Both taxpayers and retired military personnel were gamed on Tuesday night’s vote to repeal the 1% cut in cost-of-living adjustments that were enacted in the Ryan – Murray budget deal that passed two months ago. I voted against that deal. Going a step further, baked into that deal was the vote we took Tuesday, and although this week’s vote won’t get the media attention that the debt limit debate did, I think it’s worth an analysis and explanation of why I voted as I did and what I see on this in Washington. Above all else, if we don’t get to the bottom of what’s happening on these “budget deals,” their construction will have much to do with future debt limit increases and inflation that will rob financial savings from both civilians as well as retired and active duty military personnel. What galled so many military retirees on this proposal was the simple fact that changing the cost-of-living adjustment meant government breaking its word. They stood before a recruiter and in exchange for their willingness to go into harms way, they would receive a package of benefits, including pension benefits. Yet now because politicians in Washington have promised too much, politicians figure they will cut from the military, which happens to be the very group hit hardest by the budget deal that went into effect two years ago. If it were as simple as this, I would have voted differently on Tuesday. The vote I took two months ago against the Ryan-Murray budget deal, however, was indeed tied very much to this vote. I believe your word is your bond and that promises should be honored, but we can’t afford for Washington to keep creating fictitious budgets that guarantee harm to both our currency and to anyone who depends on the government in retirement. I believe that our federal government’s financial train is headed for derailment and is going to really hurt people if we don’t get real on the way we budget. The Ryan-Murray budget deal cut the growth in veteran’s cost-of-living increases by 1% between their retirement and age 62. That was two months ago, but at that time, even the brokers of the budget deal acknowledged that they would need to revisit those specific cuts. So 60 days, later the House voted as they did, 326-90, to overturn the cuts, while the Senate voted nearly unanimously to do the same. These are the same people who voted just the opposite way, for the Ryan-Murray budget that implemented these cuts, just 60 days before. So while it’s obvious that the cuts won’t stand, here is the quiet secret in Washington we need to talk about – policymakers knew 60 days ago their budget architecture would not stand… and that’s where the gaming comes in. If you build a deal with numbers that aren’t real, what do you build? At the time of the Ryan-Murray budget deal, everyone knew the budget projections were unrealistic, whether in terms of these cost-of-living cuts standing, or in the ten year horizons on paying for the costs of ending the sequester. But the deal was done so that both Democrats and Republicans could get additional spending now. Our national debt and deficit numbers are too precarious to continue down this road. For my eight years as Governor, I fought against across-the-board cuts, which here were perpetuated by both the overall budget deal and Tuesday night’s vote. I have fought for government living up to what it promises. I have fought for government living within its means. None of these things have been products of the last budget deal. So while I realize I was clearly on the wrong side of a politically popular vote on Tuesday, its foundation was in a budget process that uses military retirees to make artificial budget numbers work, and I believe that will prove to be much more costly to all of us over the next few years. That is what I voted against on Tuesday and what I voted against 60 days before. Let me reiterate this. We have a real budget problem in Washington. I have been struck by the breakdown of the process since I left Congress 13 years ago. To avoid hyperinflation that I believe will be sure to decimate the pensions and savings of every one of us, it will be vital that we all insist on budgets that are real, and for me this is what this vote was about, given the vote I cast 60 days before against the Ryan-Murray budget deal.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 21:35:57 +0000
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