Are You Kidding? Cutting Military Pay/Benefits Good for Troops??

By Michelle Zook / 16 April 2014






On Thursday, Micheal Barrett, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, stood before the Senate and testified that service-members would do better with lower pay and less compensation. In fact, he said, “I truly believe it will raise discipline. You’ll have better spending habits. You won’t be so wasteful.”
Ponder with me, for a moment, the richness of this. The guy making more money than any other enlisted member in the Marine Corps on the eve of his retirement, representing an institution that has dodged an audit for nearly 20 years and insists it won’t be ready for an audit until 2017, stands in front of a Congress full of millionaires that can’t even balance its own budget and says service-members are wasteful in their own personal budgetary practices. Now, as we say back in Texas, don’t pee on my boots and tell me it’s rain.
Maybe Congress needs a taste of this “discipline”. The last time I checked, they weren’t leaving their families for six or more months of the year to go to the other side of the world on the nation’s business–which is pretty laughable; I’m reasonably sure we’ve had no business in Afghanistan since 2007 or 2008. An operational tempo such as what the military has experienced for the last decade-plus has its costs. The most expensive cost is inherently going to be your personnel.
In order to retain personnel deploying repeatedly at such a high rate, the government has to make it worth their while (through a mix of salary and benefits) OR spread the pool bearing the cost of the operational tempo over more than just the current percentage of Americans currently bearing the brunt. Congress and the Pentagon, however, refuse to recognize this cost, and it is doubtful (nor is it desirable) that Congress would ever reinstitute the draft.
In fact, amidst Congress clamoring that the military cut the budget, they have rejected propositions for a BRAC and other cost-saving offers from the Pentagon. Clearly, they are trying to get the service chiefs to admit that cutting pay and benefits is the option (this, by the way, absolves Congress if they can get the service chiefs to play along). It’s just too bad the sergeant major decided to play the puppet for Congress.
With all due respect to Sgt. Maj. Barrett and his service, I would ask that he think again before volunteering to give up service-member pay. The military spouse unemployment rate ranges from 29-35%. Sure, Congress can cut military pay—but then where is the money to come from when fuel prices and grocery costs don’t fall as well? What incentive do families have to gut it out in the military, when they feel like they’re constantly saying goodbye to their service-member, if not the promise of pay and benefits? As the 96% of the American population that doesn’t serve has shown, you don’t have to serve in the military to be patriotic.
Additionally, even at current rates of pay, many families—both enlisted and officer—qualify for food stamps and WIC. What’s going to happen if pay is cut even further? While there are always the anecdotal tales of junior enlisted sporting Cadillacs and BMWs, there are just as many who live very frugally and work very hard just to make ends meet. I have seen a military paycheck as a single officer, as a dual military family, as a dual military family with a child, and as the traditional military family with one service-member, a wife, and two children. I am incredibly grateful that my husband and I had the foresight and the ability to save most of our paychecks before we had children and to pay off our debts—but not every family is that lucky. Even now, we live very much within a budget and we are able to save a little each month, realizing that many families in our situation are living paycheck to paycheck. But the senior enlisted representative of the Marine Corps stands before Congress and says we need more discipline, and he will be listened to because it’s what Congress wants to hear.
We’ve gone beyond a “hollow force” mentality and obviously moved to a “stupid force” if Barrett—and Congress—think we’ll buy into this. Sure, the economy is bad, but given the option to stay in one place, put down roots, and not have a member of your family missing for six months every year starts looking better and better all the time when Congress and senior leadership view you as being this expendable.
There are places to make budgetary cuts. But having an all-volunteer military and attempting to police the world has its costs. Service leadership needs to be prepared to cut back on Congress’s overseas adventures (or at least tell it to allocate more money), and Congress needs to allow the service branches to put forth their cost-saving propositions without instantly denying them because of the potential cost to constituencies. After all, if we truly want to talk about “wasteful” spending, then maybe the place to look isn’t service-members’ salaries, but in the Pentagon’s contracting departments and Congress’s books.
Image: Courtesy of: https://www.flickr.com/photos/59937401@N07/5857709536/


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