{"id":46177,"date":"2014-05-07T08:39:58","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T12:39:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=46177"},"modified":"2014-05-07T08:39:58","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T12:39:58","slug":"joint-chiefs-fight-congress-to-screw-the-troops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=46177","title":{"rendered":"Joint chiefs fight Congress to screw the troops"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Joint<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Stars & Stripes<\/a> reports that the Joint Chiefs of Staff faced off with Congress yesterday, standing firm for cost of living reductions, slashing commissaries and housing help while hiking health care costs to troops and retirees.<\/p>\n

Also Tuesday, all members of the Joint Chiefs testified in a rare gathering before the Senate Armed Services Committee to warn of the dangers of a shrinking defense budget and press for support of a 1 percent pay-raise and reductions to commissary, housing and health care benefits.<\/p>\n

In addition to the 1 percent pay raise, the DOD proposes cutting subsidies to base supermarkets from $1.4 billion to $400 million annually, reducing housing allowances until servicemembers pay about 5 percent for residences and utilities, and consolidating what Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Adm. James Winnefeld called a \u201cbewildering\u201d Tricare health care system.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From the JCS website<\/a>;<\/p>\n

The military needs Congress to step forward and help, Dempsey said. \u201cOur recommendations have lacked congressional support — notably, our request to reduce base infrastructure and retire weapons systems that we no longer need and cannot afford,\u201d the chairman told the senators. \u201cIn the meantime, we are continuing to hemorrhage readiness and cutting further into modernization. [This means] risk to the performance of our mission and risk to those who serve continues to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dempsey told the senators that all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all of the services\u2019 senior enlisted leaders support the three departmentwide principles to rebalance military compensation.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, we\u2019re not advocating direct cuts to troops\u2019 pay,\u201d Dempsey said. \u201cRather, this package slows the growth of basic pay and housing allowances while reducing commissary subsidies and modernizing our health care system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, military leaders will ensure that the compensation package allows the services to continue to attract and retain the quality people needed, Dempsey said. \u201cWe\u2019ll watch the way the force reacts, and if it reacts, we\u2019ll be back to you with recommendations on how to adjust,\u201d he added. \u201cBut we have to take that step.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, Dempsey told the Senate panel, savings from this will be invested in force readiness and modernization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, and invested in new golf carts at the Fort Meyers golf course. This group of the joint Chiefs will go down in history as the worst. The troops depend on their leaders to stand up for them, but this crowd can’t get off their knees. And, there’s enough blame to go around for Congress, too, which won’t grow some cojones<\/em> and demand across the board cuts to all agencies in the Executive Branch instead of just one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stars & Stripes reports that the Joint Chiefs of Staff faced off with Congress yesterday, standing … Joint chiefs fight Congress to screw the troops<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-army"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}