Military benefits survive defense reductions

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

An Army corporal would get a full housing allowance to rent an off-base apartment and a military family will see little change in their grocery costs at the commissary as an election-year Congress rebuffed Pentagon efforts to trim military benefits.

The House Armed Services personnel subcommittee voted unanimously Wednesday to leave intact the current military health care system, the housing allowance and much of the Pentagon’s $1.4 billion in direct subsidies to the commissaries.

“I’m just really concerned about military families, and this doesn’t need to be,” Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., chairman of the personnel subcommittee, said of the proposed Pentagon cuts after the panel vote. “To me, the primary focus of the national government is national defense. We will be providing.”

The panel’s action marked the first step in the defense- budget process on Capitol Hill, with the full Armed Services Committee expected to approve the bill next week.

Facing diminished budgets, three defense secretaries and senior officers have maintained that the cost of personnel benefits have become unsustainable and threaten the Pentagon’s ability to prepare the force for war-fighting.

The department has proposed gradual reductions that would increase out-of-pocket expenses for current and retired military as it faces a sober reality — military pay and benefits make up the largest share of the budget, $167.2 billion out of $495.6 billion.

Every attempt by the Pentagon to trim benefits has faced fierce resistance from congressional Republicans and Democrats as well as powerful outside military organizations that argue the benefits help attract men and women to the all-volunteer force.