The Pentagon must rein in skyrocketing pay and benefits costs without breaking faith with those who serve, stated military-budget analysts with a Washington, D.C.-based think tank in an April 20 white paper. Between 2001 and 2012, the average cost for pay and benefits for each active-duty service member rose 56 percent – from $54,000 in 2001 to $109,000 in 2012, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). Included are basic pay, food and housing allowances, health care, and retirement. Service members during that time earned other benefits, including tax exemptions and extra pay for those who deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. Basic pay rose 20 percent during that time, with the military retirement trust fund rising 39 percent and health-care costs increasing 118 percent. “If military personnel costs continue increasing at the rate they did over the past decade – and if the overall defense budget grows only with inflation – these costs will consume the entire defense budget by 2039,” wrote Todd Harrison, the CSBA budget analyst. “This is not a prediction of what will actually happen, but a clear indicator that the current path cannot be sustained,” Harrison wrote.
