You’re polling below thirty percent. You’re losing a war. Your legislative agenda is dead on arrival. Your Attorney General is less popular than gonorrhea. Your Secretary of State is bucking congressional subpoenas. And that is just for starters. Do you really think this is good politics?
Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill.
The Bush administration had asked for a 3 percent military raise for Jan. 1, 2008, enough to match last year’s average pay increase in the private sector. The House Armed Services Committee recommends a 3.5 percent pay increase for 2008, and increases in 2009 through 2012 that also are 0.5 percentage point greater than private-sector pay raises.
The slightly bigger military raises are intended to reduce the gap between military and civilian pay that stands at about 3.9 percent today. Under the bill, HR 1585, the pay gap would be reduced to 1.4 percent after the Jan. 1, 2012, pay increase.
Bush budget officials said the administration “strongly opposes” both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases “unnecessary.”
Hell…I don’t know if it is necessary, but it sure as hell doesn’t sound right. This will provide a few more talking points in the 2008 elections…as if we needed any more. At this point, can we even remember them all?