Political Quotes

“Let me say something about the budget. I try to think of things other people have not talked about. I do not even know right now whether I am going to be for or against this budget, but I had looked, and I was very alarmed. The minority staff on Armed Services did some research, and it came out that there are some parts of this act that we did not know were there. It would include an annual adjustment for retired pay and retainer pay for retired members of the Armed Forces under age 62. This penalizes current and future military members who have served our Nation for over 20 years. Now, keep in mind, people go into the military quite young sometimes, knowing that the time they would serve would be for 20 years--many of them longer but most of the time 20 years. That is kind of a given. They do this predicated on the assumption that retirement benefits and all these things are going to be there. They are making a career decision, I say to the Chair, and that is very significant. To come along with a bill that supposedly saves $6.2 billion--there are about 2 million retirees. Of those, just under half are under the age of 62. They would see a steady erosion of their retired pay, approaching 20 percent of their retirement pay by the time they reach age 62. The 1-percent annual reduction to uniformed service retired pay cost- of-living adjustment--those are the COLAs--for those under age 62 will have a devastating, long-term impact for those who retire at the 20- year point.…”