that.
Congressman, I ask you to tackle a more difficult problem. You see, cutting military retirement won't solve our nation's crisis. It will save dollars, of that I have no doubt. But it will cost us more in many other ways.
Our nation's lack of revenue is a symptom of a much larger problem. When we went to war in Afghanistan and then to Iraq, Congress forgot to do something. They forgot to budget for the increased costs. At that moment in time, Congress should have found the revenue to pay for the wars and they didn't. At no time in our history have we ever gone to war without asking the American people to sacrifice. Well, our people have sacrificed unwittingly. Our economy is in shreds during a time of war. Our nation is on it's knees and we find ignorant people asking for austerity measures to solve the problem. Look back to the Great Depression and you can see how well austerity measures worked.
Congress needs to find a way to increase revenue for a short amount of time. Once we are able to pump funds back into the economy and put people back to work, we can once again focus on balancing our very unhealthy budget.
It seems that Congress is lacking in ideas to increase revenue. Let me share mine.
End the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We can no longer afford them. The war in Iraq took place under false pretenses and we are finished with anything we had hoped to accomplish there. The war in Afghanistan will never truly be won and we will always find more reasons to stay. Afghanistan has bested other great nations so this should be no surprise.
Impose a tax on the richest Americans to pay for the costs of the wars. This tax should have occurred 10 years ago and it would have helped prevent the current economic chaos. But, better late that never. Talk to Warren Buffet if you need to flesh out a plan.
Fix health care. The military spends a huge amount of money on health care costs. If we could fix the national health care system, the military could save millions, if not billions of dollars. For that matter, so would medicare and medicaid.
I am imploring you to finally do what is right, not just for military retirees and their families, but for all Americans. Fix the economy. Invest in America. And make us proud of Congress.
Sincerely,
angelajean