To answer a couple questions.....The bottom line continues to be, can you close the commissary and restructure the BAS payments in order to provide the service member with the SAME LEVEL of benefit they recieve now? And do it at a cheaper price tag than $1.4B. My argument is no. And frankly I don't trust the government budget office to make it happen.
You are assuming that most servicemembers actually patronize commissaries, I would be interested to see what percentage of servicemembers actually shop at the commissaries now and how much they actually save. I am willing to bet the amount DECA claims to save patrons includes an awful lot of retirees, cutting the amount we have to plow back into paying active duty members.
2. Flash, am I hearing that dependents shouldn't be allowed to shop at the commissary from you? Is that your argument? Sounds reasonable. I mean when the military member is away for 6 months, his or her spouse should be required to go out in town and pay higher grocery prices. In the words of Chris Carter... "Come on Man!"
I am arguing for the elimination of domestic commissaries so in effect, yes. Cutting them out right now? I never said that. Calling them members of the military? Absurd.
"Can you understand the words coming out of my mouth?"
3. Eliminate BAS for officers: Are we (officers) all fine with taking a $2,900 pay cut next year? Just want to make sure I'm clear on this.
If phased out over a few years and in line with the pay raises we always get, yes. Does the average, or even the vast majority, of officers need that extra little bit for food each month?
4. Personnel costs: They are increasing. That is a fact. But not as fast as the military budget. I think BzB posted a link to the navy times article showing the numbers. So the personnel costs as a percentage of the budget are actually decreasing.
With the ballooning defense budget of the past decade that may be the case but likely will soon not be. While procurement and ops & maintenance funding will likely decrease we are obligated to many of the personnel costs to include retirement and health care will continue to rise because the obligations set in law and not the yearly defense budget.
No one here has been able to show how you eliminate the commissary, save $1.4B, and not increase cost on the average service member.
Conversely you can’t prove your counter-argument either since we don't record how much every individual saves or even who actually shops at commissaries. We have to take DECA at its word and they are fighting for their very survival. How do you even know that the 'average' servicemember even patronizes the commissary?
I personally believe that things like the mismanagement of programs like JSF, which is woefully over budget and behind schedule, is a much better target than the pockets of sailors.
So again, should cuts happen to military pay, or to procurement?
Cutting the defense budget isn't an either or proposition , everything should be looked at. Just because some weapons programs may cost more than projected or be poorly run doesn't excuse other part of the budget from being looked as well. We have long had some sacred cows in as part of the DoD budget that are anachronistic and should be looked at, not just the ones that make the news.