What's Up With Military Retirement Change? Master Sergeant Evans,   The military community has been buzzing this week over media reports and rumors about a new Pentagon plan to radically change the military retirement system. In a new video release, MOAA Government Relations Director Steve Strobridge describes what's on the table, what it means to real people, and what MOAA plans to do about it. In addition, see MOAA's online Q&A session addressing questions from servicemembers and the public on deficit reduction implications for a variety of military people programs. Forward one or both of these links to your friends to help spread the word.

In This Issue

Budget Cuts: What's Next?

We take a look at a timeline for the multiple budget-cutting decisions coming up over the next few months.

Raw Deal for USAF Majors

The Air Force is about to involuntarily separate 157 majors with 14 to 17 years of service. MOAA believes that's a foul, especially since the Air Force is offering voluntary separation incentives to many others with far less service to their country.

Budget Cuts: What's Next?

In last week's Legislative Update and MOAA's new video, we outline how various debt reduction proposals could whack military retirement in the coming months and years as Congress attempts to rein in our national debt.

But that's only the start of what could be at risk in the coming months.

There are so many things going on simultaneously, it's easy to lose track of these multiple challenges and what's likely to happen when.

So let's look at a timeline of expected events for the rest of this year.

September-October: DoD will need to decide on specific initiatives to trim its budget by $350 billion over the next ten years. The $350 billion cut was adopted as part of the recent debt ceiling compromise. Possible initiatives include force reductions, pay raise caps, TRICARE and retirement changes, and more.

October 1: That's the first day of the new fiscal year. If Congress hasn't passed all of the various federal departments' appropriations bills by that date (which almost certainly won't happen), Congress will have to pass what's called a "continuing resolution" to avoid a government shutdown. We've seen this scenario before. The last several times it's happened, there's been a big fight over whether to use the risk of a shutdown to impose even bigger spending cuts than already have been approved.

November 23: This deadline for the so-called "Super Committee" – a bipartisan group of 12 legislators from the House and Senate – to put forward a proposal to further reduce the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. This requirement also was part of the recent deficit-reduction legislation. Why November 23? Because that will leave Congress only one month to approve whatever plan the 12 legislators propose.

December 23: The deadline for Congress to review and vote on any proposal agreed to by the "Super Committee." Congress must conduct an up-or-down vote on the proposal, with no amendments considered. If the committee can't agree on a proposal, or if Congress rejects the proposal without approving some alternative to achieve equal savings, an automatic enforcement mechanism (sequestration) will cut $1.2 trillion from the budget over the next 10 years.

January 1: In the event of sequestration, the cuts will be effective on the first of the year. The $1.2 trillion in automatic, across-the-board cuts will be divided evenly between defense and non-defense accounts. Under sequestration, certain programs will be exempt from cuts, including federal civilian and military retirement, Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries.

But cutting an additional $600 billion from defense spending would require massive cuts to almost all other programs, likely including health care, commissaries, weapons systems, troop levels, and more.

Tough times are ahead and we'll need every member to help remind Congress that programs like military retirement and military health care are unique benefits designed to offsets the challenges and sacrifice inherent in a military career. If you haven't already done, so please send your legislators a MOAA-suggested message urging them to protect military people programs that are essential to sustaining a high-quality career force.

Raw Deal for USAF Majors

MOAA recently learned of an Air Force plan to involuntarily separate 157 officers who were twice deferred from promotion to 0-5.

MOAA President VADM Norb Ryan, Jr. (USN-Ret), has written the Secretary of the Air Force (with a copy to the Secretary of Defense) to urge reconsideration of this insensitive action. In the past, such officers have been continued until retirement eligibility at 20 years, or at least have been offered voluntary incentives to accept early separation or retirement.

MOAA believes, based on the precedent of the drawdown of the 1990s that officers with at least 15 years of service should not be subject to involuntary separation. DoD actually sought the authority to offer early retirement to these officers, as was the practice in previous reductions, but Congress did not grant the request.

The problem here is the inconsistency of the Air Force policy, under which O-3s who may be subject to a reduction in force (RIF) are being offered a voluntary separation incentive (VSI) opportunity as an alternative. MOAA believes strongly that the Air Force and DoD owe at least that degree of consideration to those with lengthier service and sacrifice for our nation.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta recently said, "We have a volunteer force that is the heart and soul of our military strength, and we have to do everything possible to protect that volunteer force. I have no higher responsibility as Secretary of Defense but to do everything I can to protect and support them. Every decision I make will be made with them in mind. They put their lives on the line. Too many have made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of this country. We owe it to them to do this right and do this [budget cutting] responsibly."

In MOAA's view, involuntarily separating people with 14-17 years of service without any prior option to accept a voluntary separation incentive falls well short of that standard.