Board Says Military Retirement “Unaffordable”On July 22, the Defense Business Board task force recommended that the Secretary of Defense reduce the DoD civilian workforce by more than 111,000, and laid the groundwork for potential future recommendations to cut spending on military retirement, health care, family support, and other programs.
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For the last year, the Defense Business Board has predicted major problems for the Defense budget as the nation deals with deficit reduction efforts, the economic slowdown, escalating health care and personnel costs, and the potential exit from two wars.
Board members believe that avoiding a looming fiscal crisis will require cutting the Defense budget beyond Secretary Gates’ recently announced target of a $100-billion reduction in “overhead” spending.
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A page titled “The ‘Military Retirement’ sacred cow is increasingly unaffordable” cites increases in the number of military retirees since 1980 (as if this weren’t the direct result of decisions by every administration and Congress since the 1950s to induce a large standing career force to protect America and the world) and criticizes the 20-year retirement system (as if the military could have sustained the force over the last 10 years of repeated wartime deployments without it).
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Unfortunately, the Defense Business Board report is only one of the early shots in what likely will be years of budget battles to reconcile military and other needs with truly daunting deficit projections.
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