Obama Wants to Shift Funds to Illegals; Give Our Military the Shaft


By Jean Marie Cinotto
2 9:53 pm July 27, 2014

Last year, Obama announced in late August that he would REDUCE the pay increase mandated by federal law for our military. He did just that in December 2013 with an Executive Order. It appears that he will once again push and get a reduction in the pay increase for our troops.
In June 2013 and again in June 2014, House appropriators funded the mandated 1.8% pay raise. As he did in 2013, President Obama wants to cut the mandated 1.8% raise to only 1% and, as they did in 2013, the Senate is backing Obama’s cuts to the troops raise.
Keep in mind that the President wants to cut our military while requesting $3.7 billion for the border crisis. Of that $3.7 billion, $1.8 billion is earmarked to house and provide medical services for illegal aliens and another $116 million would pay for transportation costs for unaccompanied children. The Senate’s and President’s cuts to our military’s raises would save $3.8 billion over five years. Look at those numbers again—the President and Senate want to cut our military who have taken an oath to defend our country while spending almost the same amount on illegal aliens who simply walked across our border.
Federal law says that military pay must be tied to the Employment Cost Index. Military pay is tied to private sector growth so the military doesn’t fall behind private sector pay. There was a tremendous gap between the two for years growing to an unbelievable high 13.5% gap in 1998 and 1999 under Bill Clinton. At that time, our military were making 13.5% less than private sector workers in the same type jobs classifications and education level.
In 2000 that started to change and Congress reversed the cuts that were resulting in the pay gap. By 2009, (that pay raise was put in place in 2008), the gap had shrunk to 2.9%. In 2012, military pay rose by 1.6% and in 2013 it rose by 1.7%–all due to the Employment Cost Index and the law that mandated that increases be tied to the Employment Cost Index. In June 2013, the House passed a bill that sanctioned the 1.8% pay raise for 2014, but the Senate, at Obama’s behest and after the 2012 elections, wanted to throw out federal law and rubber-stamp Obama’s wish for only a 1% pay increase.
Federal law does allow the president to make adjustments if he deems it in the national interest. That’s just what he did–Obama issued an executive order in December 2013 for the 1.8% to be reduced to 1% and it looks like he will do it again. He said it would keep our nation on a “sustainable fiscal course.” He signed it while on a 17-day taxpayer-funded vacation in Hawaii.

http://www.libertynews.com/2014/07/o...ary-the-shaft/