Was 2013 the height of military benefits?

[unhappycamper]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/01/04/2977408/was-2013-the-height-of-military.html

Was 2013 the height of military benefits?
By TOM PHILPOTT
Contributing Writer
January 4, 2014

As it came to a close, 2013 seemed to leave a kind of high-water mark on the wall of more than a decade of steady, impressive gains to military and veterans’ pays and benefits. Will those gains now begin to recede?

The military this month is getting its smallest annual pay raise in 50 years — 1 percent versus 1.8 percent needed to match private sector wages. No big deal, pay officials contend. Military pay still exceeds earnings for 90 percent of civilians of like age and education level, thanks to the string of raises that, starting in 2001, exceeded private sector wage growth. Also, recruiting is strong, and average housing allowances rose 5 percent Jan. 1.

Military careerists and younger retirees got a harder hit in December when the first “bipartisan” budget in years included a cap on annual cost-of-living adjustments for retirees below age 62, starting in January 2016.

Projected savings — $6.3 billion over just the first decade — helped Congress ease automatic defense spending cuts set for 2014 and 2015. But advocates for military folks worry the COLA cap signals that lawmakers, who continue to oppose tax increases or cuts in more popular entitlement programs, no longer view military compensation promises as sacrosanct.

[Gordon Alf Shumway]

1. Expect continuing cuts to military retirement and retirement healthcare ...

Military and Postal retirement trusts are coveted by those who who would use them to hold down income taxes for the rich just as they are attempting to do with the Social Security Trust.