MOAA defends military benefits to ‘cost-cutters’

Military and veterans benefits are a target for cost-cutting because there has been dramatic growth in personnel-related costs

By Rick Maze

Current and former service members and their families understand the need for federal fiscal responsibility, but they don’t believe their benefits should be the first place the government looks when it tries to cut spending, a representative of a major military association told a federal budget commission.

Speaking Wednesday before the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Steve Strobridge of the Military Officers Association of America said his organization “believes strongly that there is a fundamental difference between social insurance programs that are made available to every American, and programs such as military and veterans’ compensation that are earned by service and sacrifice to the nation.”

The bipartisan commission was appointed to attempt what Congress has failed to do: make decisions about how to cut spending. It is similar to the base closure commission process used to make decisions on eliminating military installations.

Co-chaired by former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., and Erskine Bowles, former White House chief of staff under President Clinton, the commission is expected to make recommendations in December on both short- and long-term ways to improve financial stability.

A key area being studied is how to reduce costs for federal entitlements, which include Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, military and federal civilian retirement pay, and other government-paid benefits.

Strobridge said he did not want to minimize the importance of programs like Social Security, which also apply to service members and veterans, but he believes “the government has a unique employer’s responsibility to programs such as military retirement and health care” — programs that are used to recruit people into the military.

“Military and veterans benefits, including survivor benefits, are not a gift or benefit or commodity provided by taxpayers simply for being part of the U.S economy,” he said “They are earned compensation in recognition of special service and sacrifice for the nation, over and above what is rendered by other taxpayers.”

Military and veterans benefits are a target for cost-cutting because there has been dramatic growth in personnel-related costs, to the point that defense and service leaders have warned that those expenses — especially health-related costs — could squeeze vital weapons modernization programs out of the defense budget.

Strobridge, however, said projections of dramatic increases in personnel costs are “a statistical sleight of hand that depend on picking the worst possible starting point.”

“Costs increased because the government has tried to make up for benefits that were too low, like military pay raises that were 13.5 percent behind the private sector, housing allowances that required people to pay out of pocket when living off base, and for disabled retirees whose benefits were reduced if they receive both military and veterans disability payments,” he said. “The reality is that such explosive growth trends are not going to continue.”