Servicemeber Benefit Cuts Likely To Continue in 2015

It looks like next year there is going to be more attempts to reduce servicemember benefits if another round of sequestration is not repealed in 2016:

An already tough fiscal environment prompting proposed benefit cuts would get far worse if Congress does not repeal another round of sequestration in 2016, a top U.S. Defense Department official warned military spouses and civilians at town meetings here.

“If not, everything is on the table,” said Jessica Wright, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. The uncertainty means it will be difficult to predict funding for child care, family services, traumatic brain injury and other benefits, she said.

Wright is one of a number of DOD officials who have warned of impending cuts that they say will cut the size of the armed forces and take money from necessary equipment upgrades, placing readiness and national security at risk.

In fact, Wright said, the Pentagon’s proposed 2015 budget represents an attempt to reduce benefits to spend the savings on readiness. The budget includes a reduction in the housing allowance, a 1 percent military pay raise, massive cuts to commissary subsidies and potentially increased medical fees. “Quality of life is higher,” she said. “Quality of service is on the skids.”

A proposed change in commissary funding, which the Pentagon says would reduce the savings on groceries from 30 percent to 10 percent of the cost compared with groceries bought on the economy, has proved highly unpopular.

“Why did we want to do that?” she said. “None of us wants to send a servicemember into combat unprepared.’’ [Stars & Stripes]

You have to love how all the cuts are justified by the language of “readiness”.  What does bloated, over budget acquisition programs have to do with readiness?  Likely what is going on is that the Pentagon is using benefit cuts as leverage to get Congress to repeal the sequestration cuts.