401Ks for military retirees. I don’t think this is what most people mean when they talk about cutting military spending. I am about ready to vote for Ron Paul.
The military retirement system has long been considered untouchable – along with Social Security and Medicare. But in these days of soaring deficits, it seems everything is a potential target for budget cutters. A Pentagon-sponsored study says military pensions are no longer untouchable – they’re unaffordable.
But endless wars are not?
CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports high-level, closely-held meetings are taking place at the Pentagon regarding a radical proposal to overhaul retirement for the nation’s 1.4 million service members – a bedrock guarantee of military service.
The proposal comes from an influential panel of military advisors called the Defense Business Board. Their plan, laid out in a 24-page presentation “Modernizing the Military Retirement System,” would eliminate the familiar system under which anyone who serves 20 years is eligible for retirement at half their salary. Instead, they’d get a 401k-style plan with government contributions.
They’d have to wait until normal retirement age. It would save $250 billion dollars over 20 years.
This is just bullshit.
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Considering they’re just using the military to police global market fundamentalism, I personally hope they don’t rob us too much to pay for it.
Do you suppose that right now, secretly, the brass and the top politicians are circulating secret documents spelling out the changing mission of the military, not to abandon their global commitment to stupid wars whose point seems to be to give the MIC something to do but to add the domestic job that is the only one the military exists for in many capitalist countries?
Suppression of rebellion, I mean.
Enforcement of capitalism in its most bare-knuckle form.
How confidently could you deny it?
Do I look like I’m denying it? Wouldn’t surprise me at all. When they basically suspended posse comitatus, I knew.
RON PAUL!
CMA – I mention Ron Paul only half in jest. Much that he believes in leaves me ice cold. But he’s right about the wars. Spot. On.
That’s the only thing he’s right about.
And he’s even more wrong about everything else than the other Republicans.
Yup.
Watch the retention rate plummet and as far as those new recruits coming in….
Maybe they’ll just contract out the military.
Not to mention that the military moves a person around every 2-4 years. Sometimes the military member can stay put for more than just one tour, or they can try to request a duty station, but more often than not, they go where the billet is. Period. (Ex: my ex was in the Navy. We were all set to go to Whidbey Island, WA after his tour in San Diego. In the meantime, he got promoted to E-6 and the opportunity for Whidbey disappeared. Why? The billet was for an E-5. We wound up in the Bay Area instead.)
The opportunities most civilians have: to put down roots in a community, buy a home, etc, are lost to the average military person. That enlisted person’s pension at the end of 20 years, which, by the way, is only half of their base pay (not much at all), is the least they should get for having served in such a nomadic manner.
Fredster, too right.
The government running its own military is just socialism, after all.
Like public schools, the TVA, and the post office.
bluelyon, after 30 years you get your full pay, or that was the rule back when I was in the service.
Not bad if you join at 18.
But most enlisteds leave after 20, wherein they get half. And, depending on your job skill, coming out at 48 with full base pay if you stay the full 30 (which is discouraged if you aren’t “making rank”) may not be a bed of roses if you don’t have a marketable skill.
In this ‘new’ 401k idea it sounds like the retiree will be at the mercy of a “defined contribution” vs “defined benefit” system. Ask anyone who is at the mercy of the stock market vs having a pension how that’s working out for them.
You have to stay in for 40 years for full base pay. 20 years is 50% of base pay and every year after that is another 2.5%. I ‘retired’ at 20 years from the Navy. In the Navy and Marine Corps they don’t actually retire until after 30 years. It’s called a transfer to the Fleet Reserve until you’ve hit 30. You can be called back to active duty at any time also.