The first action taken by the lame duck Congress in the House will be: betrayal of the army and the voters who just gave them a larger majority and their colleagues in the Senate. The lame-duck House of Ducks is expected to pass – perhaps as soon as today – the National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”), which cuts the planned military pay raise from 1.8 percent to 1 percent, which means co-pays for all their prescriptions – real dollars every time , when any military member has an ear infection and it is a huge blow to any military family with a sedate illness – and which reduces the “basic housing allowance”, which means that teenage soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines and their families will not receive the established allowance housing needed to live off the base if there is no basic housing for them. Instead, they will be given a mathematical formula that says the BHA that each service member should receive will be 1 percent less than inflation in their market, which tells every military spouse “living on savings” to find a rent raise out of their own budget. (If you’re really interested, here’s a table of soldiers’ monthly salaries.)
For a 21-year-old soldier, the 2015 pay cut is about $200, the prescription costs what it turns out to be, and the impact on his family’s wallet depends on where they live, but they lose some no matter where they live, and more often where housing is costly. Moreover, cuts, of course, accumulate over the years of their careers: a one percent cut this year is a cut that grows and becomes more essential year by year. This is the inverse of compound interest. The impact on a family taken out mid-career is much greater.
It’s amazing how the elected care so much about the soldiers during the campaign and then immediately throw them overboard when they are re-elected.
The bill is said to be passed by the lame-duck House of Ducks, led by retiring HASC Chairman Buck McKeon, whose pandering to President Harry Reid and retiring Senator Carl Levin will soon tarnish his long-standing reputation for standing with the troops. It is said that the rush to pass the NDAA off as a lame duck was intended to allow the NDAA to be named after McKeon and Levin. Seriously. This is as stupid a move as “taking Cornhusker”: to want him to be remembered for screwing up the military with his last significant act in his last month in elected office. Even more astonishingly, GOP members have not fought publicly on a single day. They returned to Washington and gave in to the president’s demands.
That’s why yesterday I connected with an aged friend of the show, Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe.audio and transcript of this exchange are here.
The bill is scheduled to be introduced in the House this afternoon. A senior Senate aide said the bill should be introduced in the Senate next week. The goal is to pass a bill there using a wonderful mechanism called unanimous consent, where everyone agrees to refrain from adding amendments or requesting a vote. But as a senior aide intoned, “Life in the Senate is always difficult.” There’s a good chance this will pass.
Every GOP senator facing re-election in 2016 should obstruct the proposed process and work to derail it. Each of them should be ready to filibuster to stop these cuts. There is no sedate reason –nothing— to allow a lame-duck Congress to dictate these terms. 2016 Republicans should insist on repealing cuts to military pay, benefits, and housing or defunding the Pentagon until the recent Congress is in place, and then doing so as quickly as possible. Everyone knows that any “back pay” will be restored. The same applies to any missed re-recruitment bonuses etc. The GOP has no reason to bend on these issues.
To Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, Marco Rubio in Florida, Johnny Isakson in Georgia, Mark Kirk in Illinois, Dan Coates in Indiana, Roy Blunt in Missouri, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, Richard Burr in North Carolina, Rob Portman in Ohio, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin – all of whom will be on the ballot 23 months from now, in what promises to be a challenging year – can’t you see that voting to cut military pay and benefits will come back to haunt them? Are they really persecuting them? And since any of them can stop it, each of them will carry the burden of not doing so. So why don’t they do it? Everyone saw what happened when they voted in tardy 2013 for a deal to cut retirement benefits for career military service – a rebellion that lasted until it was repealed in the spring and then came back to haunt many Democrats who voted for that decision in 2014
Every single one of these Senate Republicans will be rightfully kicked out for cutting military pay and benefits for the next two years because Carl Levin got Buck McKeon. No fight. Without a single appeal to society for lend a hand. Just giving up.
So they should go to the GOP Senate Conference, refuse to agree, and promise to stop it. This will be somewhat embarrassing for Senator Inhofe and Buck McKeon and the HASC and SASC GOP staff, but they will get over it and actually be relieved. And the GOP base will see just-reelected leaders actually fight for a robust military, a key part of the pledge made in every just-concluded election campaign.
So call the senators listed above at 202-225-3121 and urge them to end the flawed NDAA. Tell them to do whatever it takes, including the filibuster, until Harry Reid gives up the gavel. They can do it if they want. Their self-interest tells them to do so, and the true interests of hundreds of thousands of warriors and their families demand that they do so.
Twitter feeds for key GOP senators facing re-election in 2016 are: @LisaMurkowski @MarcoRubio @MarkKirk, @RoyBlunt, @KellyAyotte, @SenatorBurr, @RobPotman, @SenToomey and @SenRonJohnson of Alaska, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, respectively New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Let them know what you think. You can be sure that their employees monitor their Twitter feeds. Ask them to block the NDAA, even by filibuster if necessary, until the cuts are reversed.
