When cutting soldier pay, start off small, then expand

The small military pension cut in the two-year, $2 trillion budget deal is just the beginning of what may be some lean budgeting years.

The ploy is simple: eliminate part of the military compensation bureaucracy that seems like so inconsequentially small that any stir seems pontifical.

The budget proposes shaving a percentage point off annual cost-of-living adjustments on military pensions paid to veterans younger than 62. This would produce some $6 billion in savings. This item, as NPR notes, is one-sixth of 1 percent of that total budget.

And yet critics of the bill are right to feel that a line has been crossed. Some see this as the precursor to larger reforms of the compensation system.

“This is kind of the canary in the coalmine to tell people whether or not this is possible — and so far the canary hasn’t died,” [Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments] said. “The lesson that we all ought to take from this is the idea that military retirement pay is a third rail in politics may not be true. That third rail might not have as much electricity flowing into it as we once thought.”

There is a lot of dead weight in the military finances, but compensation should not be first in line.

“You can’t say that all of that is untouchable if you’re serious about tacking our deficit,” Harrison said. “It’s as preposterous as saying Social Security and Medicare are untouchable.”

I believe that compensation for soldiers is separate from operating costs and research and development. For the dangers soldiers face, they sure don’t get paid very much. One can see in the private securities department how much soldiers get on the open market.

The government derives a benefit from soldiers. In the course of this process, the soldiers’ welfare is frequently harmed or put at risk. The government is ultimately responsible for this harm or risk — mental and physic damage included. One could say that as of right now, these responsibilities are not being fulfilled.

It’s possible that government labor costs become so high that they become burdensome and unwieldy — post office can be seen as an example of this. That said, soldiers are very expensive to train and are relatively underpaid.

The idea that the way to cut fat in the military defense budget lies in cutting away at the pay and compensation of its workers shows a very stupid set of priorities. Let’s look at the network of defense contracts before we harm those who’ve put in the most risk.