Debt panel backs off on specific military cuts - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Debt panel backs off on specific military cuts

A presidential commission looking for ways to trim federal spending is considering a revised plan that no longer includes specific military cuts, but would still require defense spending to be cut by the same percent as domestic spending.

Gone from the recommendations are any specifics about exactly what to cut from defense. In fact, the plan unveiled Wednesday by the National Commission on fiscal Responsibility and Reform specifically removed earlier proposals to freeze military pay and cut military retired pay as debt-reduction options.

The revised plan, contained in a report called “The Moment of Truth,” doesn’t mean military pay and benefits are off the hook. Instead, it means decisions would be made later, likely with Defense Department input.

Under the plan, discretionary spending, including defense, would be capped at 2008 levels for two years and then be allowed to increase by no more than half the rate of inflation.

The Obama administration had planned a modest increase of 1 percent over inflation for the next five years, so the proposal would result in real but undefined cuts.

Military retired pay and health care are targets for future cuts under the revised plan.

It recommends a federal task force look at reforming government retirement, possibly making retirees wait until age 62 before receiving their first cost-of-living adjustment. Earlier draft recommendations would have made retirees wait until age 60 before they received any retired pay.

Similarly, the new report recommends a review of federal health care spending, including the military’s Tricare, with the potential for raising Tricare premiums in the future.

A “firewall” would be created to prevent defense spending from being diverted to domestic programs.

War spending would not be subject to the caps, but an annual limit would be established on contingency funds.

The commission will vote on the recommendations, on Friday. It takes the approval of at least 14 of the 18 commissioners for the recommendations to go forward.

Former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., a commission co-chair, said he didn’t know the outcome. “Whether we get two votes or 18, this baby is not going away,” he said, predicting that when Congress tries to cut federal spending next year “this cadaver will rise from the crypt.”

“There is no turning back now,” said Erskine Bowles, the former Clinton White House chief of staff who is the other commission co-chair.

On Monday, President Obama announced a proposed two-year salary freeze for federal workers, excluding uniformed service members. The report recommends a three-year federal wage freeze that also excludes the uniformed service members. The pay freeze also would apply to Congress.

The revised report omits previous recommendations to cut military force structure, but it recommends a 10 percent cut in the federal work force that include Defense Department civilians. These reductions would be made by attrition.