General Austerity And Major Cutbacks Meet Private Sector

The NY Times editorial board has tossed a few at the austerity dartboard and has decided that the real problem with Pentagon waste is all those people.

Big-ticket weapons like aircraft carriers and the F-35 fighter jet have to be part of any conversation about cutting Pentagon spending to satisfy the mandatory budget reductions known as the sequester. But compensation for military personnel has to be on the table, too — even though no other defense issue is more politically volatile or emotionally fraught. 

After a decade of war, the very idea of cutting benefits to soldiers, sailors and Marines who put their lives on the line seems ungrateful. But America’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is over or winding down, and the Pentagon is obliged to find nearly $1 trillion in savings over 10 years. Tough choices will be required in all parts of the budget. Compensation includes pay, retirement benefits, health care and housing allowances. It consumes about half the military budget, and it is increasing. 

In a speech last month, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned that without serious savings in this area, “we risk becoming an unbalanced force, one that is well compensated but poorly trained and equipped, with limited readiness and capability.” Meanwhile, Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, told a hearing: “The cost of a soldier has doubled since 2001; it’s going to almost double again by 2025. We can’t go on like this, so we have to come up with [new] compensation packages.” 

That's really something to think that the largest part of the Pentagon budget is paying the troops, not the billions thrown into weapons programs.  Apparently, we still need the weapons programs, but the troops, well, not so much.

So if you're wondering where the outcry is when we've got 900,000 veterans on SNAP assistance for food and that's getting slashed, the answer is that our Iraq and Afghanistan vets and surviving Vietnam, Korea, and Gulf War vets don't all mean that much to the Great Austerian Movement.  They're government employees, after all.  And we've learned to treat them as the enemy.  Better to load up with private contractors to do the dirty work rather than a standing military force.

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