During a recent keynote address at the Global Security Forum, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned that we need to look at cuts in military pay and benefits so we don't have a military that is, "well-compensated, but poorly trained and equipped, with limited readiness and capability." This is a very emotional, politically-charged and uncomfortable conversation to have and any politician looking to support this viewpoint would be facing certain election death. This may surprise many of my readers, but I support this viewpoint.
There are many reactions that you may have against cutting military pay and benefits and they are understandable. As a Finance Officer in the United State Air Force, I admittedly am suggesting that my pay and benefits get cut. But this country and our culture has a problem with overspending. We do it as a population and it bleeds into our political policy. The Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest expenditure of taxpayers' dollars so it makes mathematical sense that the DoD should bear a large portion of the reductions.
According to Secretary Hagel, over 50% of our costs come from military pay and benefits and while budgets have decreased our pay and benefits have increased. Our pay and benefits are a prime target until the DoD can learn to be fiscally responsible with their contract over runs, a horrible fiscal-year process and reducing the normal "fraud" that has become part of our culture. Our pay should be normalized to the rest of the country. Politicians are too scared to reduce our pay like a civilian corporation would which leads to the opposite of not increasing our pay like a civilian corporation would. Our pay should match the ebb and flow of our civilian population and the economy since it is taxpayers' that fund the DoD.
The military offers the best benefits package of any civilian corporation. At the end of a 20-year career, people can become theoretical millionaires. Our health-care costs have skyrocketed past the civilian populations. Take a sample size of your lowest-level unit and see how many aren't even using the amount of benefits that we get as military members. Our fitness centers are becoming larger and larger at every base while we have flying operations that can't fly and soldiers that can't be equipped properly. These are all additional costs that can be reduced.
Many people would argue that we should cut CEOs' pay and celebrities' pay before we touch an Airmen's pay currently serving in Iraq protecting our freedoms. Now, while that example brings up emotional truths, we must realize that the consumer funds CEO and celebrities' pay while the taxpayer funds the DoD. Right or wrong, our civilian population has voted with their dollars to keep CEOs and celebrities' pay at the levels they are at now, but they did not choose to pay for the large military industrial complex.
Many people would also argue that we shouldn't touch the pay and benefits and we should stop spending all the money on our broken end-of-year process that encourages a soft level of fraud to ensure we zero out the books so we don't get cuts the next year. While this is infuriating to me in my career, the amount of money that is actually spent wouldn't come close to a meaningful percentage enough to make significant changes to our force. I've personally seen the process and while I'll admit it's broken, leadership from the lowest levels to the highest levels can reduce and stop it.
Many people would argue that the DoD is not the problem and it's all the entitlement spending our country gives out. This is a politically-charged emotion and indeed, this country's entitlement spending is out of control. But to achieve the amount of reductions we would need to reduce the deficit and control the national debt, we would have to totally eliminate our social safety net in America and in real economics that is as dangerous as spending too much on entitlements. A country must have a strong social safety net to encourage and support massive growth. That being said, a compromise could be worked out for a matching reduction. So for every dollar that we reduce in military pay and benefits we should also reduce entitlement spending by a dollar. I don't know if that has been recommended by any politician yet, but if it hasn't, I would like the credit :)
Our personal debt, national deficit and the national debt are becoming too large too ignore. We must reduce spending and we must lower our dependence on foreign credit. In my opinion, our national debt is more of a security threat than any terrorist group in the world. In my opinion, everyone in America believes we should reduce spending as long as it doesn't affect their own lifestyle. They want cuts to everyone else. It's the "not my bubble" theory. By percentages, the majority of the spending comes from the DoD hence a proportional amount of cuts should come from the DoD. And if 50% of the DoD's costs come from military pay and benefits, then mathematically the cuts should also come from pay and benefits. Although it's a difficult position to take, I support Secretary Hagel's decision on reducing military pay and benefits.
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