Ayotte: Cuts to Military Benefits Must be Restored

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-NH, was in Merrimack Monday morning to take a stand against a provision in the proposed budget agreement that would cut tens of thousands of dollars from the retirement plans of some of the nation’s military personnel over the next 10 years. 

“I want nothing more than for us to come to a bipartisan budget agreement but I’m not willing to support an agreement as it stands right now,” Ayotte said, of the proposal that includes a $6.5 billion cut to military benefits in the next decade.

A provision in the new budget proposal requires a one percent reduction in the cost of living adjustment for many military retirees under age 62. 

Ayotte said the Congressional Budget Office projects the country will spend $47 trillion in the next 10 years and she suggested that $6.5 billion could pulled from elsewhere rather than being put on the backs of those who’ve sacrificed the most for the country.

Ayotte said she appreciates that the measure could help give relief to sequestration, but she said it unjustly targets military retirees while affecting only new federal employees.

According to a press release from Ayotte, “under the proposal, the contribution rate for the Federal Employees Retirement System for new federal employees hired after Jan. 1, 2014, is increased, but all current federal employees are grandfathered and protected from the increase in contributions – meaning that current and future military retirees were not provided with similar protections that current civilian federal employees are receiving under this proposal. 

Ayotte said a person who has served 19 years in the military, gone on multiple deployments to Afghanistan or Iraq and spent years away from their families, who decides to retire in their 20th year could lose approximately $72,000 over 10 years with the proposed provision in the budget amendment.

“Budgets are about priorities,” Ayotte said. “And what are we saying to our men and women in uniform that they are the ones being singled out under this agreement. Where’s the shared sacrifice?”

On Friday, Ayotte,  Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-MS, sent a letter to their colleagues urging them to help come up with a bi-partisan proposal that would find that $6.5 billion elsewhere.

Asked how she would propose to eliminate $6.5 billion, Ayotte was vague about particulars, but offered an idea that $12.7 billion could be saved over the next 10 years in food stamp allocations if the country modeled the program more like how it’s done in New Hampshire. She also suggested that there are numerous areas of duplication in the national budget  that could be eliminated. She said she will present a plan later this week.

Ayotte said she wouldn’t support a budget with this particular provision in it.

“I would hope that people would be alarmed enough about this provision that we could say ‘we can fix this provision and still pass this two-year budget,’ and I think that is what needs to be done. So I’m going to work across the aisle to get that done,” Ayotte said.

Paul Chevalier, past state commander of the VFW for the state, called the 1 percent plan a “shockingly unacceptable” amount of money for military retirees to give up.

“The VFW was shocked when the budget resolution was presented,” Chevalier said. “It’s unacceptable that those who have already given the most will have to be the ones to give again.”

Also speaking after Ayotte at the VFW were Col. Alan Chadwick, a member of Military Officers Association and Peter Burdett, of Bow, from the state Veterans Advisory Committee.

Both encouraged Ayotte to continue fighting against this proposal on behalf of young members of the military across the country.