- In our troubled world, would you prefer that the United States had six more F-16 squadrons over the next year or pay the 1 percent annual
cost-of-living adjustment for military retirees under age 62?
Last year the Obama administration proposed eliminating that 1 percent COLA raise — meant for retirees still able to work and before their Social Security kicks in — as a way to cut defense spending. It was approved in December as part of a bipartisan deal to reduce the deficit. In February, however, the House and Senate, pressured by veterans’ groups, reinstated the initial 1 percent increase for retirees.
My friends and I have all been concerned about our benefits being cut back. There are two camps here -- the "don't care" and the "money is allocated so get yours while it lasts." I'm of the don't care opinion; yeah, it'd be nice to receive an extra $1,500/mo tax free the rest of my life. But I don't want to end up relying on it and have it affect my drive. I'm content with the $436/mo I get, even though I could easily double, triple, or quadruple it with a revised claim. That's a new car whenever I want one, or a monthly IRA contribution, or whatever else.
Other guys I know will do whatever it takes to reach 100% service connected disability, which gives them about $3700/mo tax free the rest of their life. I know one guy who never deployed, but successfully claimed PTSD from sexual harassment and got his 100%. He said that he was traumatized by group showers (seeing so many dicks) and that someone put their dick on his shoulder when he was sitting down, and that he has nightmares about dicks and breaks down whenever he sees one, sometimes even his own. Bam. $3695 per month for the rest of his life. It's usually rationalized that they deserve it for x reason.
These claims are incredibly hard to vet unless limbs are missing.
We probably shouldn't be able to double dip in the G.I. Bill and Vocational Rehabilitation. This allows us to, essentially, have 8 years of school paid for in entirety. Books and living stipend included. In the larger populated areas of California, this is about $2200/mo on top of all tuition and books.
How do you Americans feel about the benefits and compensation we receive? It's a difficult thing to criticize in public for obvious reasons.
I get what you're saying, but with F-35 unit costs eclipsing $337 million each I'm not really feeling like the place to start cutting is the support and pension structure for the guys who signed up to get shot at. I mean, let's just look at this from a pilot/plane perspective. The machinery with the landing gear costs more than the latest Transformers movie each. It burns more in gas just getting it from the hangar to the runway than the pilot's pension will cost in six months. Never mind what it costs if one of them crashes. I want that pilot fat'n'happy, thank you very much. The primary thing that sets the US military apart from all others is an all-professional fighting force - the tech is just gravy.
I agree that it's the wrong place to begin cutting; these benefits are the primary draw of enlistment. But we still have a large OIF/OEF force that is transitioning to civilian now and in the near future. These compensation benefits are relatively new in their advertisement -- a lot of Vietnam era veterans don't even know about them, whereas every modern veteran is doing their best to receive the most of them. Pensions are a drop in the well compared to them, since very few of them are willing to stay in for 20 years. And they are long-term. I think the concern is that these costs will dig into our ability to maintain the most advanced military force, in which Reapers will eventually replace F-35s. I think they'd rather tech be the main dish.