trump-signs-act-giving-troops-raise

The bastard! [Isn't that what I'm supposed to say?]

Gee it's amazing the things you can buy when you suddenly don't care about budget deficits or passing on extra billions in debt to future generations. The Republican Congress change of heart on passing deficit spending is truly remarkable.

And yet in spite of passing this historically high defense spending bill, somehow my tricare copay to see my primary doctor increased by 66%, the copay to see a referred specialist increased 150%, and my prescription copays went up by similar amounts. What's up with that?

I think many people aren't aware of the benchmark statistics used to generate military pay raises. Different benchmarks are used for active and retired pay.

For active pay, the law states that the military annual raise will equal the Employment Cost Index (ECI). This is a measure of the rise or fall in civilian wages. The idea was to ensure active pay increased at the same rate as civilian pay to maintain a similar level of competitiveness with the civilian sector. The ECI is not an price inflation measure. The reason this latest pay raise is the largest in many years is because the ECI is at its highest level in many years. So it was not an over the top raise directed by Trump. Rather it was budgeting for the full ECI raise as the law calls for.

Retired pay, OTOH, is adjusted annually based on the Consumer Price Index, or CPI. This idea was to allow retired pay purchasing power to keep up with inflation. (Although the CPI leaves out some key items from its
calculation, but that's a different topic) rather than to match civilian sector wages as the active duty raises are designed to do.

The POTUS has the authority to submit pay raises that are less than or greater than the designated benchmarks. Starting in 2014 the active duty raises were less than the ECI as the defense budget was forced to meet artificial spending levels due to the sequestration law of 2013 that mandated cuts. This was driven by the house republicans who refused to pass any increases to the budget deficit, even at the expense of the troops. However, that concern has suddenly evaporated now that Trump is president, and the new pay raise matches the projected ECI while the budget massively increases the deficit.

So that's a little background on military pay raises and how they are determined. To simply look at the raises year by year without looking at the comparable ECI or CPI tells you nothing as to the feeling of an administration towards the military. One needs to look at the benchmark, as well as artificial budget constraints such as the sequestration law to fully understand the facts behind military pay raises.