Hoyer says spending freeze should extend to the military (pay)

[babylonsister]

Dems sounding more and more like rethugs; note last para. What happened to spending more on programs to goose the economy?

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/130941-hoyer-says-spending-freeze-should-extend-to-the-military

Hoyer says spending freeze should extend to the military
By By Russell Berman - 11/29/10 12:56 PM ET


The second-ranking House Democrat said Monday that President Obama’s move to freeze the pay of civilian federal employees should be extended to military personnel as well.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) praised the president’s announcement of a two-year pay freeze, but he said including the military would have increased savings and added “an element of fairness.”

“While I appreciate that the president reduced the length of his proposed pay freeze from three to two years,” Hoyer said in a statement, “it would have produced significantly more savings had that sacrifice been shared between federal civilian and military personnel--with a strong exception for the members of our military and civilian employees risking their lives on our behalf in Afghanistan, Iraq, and anywhere else they are serving in harm's way.”

Hoyer will become the minority whip in the 112th Congress. He has made budgetary reform a signature issue, and he said he would review Obama’s proposal “for its balance between fiscal responsibility and the need to recruit and retain a federal workforce able to provide the level of service that the American people expect.”

The Maryland Democrat also urged the administration to a back a more comprehensive program to reduce the nation’s soaring deficit, along the lines of proposals from the president’s fiscal commission and a separate debt panel.

[w8liftinglady]

1. UMMM..this pisses me off...see below

http://www.military.com/news/article/more-troops-are-relying-on-food-stamps.html
More Troops Relying on Food Stamps


Military members and their families are using more food stamps than in previous years – redeeming them last year at nearly twice the civilian rate, according to Defense Commissary Agency figures.

The agency reports that more than $31 million worth of food stamps were used at commissaries nationwide in 2008 – an increase of about $6.2 million, or more than 25 percent – from the $24.8 million redeemed in 2007. That contrasts with a 13 percent overall increase in food stamp use by Americans for the same period, according to the Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program.

http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,82088,00.html

Food Stamps are not the Answer
clip
(bullshit)
- "My husband is deployed with a National Guard unit in Iraq. His military salary does not cover our monthly mortgage payment, and while he’s gone, my three children and I use food stamps to eat."

- "While we families under E-5 receive food stamps and other funding when available, we go from pay check to pay check robbing Peter to pay Paul."

- "Could you please do your part to inform GAO that most enlisted military personnel E-5 and below qualify for some kind of government assistance, i.e. food stamps, subsidized daycare. If my husband, a Corporal (E-4) in the Marine Corps, and others like him, is so well paid, then why do we qualify for government assistance? My family and thousands of families like ours have to live from paycheck to paycheck not because we are trying to live beyond our means, but because our means are above what the military member is being paid."

http://www.militaryhomefront.dod.mil/portal/page/mhf/MHF/MHF_DETAIL_1?section_id=20.80.500.165.0.0.0.0.0¤t_id=20.80.500.165.500.270.90.0.0

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP

Family Subsistence Supplemental Allowance

Although SNAP is not available overseas, the Department of Defense (DoD) Family Subsistence Supplemental Allowance (FSSA) Program is available to those members living in overseas locations. FSSA increases a member's basic allowance for subsistence (BAS) by an amount intended to remove the member's household from eligibility for benefits under SNAP. FSSA will be paid in an amount equal to the total dollars required to bring that member's household income to 130 percent of the federal poverty line.

Services and Benefits

Qualifying service members can receive up to $500 a month.

Cautions

FSSA income may jeopardize a household's eligibility for certain programs that have income requirements/guidelines such as the following:

SNAP
Subsidized School Lunch Program
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program
Day Care Assistance
Earned Income Tax Credit
Supplemental Security Income (SSI)





Yeah...let's cut their salaries...you greedy pricks.

[Solly Mack]

2. I'll be passing this around my community

Anyone thinking that an exception for troops deployed would make such a proposal easier to swallow among the military has another think coming.

[gort]

3. Hey Steny, share the sacrifice and freeze your own pay!

Oh, that's right. Congress is excluded from Federal pay freezes.

[Obamanaut]

6. Congress members not getting raise this year, did not last year. Link ->

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/05/another-zero-pay-incre ... /

<snip> And now there will be no pay raise for House or Senate members next year, either. The House passed H.R. 5146 by a vote of 402 to 15 on April 27, and the Senate approved the measure by unanimous consent the following day. President Obama signed the brief bill into law without ceremony on May 14. It states that there will be no "adjustment" to the pay of House or Senate members during fiscal 2011, despite the law that would otherwise provide for a cost of living adjustment in line with inflation.

[seabeyond]

7. good to know. thanks. nt

[gort]

10. Thank you!

I gotta stop shooting from the hip so much without fact-checking first! :)

Either way it is easier for a person like Hoyer and the rest of congress to take a cut or no raise then it is for 98% of the rest of the US.

"I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who's hitting you? It's about time that the people of America realized what the Republicans have been doing to them." Harry S. Truman

[madrchsod]

4. he`s a fucking idiot.

this was circulating on my facebook page last week. obama said he was`t going to cut now hoyer puts out this shit. i get the feeling that obama has lost control of the message and the party.


want to save money? end the god dam wars!

[TBF]

5. They need to cut Congressional pay and benefits, and put caps

on executive salaries. Why are we watching this country disintegrate before our own eyes and not doing anything about it? Capitalism doesn't work for 98% of us - let's get rid of it.

[LiberalFighter]

8. It should be a cut or freeze for anyone in the the military above a certain rank

and any staff of those above a certain rank. Generals, Colonels, Admirals, etc.

[TwilightGardener]

9. How would the military make exceptions (give raises) for only deployed personnel

when almost all military personnel can be deployed at any time? They are CONSTANTLY coming and going. Any military members who are home now might very well be "in harm's way" within a year, and don't even know it yet. Hoyer doesn't seem to know how the military works, especially with two wars still under way.

[Toucano]

11. Here's your "element of fairness", Hoyner.

Make your compensation exactly the same.

Let some "sacrifice" and "belt tightening" extend the halls of congress for a change.