From left, Gen. James Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps; Adm. Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations; Adm. James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. Ray Odierno, Army chief of staff; Gen. Mark Welsh III, Air Force chief of staff; and Gen. Frank Grass, Chief Of The National Guard Bureau, testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee, making the case that cuts to pay and benefits are necessary to maintain military readiness. (Rick Vasquez/Stars and Stripes)
Troop benefits were in the budgetary cross hairs in 2014.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff made a rare group appearance on Capitol Hill in May to urge lawmakers to reduce pay raises, housing allowances and Tricare benefits. They said shrinking defense budgets were forcing a choice between honing warfighting abilities and paying those benefits.
The House pushed back, and a few weeks later, passed a defense budget for the coming year that rejected the cuts. Retiring Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a key author of the bill, said he would not break promises made to the troops. The battle over personnel spending was far from over.
The Pentagon is facing mandatory budget caps that will affect day-to-day operations and personnel costs, which have ballooned by more than 80 percent since 9/11. Its plan included capping servicemember pay raises at 1 percent, requiring troops to pay 5 percent of housing costs and raising out-of-pocket prescription payments by $30 per year.
The Senate was more swayed by the brass’ dire warnings about readiness.
McKeon wrangled over the military spending with Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, Senate Armed Services Committee chair who was also set to retire.
Levin argued that cuts were needed in the coming year. But the Senate — widely criticized as dysfunctional — failed to pass its version of the National Defense Authorization Act through the normal legislative process in 2014.
By late November, McKeon and Levin were holding closed-door debates over a compromise bill.
The NDAA that emerged after Thanksgiving appeared to be proof that Levin had gotten his way. The last-minute deal included the reductions in military pay raises, housing allowances and Tricare pharmacy coverage.
The House passed the NDAA on Dec. 4 without amendments or much debate. Any changes would have sabotaged its chances of passing quickly before Congress ended its session for the year.
McKeon, in a tearful farewell speech, warned that the mandatory defense spending caps caused by sequestration and the benefit cuts were undermining support for troops.
“And how we have repaid them? With equipment that is falling apart; by laying them off while they’re off in war zones; by docking their pay and their medical benefits; by throwing them out of the service and onto a broken economy,” he said.
Levin said the NDAA will provide “modest savings” for the Department of Defense and that he was “disappointed” that Congress could not agree on deeper reductions.
