I recieved this in the mail this afternoon...

it's kind of blurry Sorry bout that....

but it came along with a letter from the American Military Society that read, Dear Fellow Military Retiree. (first line)

As shocking as it may seem to you, There's a plan right now in Washington, D.C., to do away with the current military retirement system...

I want to find out more of who these Washington Beurocrats are? it is said one of them is Rumsfield.. well he's on his way out anyways... but who really is behind these thoughts???

Hog

Hog,

Sounds like another election time scare.

http://www.rand.org/publications/RB/RB7513/ 

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Is it this:

http://www.militarymoney.com/money/1084549756 

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usahog

don't forget. rumsfield is part of the bush team. buy one and get one free.

this is already in effect! let me explain...

When I joined, retirement had ALREADY been cut from 50% to 40% at twenty years, based on an average of your highest three years of pay. The President signed a bill (I honestly don't remember which one, Bush or Clinton, but I think Bush) to allow the people like me to be brought back up to the 50% level. BUT since we signed up and reenlisted under REDUX (the 40% plan) we are given a CHOICE at the 15 year mark to decline the 50% and stay on Redux and get a $30K bonus (at the fifteen years mark) It's a sucker ploy, but if you have certain plans or needs for a large chunk of cash (forget buying a car, or anything frivolous) you can opt for the Redux plan and take the $30,000. I plan to operate a fishing charter when I retire, and need to get a boat and get used to where the fish run in season. I'm trying to find one within my budget, and keep the %50, but the $30K would allow me to get started five years before my retirement date. I have three years to find that boat!

BTW, everything put out on the deckplates about this is you're a fool if you take the bonus and don't have a damn good reason to! over the years, you lose a pile of money! At age 62, you get a cola increase to adjust for inflation that brings the two plans closer, but then the 10% difference takes over and the disparity makes the plans diverge again!

I remember some years ago, Congress decided to change the 20 yr. retirement from 50% to 33%. Caused the services some retention problems and everyone was taken back to 50%. People just aren't going to stay for the long haul unless they can see a worthwhile benefit. As our service members become more technically skilled, and these skills become more marketable, the benefits of military service will have to increase. Not decrease. Congress will always try to staff the Military on the cheap. And I think their efforts are always doomed to failure. The REAL issue is not letting them cut benefits for those ALREADY retired! They won't cut pay. But they can definately affect COLAs and health benefits. Join your appropriate branch lobbying org.Or the DAV, VFW etc.

Member, FRA

Fleet Reserve Assn.

President George Bush has already submitted a new annual budget that will cut $6 billion from veteran affairs spending.

There will be more cuts to come, for both active and retired military, from the Bush White House.

Bush needs you to pay more (or get less) so he can give more tax cuts to the multi-millionaires and big corporations.

He also has to replace all the tax revenues lost when he rewards large corporations for moving offshore and sending jobs overseas.

At least you have a pension. That's a lot more than the millions and millions of people who have lost their jobs on Bush's watch.

Or the many millions who have found new jobs but the cut in pay has put them below the poverty level. I bet they would gladly take that reduced monthly check.

You vote him in, you lose your right to whine.

Kazama

^Good points!

Also good to see you, Kazama! You just recover from your last herf!? LOL

Aw hell, just wait and Kerry will promise this to everybody!

Charlie

Kazama, look and see who voted FOR NAFTA in the Senate, and then which President signed it into law and tell me you blame BUSH for jobs going out of the country! I wish I could screw someone and then blame my rival for it, and everybody believe me!

"President George Bush has already submitted a new annual budget that will cut $6 billion from veteran affairs spending.
There will be more cuts to come, for both active and retired military, from the Bush White House.
Bush needs you to pay more (or get less) so he can give more tax cuts to the multi-millionaires and big corporations.
He also has to replace all the tax revenues lost when he rewards large corporations for moving offshore and sending jobs overseas.
At least you have a pension. That's a lot more than the millions and millions of people who have lost their jobs on Bush's watch.
Or the many millions who have found new jobs but the cut in pay has put them below the poverty level. I bet they would gladly take that reduced monthly check.
You vote him in, you lose your right to whine.
Kazama"

Kazama, read what I wrote here: "I want to find out more of who these Washington Beurocrats are? it is said one of them is Rumsfield.. well he's on his way out anyways... but who really is behind these thoughts???"

Now do you have any web links to what I was asking for or know where I can find the information I was requesting here? and also while your at it.. post the link to your ignorant knowledge bases of information you blasted off above...

Now if you just want to rant and rave and take this thread off topic... Then Post your Own damn thread and start your whining!!!!!!!!

TIA....
Hog

The willingness of a buyer to admit he has a forgery is inversely proportionate to the price he paid. In other words, the more you have invested, the harder it is to admit you were conned.

You have a LOT invested in Bush. I am sad to say that I fear you will follow him, waving the flag, loving your country, blind to the fact that unless you are a millionaire, Bush has nothing but lies and contempt for you. Oh, and a bigger tax burden and a cut in your pension. You are an honest, well intentioned, good man, but your leader is not.

So many good Americans do not see the economic ruin that awaits them down Bush's path. They are following, in seeming lock step, a man who DOES NOT have their best interests at heart. Or your children's best interests. He wants to either send them to die fighting for his dream of controlling Middle Eastern oil or he wants to cripple them with crushing debt.

By the way, you shouldn't feel like Bush is just trimming your pensions. He has also done it to folks in the private sector. In 2002 he pushed Congress to enact his plan to "safeguard 401(K) and pension plans". His plan allowed corporations to switch from traditional fixed-benefit plans to cash-balance plans. This saves large corporations as much as $100 million by cutting benefits in half to some older retirees. And he tacked on a tax break for the corporations to encourage them to screw their retirees. Then he gave them federal protection from any resulting age-discrimination lawsuits.

The day that a major earthquake struck the Northwest he killed a federal program that helped areas hit by natural disasters.

After using 9/11 for political gain less than a year later he pocket vetoed a $150 million emergency grant for first responders - firemen and policemen.

Now he wants to give big drug companies federal protection from lawsuits brought by parents whose children were brain damaged by too much mercury in the immunizations that the government requires the chidren to be given.

NAFTA doesn't drive corporations offshore, it's the tax incentives that Bush has given to those who move their businesses out of the country. And the fact that Bush still treats them like American companies when awarding federal contracts.

If you are a greedy, multi-millionaire without a conscience, or a major, major corporate shareholder then Bush is going to help you.

For the rest of us workers, small business owners, retirees, firemen, cops, and soldiers - he's shifting the tax burden on our shoulders and damaging our children's futures. I am not spinning this or trying to rationalize anything, I am just talking about reality. The proof is in the papers and the news and in every piece of legislation that Bush has pushed through Congress. They are ALL bad for us little guys. But GREAT for big corporations.

I hope it does not take four more years of false praise and real decreases in your net worth before you can see through his hypocrisy.

God bless us all,

Kazama

Hog, don't mean to "threadjack" but I have PERSONALLY experienced some of the abuses that Kazama points out.

Besides the offshore incentives offered to corporations, the one issue that is very near to me is the one dealing with the immunizations. Mr. Bush has aggressively sought to defend pharmaceutical firms against liability from their mercury AND live- antigen inoculations which have resulted in autism, retardation, and many other developmental delays in babies. Parents who have a genetic predisposition are especially at risk. Bush takes his walking orders from the highly dubious CDC which has been politicized & compromised by it's management which is culled from the upper levels of the pharmaceutical industry.

Mr. Kerry may be habitual liar, but Mr. Bush is an enabler who knowingly allows the weak and innocent to be victimized by the strong, AND is dismantling our industrial base for the sake of a "stronger" world.

Your military pension is just one of the many programs that are at stake.

Personally, I am not sure if I'm even going to vote. Neither the reprehensible Kerry nor the deluded Bush deserve to win.

blood

"President George Bush has already submitted a new annual budget that will cut $6 billion from veteran affairs spending.
There will be more cuts to come, for both active and retired military, from the Bush White House.
Bush needs you to pay more (or get less) so he can give more tax cuts to the multi-millionaires and big corporations.
He also has to replace all the tax revenues lost when he rewards large corporations for moving offshore and sending jobs overseas.
At least you have a pension. That's a lot more than the millions and millions of people who have lost their jobs on Bush's watch.
Or the many millions who have found new jobs but the cut in pay has put them below the poverty level. I bet they would gladly take that reduced monthly check.
You vote him in, you lose your right to whine.
Kazama"

Kazama, read what I wrote here: "I want to find out more of who these Washington Beurocrats are? it is said one of them is Rumsfield.. well he's on his way out anyways... but who really is behind these thoughts???"

"Now do you have any web links to what I was asking for or know where I can find the information I was requesting here? and also while your at it.. post the link to your ignorant knowledge bases of information you blasted off above...
Now if you just want to rant and rave and take this thread off topic... Then Post your Own damn thread and start your whining!!!!!!!!"

NOW AGAIN DO YOU HAVE A WEB LINK?? I can see your a propaganda machine for the left...

I already found the information you were/are blabbering about above.. and again Democratic propaganda BS!!!!

http://veterans.house.gov/news/108/5-19-04.html 
P R E S S R E L E A S E - Wednesday May 19, 2004
Committee Moves Six Bills to Boost Vets Education, Housing, Health Care, and Disability Benefits;

As I read the above link... I see this is one of the largest boosts for the military in history that I can ever recall???

and it pretty much comes right out and calls Kazama and the rest of the liberal left a bunch of Liars!!!

So one is to take your spew as gospil....

Let me refraze my Original Question... does anyone have a link to this Original Information and where/who got this Bill started??? I want to be able to read it for myself... Thanks!!!!

One more thing... I lived through 8 yrs of Democrats and Clinton in the Military Life so I know the difference between who screws the pooch here!!!! and Kerry and his followers are frickin Goat Ropers!!!!

Hog

Bloody, I am on the CDC and many other websites dealing with the healthcare things almost daily... when I am not and do not pick up information from these sites it usually comes in an email about different things going on in washington on these issues...

I've been surfing the house and senate sites trying to locate what/where this above is sponcered and by whom....

not to get off topic but have to for a second...

the healthcare system and the social security system along with welfare system in this country are coming to a crash... it is not going to matter wheather it be Bush or Kerry in office.. they are going to have to deal with all the above...

I on the other hand have not relished on some issues Bush has handled things to the best... but again I view Kerry's 20 yrs in the Senate and his actual voting record and where he has stood for that 20+ yrs on issue's and he scares the living hell outa me... In my thoughts and feelings... Bush is the lesser of the two evils we've got.... as I said above... Kerry is a Goat Ropper!!!! he will fail this country!!!

Hog

Hog, you are persistent and have the stamina of a prize fighter.

I'm too popped to poop (or something like that). LOL

On election day, I may just stay home & let the wife henpeck me to her heart's content. Talk to you again.

Casper Milquetoast