It looks like the White House has determined that our military personnel only deserve a 3% military pay raise. The Senate and House would like to give them 3.5%. This is according to an article by Tom Philpott on the website Military.com regarding the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008.

The White House is wrong on this issue.

Many years ago while serving in the military, my Congressman voted against a military pay raise and a little later, he voted himself a nice pay raise. He received a letter from me a few days later. I started out the letter by saying, “I am writing this letter very slowly because I know you cannot read very fast.” I’m just kidding about that line, but it may work with some of them today. Anyway, I told him he had lost my vote. He did, as I voted for the challenger the next election and she won.

There’s nothing wrong with a 3% pay raise, but in this era of increased time away from family and being in danger more often than not, the White House should give our troops the 3.5%. Hey, it would only cost the taxpayers an extra $2.2 billion.

This will all be worked out when this bill goes to conference to iron out the differences between the House and Senate versions. Here in Montana, we don’t have a horse in this race because our two Senators and our one Representative doesn’t have seats on a defense committee.
I predict our troops will get the 3.5%.