The Department of Defense is still considering changing the current military retirement system according to Stars & Stripes.
“Going back 40 years, this is something that has always been talked about,” said Todd Harrison, a fellow for defense studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “But it’s getting more serious attention now than it has in the past.
“In the current environment, when you’re looking at major changes to entitlement spending like Social Security and Medicare, that makes it easier to talk about changing military retirement.”
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that no changes in military retirement have been finalized, but he reiterated that they are under consideration. That includes breaking away from the 20-year plan, and possibly reducing the generous payout that future retirees will be eligible for.
Yeah, it’s easier to talk about drastically altering military retirement while at the same time you’re NOT talking about drastically altering Social Security or Medicare…but those are the problems. How intellectually vacant is that line of reasoning?
This is strictly a jealousy issue and manufactured by people who think that military life is just like driving a cab, or hanging out at the coffee pot in an office somewhere. We aren’t getting rich with our paltry retirement pensions…it barely makes up for how much we’re behind our peers when we reenter the real world and look for a job. Not too many of us live strictly off of our military pensions.
I’ve heard that I’m rich because I continue to work and draw my pension from family and friends who should know better. I tell people, if you want a twenty-year pension, join the military. No, no, no I can’t do that. Damn right, ya little pussy.
Anyone talking about ending police or fire department twenty-year pensions? Hell, no. Those are union jobs.
The only thing that still works like it always in this country is the military and Liberals are doing their best to fuck that up just like they did with the education system. Jimmy Carter lowered the percentage retirees got to 40%, but that didn’t fuck it up enough, I guess. Who is going to make a career out of the military with expensive healthcare and no pension?
“and possibly reducing the generous payout that future retirees will be eligible for.”
Did ya hear that, Jonn? You’re getting a generous payout! Don’t sit there and lie to us about your meager military retirement. We know the truth; that you are living in a mansion in Beverly Hills while telling us that you are living in West Virginia.
I hear all the time that SS retirees paid into the system and they are, therefore, just getting what they have coming to them, yet you don’t hear the same when it comes to military retirees. I guess those that defend Social Security want to ignore that the military retirees paid for their military retirement with their youth, but also continue to pay into Social Security. Yep, the usual solution; fuck the military (until they are needed, again).
I do love that the left is always trying to dismember the two aspects of the military member’s compensation package they simultaneously fight for for everyone else: single payer healthcare and a robust, fixed pension.
I’ve seen many civilians who don’t understand what family and I had to go through to obtain my police retirement and my national guard retirement (which I don’t even get unless I live to be 60).
For the cop retirement, I worked nights, weekends, holidays, missed family things, missed eating dinner with my family for many years and not even talking about the crap I had to put up with in police work.
Most cops DO NOT last even 20 years, I lasted 32 years and I can still out do many rookies.
As for my nat guard retirement, that was earned missing all kinds of thing for the “one weekend a month” when I got called up for State emergencies and 2 overseas deployments- Bosnia and Iraq.
One family member who’s never worked in her life said I was lucky to have a good retirement. I was lucky to have survived.
For those who think cops, firefighters and the military get too much in retirement, I would like to see them try what we had to do for just one year.
OT: Sorry but I just sent the admin an image that I think is Dan Choi from a kids cartoon I saw last night…..
you are going to die laughing when you see it….I’m not positive its him, but it sure looks like him.
Plus its star wars themed so its twice as funny.
For all those talking about the Social Security money they paid in, I say lets total up what you put in, subtract out what you have taken out, and write a check. It would be SIGNIFICANTLY less than you will actually take out.
Military retirement was part of a contract. Unless the US declares bankruptcy (not likely), there is no legal precedent for renegotiating that now. If they want to change it on a go-foward basis and see who signs up, well that is one thing, but changing it for people with 10+ years in or already retired is another completely.
Susan,
Whenever folks talk of contracts, I’m reminded of Darth Vader’s admonition to Lando Calrissian in “The Empire Strikes Back.”
This administration is the same one that threw out the contracts of shareholders in General Motors, and permitted only dealers who are donors to the Democrats to remain open.
I don’t think contract law, as you were taught, exists anymore.
My kid is in the navy he said that if they do change the retirement that alot of the senior enlisted will not reup. Yea thats what we need force the people that matter the most to leave. Good thinking. I am sure that there are some now that are going to git while the gitting is good.
re #7
That’s the general consensus of most of the career guys I know who are still in the Marine Corps. The top 50% is going to pack up and leave. They’ll take their VA benefits, their GI Bill and their resumes and they’ll go to the private sector. This is going to exacerbate the already perilous shortage of experienced, quality NCOs and field grade officers.
A lot of folks who’re talking about leaving the service will change their mind once they realize how bad the job market is. Principle is one thing, taking food out of your own kids’ mouths is another.
I just think some of these people who think the 20 year retirement is “generous” need to get a twenty year ass whipping. They don’t realize all that is given up over that 20 years. Basically everything that civilians are building. I just think some people need an ass kicking in general…
@9 there are lots of opportunities. My kid mentions blackwater as one, they are paying VERY well. & @7 yes he is a Doc he says that retention in the marines is NOT going well, he is doing alot of departure physicals.
6 – DaveO
Notice that I said “unless the US declares bankruptcy” – for which there is no provision by the way. In bankruptcy, the rights of shareholders almost always get cancelled and lots of contract get “modified” pursuant to a specified set of provisions.
I do not have much problem with the GM bankruptcy. It went the way most bankruptcies do. Often employees fair better than other creditors within certain prescribed parameters. My problem is with the Chrysler bankruptcy where secured bondholders got less than the value of their collateral and the unions got a disproportionate share in violation of the absolute priority rule and in violation of decades of precedent. That one was pure payoff to unions on the backs of investors who thought they had protected their investment with collateral. That is the one that really stinks.
Sweet.
Good thing I re-enlisted twice (4 years and 6 years, at year 2 of the 6 year enlistment right now) and told myself, well, at least I will have my 20 years and retirement. Silly me.
I always wondered what a 21st Century “Bonus Army” would look like.
It’s good to see that the “commission” making these recommendations are all secure in their 20+ year retirements. No skin off THEIR backs.
Susan: exactly.
Coldwarrior57: Blackwater, Xe Services, DynCorp (recommend they stay from those criminals), and others are hiring. No doubt about that. May be a case where the cure is worse than the cold, though. Point being: folks said similar when the retirement deals were altered in the 70s, and 80s. Late 80s and 90s the economy was strong enough to take military folks and they could make a decent living right off the bat.
Nowadays, with real unemployment in many areas well above what’s being reported, folks need to exercise some discernment. Will they have an income floor (retirement pay/compensation)? Medical/Vision/Dental care? Income tax exemption? None of the mercs provide that – you are an independent contractor responsible for yourself.
We’re going to watch a bunch of clowns generate a one-size-fits-all-per-component solution, which will put money into their pockets, when each retiring SM is different.
The only group of “public employees” who should receive a pension are the members of the military.
FBI agents can quit whenever they want, civilian police and FF face danger but get overtime,generous benefits and usually get to go home at night(or the morning). The many other bureaucrats face no danger greater than that of anyone in the private sector workplace.
I’m curious about something maybe someone has the numbers.
Annual spending on military vs civilian fed employee pensions, and median pension on both.
>That’s the general consensus of most of the career guys I know who are still in the Marine Corps.
My husband just got on the W4 promotion list.. .He is turning it down and retiring now. No use giving it two years if those two years are going to be grandfathered into this new retirement system if passed(according to the Army Times). He would rather retire now with his 40% retirement.
Right now they aren’t caring.. They are considering the services overstrengthed, because they are going to start cutting them down. It feels like the 90’s all over again, except now they are messing with retirement too.
re #9
The economy is bad, sure, but there’s still work for the well qualified. If you’re sitting on eight years in but you have your shit together and an unused GI Bill in your pocket (maybe some disability too) getting out starts to look a whole lot better. It’s not a matter of everyone up and deciding they’re going to leave the military, there will always be people who stay and, like you said, the economy sucks. What this will do is widen the margin of quality people who look at the financial metric and make the calculated decision that the military is not the smart choice for their family any longer. This simply hurts the quality of the force because it detracts from the competitiveness of the military’s benefits package.
NSOM – your logic is sound, but you’re missing one number: the number of folks who equally or more qualified for whatever job, but are unemployed/underemployed. It’s an employer’s market right now.
Not to rain on the parade, Jonn, but Panetta has actually been lobbying for cuts to Social Security and Medicare. He’s taken some heat for it from the left. So has Obama.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/dems-take-on-panetta-for-pushing-medicare-social-security-cuts-over-defense-cuts.php
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/08/05/military/index.html
Even Michelle Bachmann has recommended cuts to the VA.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/veterans-groups-criticize-bachmann-plan-to-cut-benefits/
She also said veterans receiving service connected disability from the VA and disability from Social Security are double dippers, and proposed cutting the Social Security disability payments.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/01/military-bachmann-veterans-groups-012811w/
These people ask us to fight their wars, but they have zero interest in taking care of us after we’re done. That goes for both parties.
mmmm mmmm mmmm that girl’s goose is cooked.
As is often said out here in flyover country (mostly by old time pentecostal preachers) “God don’t like ugly” and it’s about as ugly as it gets to shaft the very people that provide the blanket of freedom you sleep under every night so you can rise the next day to go about your protected life.
#10 JPJ I’m with you.
Well, at this point with the DADT, and various other gut-ments of the military, if anyone were to ask me about enlisting, I’d have to tell them either “no”, or “do a single enlistment & get out”.