Monday, September 19, 2011
They will threaten anything to save their rice bowl
They being the Merchants of Death who, acting through their surrogates in the Pentagon, are suggesting that retiree and family benefits will have to be cut to preserve wasteful and unnecessary procurement programs.
As Washington looks to squeeze savings from once-sacrosanct entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, another big social welfare system is growing as rapidly, but with far less scrutiny: the health and pension benefits of military retirees.Heck, they are all retired anyway, who needs them anymore. If we cut the waste instead, what will the Merchants of Death survive on?
Military pensions and health care for active and retired troops now cost the government about $100 billion a year, representing an expanding portion of both the Pentagon budget — about $700 billion a year, including war costs — and the national debt, which together finance the programs.
Making even incremental reductions to military benefits is typically a doomed political venture, given the public’s broad support for helping troops, the political potency of veterans groups and the fact that significant savings take years to appear.
But the intense push in Congress this year to reduce the debt and the possibility that the Pentagon might have to begin trimming core programs like weapons procurement, research, training and construction have suddenly made retiree benefits vulnerable, military officials and experts say.
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