Republicans Silent As Pres. Obama Gives Our Soldiers Their Biggest Raise In 5 yrs

callinectes said:
"Barron said the allowance is part of regular military compensation designed to retain and recruit talented people into the military. He also noted in the 1990s troops paid roughly 15 percent of their housing allowance out of pocket and that lawmakers in Congress had "done a lot of work" over the past decade to reduce that expense."
Yeah, this was me in the Clinton military. I would have LOVED to have payed 5% of my housing costs back then. And I was stationed in San Francisco at the end of my career, so I was paying quite a bit more than that 15%! Pretty good pay raises under Bill, though, because of the GOP congress.
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Where did they house you in SF? (Just curious as I live here). Did they have you in the Presidio or had that been converted to civilian housing by that point?
 
Bill said:


President Obama’s previously announced pay raise for the military and other federal employees – the largest such increase in five years – is set to go into effect at the end of the week in spite of Republican obstructionism on the bill. Soldiers will see their salaries rise by 1.3%, while all other federal employees will receive a 1% raise. The pay increase for the military is especially significant given that military pay had increased only minimally in recent years after being frozen from 2011 to 2013. The average salary of a soldier is about $40,000, a shamefully low figure that Republicans have done nothing to increase despite all of their cowardly war-mongering bluster that puts these brave men and women in harm’s way.

Indeed President Obama, and Democrats in general, are endlessly criticized as weak by Republicans who would apparently prefer a dictator, and are slandered as anti-American for supposedly not supporting our troops sufficiently. As with so many cliched republican talking points, however, these claims are in direct opposition to reality, with Republicans confusing support for meaningless wars and massacring civilians with support for our troops. Congressional Democrats originally proposed a 3.8% increase in pay for soldiers and other federal workers, but the bill was shot down by Republicans in the House, and it took significant effort to get these right-wing obstructionists to agree even to the more minimal pay increase – but they still see the need for billions to defense contractors to buy equipment we don’t need.

As they’ve repeatedly demonstrated, many Republicans have such a deranged hatred of President Obama that they will shoot down any bill, no matter how beneficial and necessary, that he supports. Such Republicans, usually so quick to criticize Obama as a weak and even traitorous commander in chief, have remained silent on the issue rather than give Obama the credit he deserves for granting soldiers their largest pay raise in five years or admit their own responsibility for keeping soldiers underpaid while keeping the pockets of arms dealers full.
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Okay, out with it...what was the poison pill in the defense authorization act that the GOP just wouldn't swallow?
 
cawacko said:
Where did they house you in SF? (Just curious as I live here). Did they have you in the Presidio or had that been converted to civilian housing by that point?
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I actually lived in a nice apartment in Santa Rosa that was about $250 above my allowance, but EVERYTHING was above EVERYONE'S allowance. And that didn't include utilities. And I wasn't even there 5-7months out of the year!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-T337A using Tapatalk
 
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