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Don't Change Military Retirement
The Defense Business Board (motto: Business Excellence in Defense of the Nation), a panel of corporate types who advise the Pentagons civilian leadership, has trained its sights on a problem that urgently needs fixing: the military retirement system.Didnt know it was broken? Well, a recent DBB study concludes that military benefits are more generous and expensive than those available in the private sector, and have therefore become unaffordable and unfair. Created back when military skills did not easily translate into civilian second careers, the system is also unnecessary, the study argues. And with retirees no longer dying as quickly as they once did, its inconvenient to boot. I've heard several times on the radio this week that these cuts would save $250 billion over 20 years. All the other cuts/expenses bandied about are over the next ten years. Wassamatter - $125 billion over ten years didn't sound big enough? Conclusion: Over the course of a decade, that all-volunteer force has proved to be astonishingly durable. With only 0.5 percent of Americans bearing the brunt of the nations seemingly interminable wars and with the rest of us largely insulated from wars effects politicians in Washington have had a free hand in deciding when and where that force will fight. Now Washington is under pressure to trim the costs of maintaining that force. Rather than reforming which really means gutting the retirement system for the men and women who devote their lives to defending their country, we need to reform which really means rethinking the all-volunteer force and what we expect it to do. Posted by: Bobby 2011-08-20 |
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