Let me see if I understand this correctly. To help block higher Tricare fees I would give up 1 percent of my next COLA for 1 month? Assuming a 2.3% COLA like the last one, I would give up $24.93 for one month. I think this is a small price to pay to ensure blocking fee increases.
I am finance and I sort of got what they were talking about. The money soldiers get to pay rent are tax free, now if you took that money and made it part of your income during tax time, you would bepaying more taxes, and there wouldn't be much left for your rent. Now they are saying that if you counted that money we make 6.5% more than civilians at our age!! One thing that they forgot to discuss is that we don't work 09:00-17:00 when we are in Iraq we work much more than that, plus don't they always say that we are soldiers 24/7 then we should get pay as such!!! One more thing is that now housing at a lot of bases is not manage by the military but by contracting companies. Now they know how much money will you get for housing according to your rank, so guess how much will they charge you for rent? yeah..your whole allowance, soldiers do not save any money anymore that used to help them pay for other utilities!!
"We're in wartime, we're stressing our troops and [lawmakers] are going to take every opportunity to show their appreciation," They will do this by allowing you to be robbed of all your retirement in the event of a divorce.
Congress, try taking a look at the Uniformed Services Former Spouses Protection Act (USFSPA) All of this is a waist of time if we continue to rob our servicemen of their continuation pay and VA disability pay in divorce courts. I personally would give up all of my 3.9 percent pay raise if congress would correct the unconstitutional law of fleecing unsuspecting service members of their pay. Repeal Pub. L. No. 97-252, 96 Stat. 730 (1982), currently codified as amended at 10 U.S.C. § 1408.
Truly show our service members who in this “very very difficult period” have sacrificed, so much, that they can rest at peace knowing they will not be robbed of their retirement pay by a judge who has no idea of what they have endured. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, its not a surprise, you have some reading to do. Take a look at http://www.ulsg.org/ for starters.
I am retired and I don't really think this is an awful thing to do, take a months COLA, from me and the rest of the Retirees, but why not leave us along just for once and take the money from the retired Senators and Representatives? They make a heck of a lot more money from their retirement that any military person I know off!!Why is always the Poor Old G.I. that always gets it in the end? We (the Retirees) needs to start a write-in and bury the present Senators and Representatives in mail about this. I know for sure all of mine will hear about it. One letter will not get anything done, but if the millions of retires sent one to their Senator's and Reps., it would at least get some attention. We could also write Sen Obama and McCain and get them to make a vote for me and I will do this promise
I agree. When I hear of any member of congress wanting to halt or slow the growth of our benifits because they are now "in line with the private sector", I want to scream. How is it that an entity whos pay and benifits are way above the private sector, would try to use the private sector as a fair unit of measurement?....If that is the case, lets bring down their pay, their retirement, and their health care benifits. Give Congress & the House Tricare prime....Good enough for our troops, Good enough for them.....
