Notice that Bush doesn’t care about the deficit when it comes to contracts for corporate GOP donors or handouts to the pharmaceutical or energy industries , but over a .5% increase in pay for our military (for an Army Specialist E-4, this is around $9 extra in each paycheck), he’s suddenly ready to deploy his spreadsheet jockeys out into the field to engage in combat with Congress.
Military Pay: The Administration strongly opposes sections 601 and 606. The additional 0.5 percent increase above the President’s proposed 3.0 percent across-the-board pay increase is unnecessary. When combined with the overall military benefit package, the President’s proposal provides a good quality of life for servicemembers and their families. While we agree military pay must be kept competitive, the three percent raise, equal to the increase in the Employment Cost Index, will do that. The cost of increasing the FY 2008 military pay raise by an additional 0.5 percent is $265 million in FY 2008 and $7.3 billion from FY 2008 to FY 2013. (The Gavel)
And a video clip to accompany this, having to do with how the military treats soldiers who return with damaged brains and cannot deploy again. When I was in, they’d refer to you as “broke” – but apparently they’ve amped up the humiliation tactic to “coward” since then: