Bush Resists Democrats on Military Pay
White House says 3.5% hike is too costly
WASHINGTON - The White House is trying to kill a Democratic plan to increase the size of a military pay raise next year, contending it would be too costly and that members of the armed forces are already sufficiently compensated.
In a letter from the White House Office of Management and Budget to congressional committees overseeing the military, OMB director Rob Portman said Wednesday that the administration “strongly opposes” a Democratic plan to bump up military salaries by 3.5 percent instead of Bush’s request for a 3 percent jump. 
“The cost of increasing the FY 2008 military pay raise by an additional 0.5 percent is $265 million in FY 2008 and $7.3 billion” if similar raises are enacted over the next five years, Portman’s office said in a six-page memo outlining concerns about the defense spending bill that was approved by the House early Friday and will be taken up by the Senate this week.
The 3 percent raise proposed by Bush is equal to the increase in the Employment Cost Index estimated by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. New recruits currently make a base salary of $15,617 but are eligible for various bonuses and receive extensive benefits.
Top Democratic leaders vowed to continue their efforts to enact a larger raise, arguing that members of the armed forces and their families deserve annual pay raises higher than the private sector due to the dangers of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The plan to hike military salaries is part of a larger effort by the Democratic Party to demonstrate its support of troops as it moves to place restrictions on funding for the Iraq war.
House leaders are particularly anxious to dispel the notion that Democrats are unsupportive of the military.
Congress often adds money to the annual White House spending request for military programs. Yet the newly elected Congress, which is controlled by Democrats, has placed more emphasis on increasing funding for military personnel than for weapons programs such as missile defense systems, according to MacKenzie Eaglen , a national security specialist at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning public policy think tank.
“This bill [passed by the House] promotes the softer spending — such as healthcare, compensation, and readiness — rather than equipment and weapons,” she said.
She said she worries, like the White House, that too much spending on compensation and other personnel costs could unduly drain funding from vital weapons systems.
Democrats, however, think the higher salaries are justified.
In a letter circulated to Senate colleagues yesterday urging their support for the higher pay raise, Senator John F. Kerry , Democrat of Massachusetts, chided the Bush administration for opposing the measure even as it lobbies Congress to extend tax cuts for some of the wealthiest Americans.
In a separate letter to Bush yesterday, Kerry said he was “extremely disappointed” by the White House position on the pay raise, saying it stands “in direct contrast to the will of the American people who support all the efforts to support our troops.”
Kerry previously coauthored the Military Family Bill of Rights, which is now law, that increased the death benefit for surviving spouses and family members of troops killed in action to $250,000. The Kerry legislation also extended the amount of time survivors can remain in military housing after their loved one is killed to a full year.
Kerry’s new call for greater military pay was echoed by a group of Iraq veterans yesterday.
“The pay raise in the bill is equivalent to approximately $6 a month in troop pay-raise increases,” VoteVets.org, a Democrat-leaning military advocacy group said in a statement.
The group’s spokesman, John Bruhns , an Iraq veteran, said that “for President Bush to begrudge our troops a pay raise of [one-half] percentage point is outrageous, appalling, and just unacceptable.”
He said more financial compensation is especially needed at a time when Army deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have been extended from 12 months to 15 months.
The veterans group also urged the White House to support another provision in the House bill that would provide an additional $40 a month for family members of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The House defense bill authorized $644 billion for the Department of Defense for the year beginning Oct. 1, including $142 billion to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The bill provides our troops with more than the Bush administration requested, including a pay raise more in keeping with what they deserve,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement yesterday.
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
It’s simple: BushCo wants the Military gone and replaced by Blackwater because Blackwater employees don’t take an oath to Defend the Constitution.
Instead, they can be pressured into taking an Oath of Loyalty to King Dubya, after which they will be hired to “Protect” the next Election against “Fraudulent Democratic Voters”.
“The cost of increasing the FY 2008 military pay raise by an additional 0.5 percent is $265 million in FY 2008 and $7.3 billion” if similar raises are enacted over the next five years, Portman’s office said in a six-page memo outlining concerns about the defense spending bill that was approved by the House early Friday and will be taken up by the Senate this week.”
“Concerns about defense spending”? This is a joke, right?
Let’s take a summer vacation from the Iraq War with the Iraqi government. That should save us about $4 billion or more. Congress could then move to form a committee to pursue the whereabouts of the missing $9 billion in Iraq, and not stop until every stone is turned and the money is found. And don’t we have some money being returned to us from Halliburton?
The wealthy in this country are getting a $$2 Trillion tax cut over a period of how many years?
The entire military budget is a vulgar waste of money. The troops don’t need a raise, they need to be offered a choice of being transfered to the peace corps or layed off.
The department of defense does not defend us. They do what the insanely greedy billionaires who control this nation want them to do.
“The time for war has past.”
Maitreya, the World Teacher
http://www.Share-International.org
first this chimpanzee starts a war then won’t even raise the salaries for the troops? who in their right mind would join the military or who in the military will support this insipid babboon? dumbya has contempt for everyone that falls over his path
And how much Bush is paying those mercenaries? How much? Can you repeat? No wonder at 15k plus a year this war look like a joke. 6 dollar a month increas, a month you said, that is $1.50 a week. That is $.30 a day. you can’t eaven buy water with $.30. Who the F. is he kidding over here. Slavery ended how long ago? This is not good PR mister Bush.
Bush’s sickening hypocrisy toward our troops. When he needs a photo op, he finds some troops to act as props for photos showing him as the president-troop advocate. Then he is against a small pay increase. He cut funding for veteran medical services while at the same time setting aside $20 million for an Iraq victory party when we ultimately win. Then there was the Walter Reed scandal. Too bad none of the injured vets had a full bed pan to toss at him.
Our military will be over extended in Iraq until his last day in office. He will dump his quagmire on the next president. At that point, we will leave Iraq with a broken military in the same way Vietnam broke our military previously. I suppose he has no way to remember that because he had a rich boy alternative to Vietnam, occasional nation guard duty.
But, this p…. is willing to squander billions on the private contractor’s he has hired to conduct his obscene war of his. The waste this bunch has perpetrated is mind boogling. We are going to be paying for this mess for years to come. And they don’t even have the b….to give the poor GI’s a raise. I can see why no young person in their right mind will join the military. What is even more amazing the military is Bush’s biggest supporters. They are the part of the bunch that put this criminal in office. So, in a way I guess it is poetic justice they have what they voted for.
fact is, the young men and women in our military who are making a measly 15k a year are not the families of dumbya’s rich friends, so he doesn’t give a s… how much they make.
Bush’s opposition to meager pay increases and vital benifits for our veterans typifies his concern for them, as well as his favoratisms for Halliburton et al. However, why the military would ever vote for such a president, who even avoided the draft, is perplexing and even alarming.