A Bad Omen For Pentagon Budget? -- Jeremy Herb, The Hill
The swift work in Congress to repeal $6 billion in cuts to military pensions that passed just two months earlier is a bad omen for future efforts to curb military personnel costs, budget analysts say.
Congress included the reductions in military retirement pay as part of the December budget deal, but it quickly reversed course amid a major backlash from veterans groups.
“It is definitely a step backwards and is going to make future efforts much more difficult,” said Ed Lorenzen, a senior adviser to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “The lesson unfortunately that a lot of members took from this effort is that doing anything that effects military retirees is going to be too politically difficult.”
The pension cuts in the budget deal — which reduced the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for working age retirees by one-percentage point below inflation — were seen as a test case by both opponents and proponents of curbing military compensation costs.
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My Comment: U.S. military retirees vote .... and hell hath no fury if they lose their benefits.
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