Author Topic: Ryan Defends Reduction to Cost-of-Living Adjustments for Early Military Retirees  (Read 550 times)

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http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/ryan-defends-reduction-cost-living-adjustments-early-military-retirees_770921.html

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The two-year budget deal crafted by Republican congressman Paul Ryan and Democratic senator Patty Murray sailed through the House of Representatives on a 332-94 vote last Thursday, just two days after it was introduced.
EDIT.v16-22.Feb21.Continetti.AP Photo.Ryan J Foley

AP / Ryan J. Foley

If cutting a bipartisan deal is so easy, why couldn't Republicans and Democrats have reached an agreement before October 1 and skipped the government shutdown altogether?

"I think the pressure of divided government has come full force, and I think the specter of one or two more government shutdowns concentrated our minds to make this divided government work," Paul Ryan said on Saturday afternoon, speaking with THE WEEKLY STANDARD by phone from his hometown of Janesville. "It's very clear that without this deal two things would happen: The military would have borne the full force of these cuts starting in January. And we would have at least one more government shutdown drama.”

“We think that's bad,” Ryan said during a break between games at his son's basketball tournament. “We think that's not in our interest. We want 2014 to be a year where we don't keep cutting the military, and we focus on Obamacare, we focus on the conservative reforms we want to roll out, and we win the next election so we can start saving this country."

But the Ryan-Murray deal is not without its critics. In the Senate, a growing number of Republicans have objected to bill's provision to reduce the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) by one percentage point for military retirees under the age of 62. Senators Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma have all cited the issue as a dealbreaker for them.
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Ryan defended the provision on Saturday as a modest reform that's part of a broader plan to save the military from devastating cuts.

"We give them a slightly smaller adjustment for inflation because they're still in their working years and in most cases earning another paycheck,” Ryan said. "Our goal here is to make sure that no other country comes close to matching the U.S. military, and the stress on the budget in the future brings that whole entire notion into question. We still have a Pentagon budget that is not where it needs to be."

Under the 2011 Budget Control Act, about $1 trillion was cut from the defense budget over 10 years--roughly $500 billion by the law's spending caps and another $500 billion through automatic sequestration cuts, which exempted personnel. The Ryan-Murray deal relieves $31.5 billion in sequestration cuts to defense over the next two years. "From my conversation with just Chuck Hagel and General Dempsey recently, the biggest relief this gets is military readiness," Ryan said.