Pentagon: More Money for Weapons, Less for Troops

Pay and Benefit Hikes Unsustainable, Officials Warn

by Jason Ditz

A decade of massive annual increases in military spending have given the Pentagon record budgets, but officials are warning that, as financial problems make more hikes unlikely, the pay raises and benefits packages Congress has given to troops are “unsustainable.”

Instead the Pentagon is pushing Congress to decrease the amount of money set aside for troop pay and benefits, and increase the amount it spends on weapons and operations.

Though in practice the Pentagon hasn’t had to balance the enormous health care costs from all its casualties and all the other expenses associated with its two major wars, officials seem convinced that sooner or later those costs will have to be reckoned with instead of being funded with emergency spending and budget hikes.

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