Decreasing Military Pay Raises BELOW Inflation Rate

This blog post I am going to address the ethical implications of the actions of our country's politicians. The specific article and topic I want to focus in on here is the recent news of potential changes to Military retirement pay, reduced pay raises, and decreasing housing allowance rates. I feel that the proposed changes to the retirement system have some potential upsides and downsides, however I don't feel a huge moral or ethical dilemma in the debate between the 2. The ethical dilemmas I see in this article is the small parts they slide in about the Senate voting to decrease military pay, I feel that there are so many area of our budget that could be cut, and our politicians are trying to cut from the pockets of the hardworking service members as opposed to their own paychecks, the welfare system, or any of the other thousands of areas that are over funded. "The legislation would also include a troop pay raise of 1.3 percent rather than 2.3 percent for fiscal 2016, which begins Oct. 1. The Defense Department proposed the lower figure, which compares to a 1-percent bump in basic pay service members received the past two years. But it's less than the 2.3 percent estimated increase in private-sector wage growth, which military pay is supposed to track by law" (McGarry, 2015). I find it to be an ironic ethical situation that by law the pay raise is supposed to track with inflation, however, when that's not convenient, they decide to change it to suit their desires. The article also talks about taking away from members housing allowances, "slowing the growth of basic allowances for housing (BAH) by another 4 percent over the next two to three years, in addition to the 1 percent approved for the current fiscal year. If the plan is approved, service members would eventually pay an average of 5 percent of their housing costs." (McGarry, 2015). Again, I find this to be an immoral idea, they are attempting to skew the facts by reporting it as a cost saving idea, but really they are taking away 5% of a members pay check by locating him somewhere where the housing costs exceed the amount of pay that they are providing. This is in part due to the housing pay scale that the military uses where they provide you with lower compensation for you work, but in turn provide you with adequate housing or additional income to rent/purchase adequate housing on the local economy. I find it to be a very poor way to show appreciation to Military members by decreasing the amount of their pay compared to inflation every year.





Reference

McGarry, B. (2015, May 13). Senate Panel Backs Military Retirement Change, Troop Pay Raise of 1.3%. Retrieved May 21, 2015, from http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/05/13/senate-panel-backs-military-retirement-change-troop-pay-raise.html?comp=7000023431425&rank=2