[Vision2020] Task Force Seeks to Cut Military Retired Pay

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the Army Times at:

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/11/military-budget-recommendations-retirement-cuts-111710w/

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Second task force seeks to cut retired pay

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Nov 17, 2010 17:01:47 EST

The military retirement system is under attack from another group trying
to cut federal spending, and this time they say they would make the
changes apply even to current service members who have less than 15 years
of service.

In a report released Nov. 17, the Debt Reduction Task Force of the
Bipartisan Policy Group recommends cutting military retirement costs in
half by making three changes:

• Instead of drawing a retirement check immediately after completing
active duty, checks would not start until age 57.

• Instead of calculating retirement benefits on the highest three years of
basic pay, the highest five years of consecutive service could be used as
the multiplier to set amounts.

• A new formula would be adopted for calculating cost-of-living
adjustments in military and federal civilian retired pay and Social
Security — a formula expected to result in smaller increases by
disregarding price increases in some goods and services if people could
use a less expensive alternative product or service.

The Debt Reduction Task Force was headed by former Senate Budget Committee
chairman Pete Domenici, a Republican from New Mexico, and Alice Rivlin,
who was the White House budget director during the Clinton administration.

The report also talks of either freezing defense spending or rolling back
the size of the defense budget to pre-2001 levels.

Retirement changes are similar, but slightly less drastic, than
recommendations made by co-chairmen of another bipartisan group, the
National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. That panel also
recommended a high-five calculation for military retirement with a revised
COLA calculation, but would have made retirees wait until age 60 to draw
their first checks.

The Domenici-Rivlin task force calculated $131 billion in savings by 2040
from the revised retirement plan, but it noted that by postponing the
effect on anyone with 15 or more years in the military, the plan wouldn’t
start achieving real savings until 2017.

The recommendations from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility
and Reform co-chairmen, former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., and former
Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles, do not include a
specific savings estimate from changing military retired pay, instead
lumping cost estimates in with changes in federal civilian retired pay.
Additionally, the Simpson-Bowles recommendations do not specifically say
whether anyone now in the military would be grandfathered or whether the
reduced and delayed retired pay could apply to everyone still in the
service.

Any change in retirement calculations would require congressional
approval, since the formula and timing for payments are set in law. The
two reports are expected to get attention from Congress next year when
current lawmakers are faced with drawing up a 2012 federal budget plan
after the 2010 elections featured a lot of talk about cutting federal
spending.

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Yeah, this'll bring crowds to the neighborhood recruiting offices.

After a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine completes 20 years of service
at (say) 39 years of age, (s)he will have to wait another 18 years before
(s)he can draw retirement.

Why not just run for congress, do a quick ten years, retire, and draw
$70,000+ (with franking priveleges) for the rest of your life?

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown