Military pay gap fiction, nonpartisan CBO says

[unhappycamper]

Military pay gap fiction, nonpartisan CBO says
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Jan 2, 2010 9:20:51 EST

The fate of the 2011 military pay raise may rest on how much weight lawmakers give to a claim by a nonpartisan congressional office that a purported gap in military pay doesn’t exist.

Instead of the 2.4 percent pay gap cited by military associations as reason for Congress to continue increasing military basic pay by slightly more than average private-sector raises, the Congressional Budget Office says there is a 10.3 percent military pay surplus.

The dispute about whether there is a pay gap or surplus is not new, but it is getting new attention from Congress as a result of warnings that rapidly growing military personnel costs are squeezing other needs out of the defense budget.

In particular, the CBO, which does budgetary analysis, and the Congressional Research Service, another analytical arm of Congress, have warned that the services will have trouble paying for new weapons and equipment if personnel costs, which now make up about 25 percent of the defense budget, are not reined in.

Analysts noted that there are ways to find money for weapons and other defense needs that do not involve cutting payroll costs, such as reducing the number of active duty troops, trimming other benefits or increasing the overall budget.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/01/army_paygap_010210w/

[HillbillyBob]

1. Where in the hell is the rest of that 669 billion

we spend of 'defense'?

[PavePusher]

2. The pay scale is not that great...

when you consider the differences between military employment and civilian employment.

Civilians generally don't have to go on indefinite camping trips with explosions.