Obama calls for 2.9% pay raise in 2010 - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Obama calls for 2.9% pay raise in 2010

The ongoing economic crisis and federal budget crunch could spell the end of some big-ticket military weapons systems — and the jobs that go with them.

But there’s good news for troops who will get a pay raise next year, along with improved benefits — President Barack Obama is proposing a 2.9 percent military pay raise effective Jan. 1, 2010, a figure that would match, but not exceed, average private-sector wage growth.

The pay raise is contained in a broad-stroke summary of Obama’s first federal budget. Full details of the budget are not expected to be released until late March or early April.

In every year of this decade so far, the military pay raise has been at least half of a percentage point above average private-sector wage growth, a sustained effort by Congress to close a purported gap between military and civilian pay that some say has existed since 1982. The gap reportedly is now at 2.9 percent.

The Bush administration also proposed military pay raises that matched private-sector wage growth in at least two years of this decade, but lawmakers consistently bumped up the increase slightly in the final defense budget.

And despite the poor economic climate, no one in Congress appears eager to be portrayed as unsupportive of the troops.

The minimum raise is set in law; each year’s increase must at least match the private-sector wage growth as measured by the Labor Department’s Employment Cost Index. Exceptions can be granted, but the Pentagon has not submitted such a request, defense officials say.

Obama’s proposal to match, but not exceed, the ECI is the right call this year, said former defense budget analyst Michael O’Hanlon of The Brookings Institution.

“I don’t think there’s any need for a big new personnel benefit at this point, even though our troops are performing so heroically,” O’Hanlon said. “We’ve taken pretty good care of them, to the extent that money can address these kinds of issues. There’s plenty of room for debate about whether we should be doing more in other ways by, for example, increasing the size of the force. But I think financially, we take pretty good care of people.”

The pay raise should be accompanied by improved health care and benefits. Obama did not provide many details, leaving those to the full defense budget that will go to Congress some time in late March or early April. But Obama made clear during a Feb. 24 address to Congress that troops and their families should be recognized and rewarded for their service.

“Our men and women in uniform stand watch abroad, and more are readying to deploy,” Obama said. “To each and every one of them, and to the families who bear the quiet burden of their absence, Americans are united in sending one message: We honor your service, we are inspired by your sacrifice, and you have our unyielding support.”

Obama’s defense budget request for fiscal 2010 totals $533.7 billion, a 4 percent increase over this year’s figure of $513.3 billion.

That does not include funding for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama has asked for $75.5 billion for the rest of this fiscal year and $130 billion in fiscal 2010 in wartime supplemental funding.

At the same time, the administration will begin shifting back into the base defense budget spending for some programs that have been supported out of the wartime supplemental budget in recent years.

The administration says these programs do not belong in the “wartime emergency” category. They include “certain medical services, family support initiatives, security assistance to foreign governments, and enhancements to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.”

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he thought the overall amount requested “is a reasonable level which will allow us to provide the resources needed to support our troops and keep America safe.”

In other areas, Obama’s 2010 budget proposal would:

• Expand concurrent receipt of full veterans disability payments and military retired pay for those eligible for both payments. The budget document does not explain the proposal, but defense officials said it will expand eligibility for Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay to troops medically retired with less than 20 years of service. This group gained eligibility in 2008 for the other concurrent receipt program, Combat-Related Special Compensation. Federal law limits veterans to one of the two programs.

• Increase Veterans Affairs Department funding by $25 billion over the next five years. The budget would restore eligibility for VA health care to veterans who have at least modest incomes and do not have service-connected conditions. These “Category 8” veterans have been barred from enrolling in VA’s health care system since 2003. Letting them back in would bring more than 500,000 more veterans into the system by 2013.

• Fund expanded VA mental health screening and treatment services, with a focus on reaching veterans in rural areas by establishing more Vet Centers and mobile health clinics.

• Support continuing efforts to “improve the medical care and housing for wounded, ill and injured service members.” The Army will complete new wounded warrior complexes at posts throughout the U.S., including Alaska and Hawaii, as well as in Germany.

• Expand Pentagon and VA pilot programs to expedite the processing of injured troops through the Disability Evaluation System. The pilot programs are designed to substantially cut the time required to determine disability ratings and begin paying benefits to wounded troops.

• Continue to “sustain and modernize barracks and dormitories housing service members around the world and work to end all inadequate housing for military families.”

• Fund a comprehensive Defense Department traumatic brain injury registry, “including a single point of responsibility to track incidents and recovery.” The military services also will increase the number of mental health professionals integrated with deployed units “to better channel medical attention to those who need it quickly.”

Obama’s 2010 budget proposal also would support permanent end-strength increases in the Army and Marine Corps to 547,000 and 202,000, respectively, which are on track to be achieved by the end of 2009.

Defense contractors likely will get the worst budget news. While details on weapons spending were similarly lacking and likely will not be unveiled until the full Pentagon budget is ready in late March or early April, all signs seem to point to significant trims or outright cuts in some high-profile programs.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said such cutbacks are not inevitable, acknowledging instead that personnel costs are consuming more of the budget and that health care costs are increasing at “almost an alarming rate.”

But Gates has criticized hardware programs “with serious execution issues” and has said he wants to reshape the budget to balance current and future capabilities — in other words, more emphasis on irregular warfare, less on conventional war.

For its part, the White House said it is “committed to reforming the defense acquisition process so that taxpayer dollars are not wasted.”

“I see some programs in trouble,” said MacKenzie Eaglen of the Heritage Foundation, including the F-22 fighter, the Army’s Future Combat System, the Navy’s F/A-18 fighter, the Air Force’s C-17 cargo jet, major Navy surface combatant ships, and a possible additional year’s delay in the KC-X tanker under development.

Based on Obama’s campaign statements, she said, the future looks more promising for coastal patrol craft, riverine craft, the Littoral Combat Ship, Stryker Brigade Combat Teams and Air Force unmanned aerial vehicles.

O’Hanlon said that spending for the departments of Defense, State and Homeland Security “should be as frugal as possible.”

“The greater challenge,” he writes in a forthcoming book on the 2010 budget, “is in figuring out how national security efforts can remain robust in the future even as the nation ultimately seeks to tighten its fiscal belt after the recession.”