DoD Adviser: Pay, Retirement Systems Outdated, Too Costly - Defense News: "The U.S. military must overhaul and reduce the cost of paying its people, funding their retirements and underwriting their health care, a top Pentagon adviser said.
Arnold Punaro said Defense Department budgeteers are already taking aim at weapons programs and operations and maintenance accounts. But it was regarding the military's skyrocketing personnel costs that the retired Marine Corps general and former senior SAIC executive sounded the loudest alarm during a Sept. 8 presentation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
Punaro, a Defense Business Board senior fellow, led a DBB task force that in July recommended that Defense Secretary Robert Gates close U.S. Joint Forces Command. Weeks later, Gates proposed doing just that.
Punaro called the military's pension setup a 'pre-volunteer-force retirement system.'
'We know that it is not sustainable to pay people for 60 years to serve for 20,' the former Marine Corps Reserve director said.
He said the Pentagon spends $46 billion a year on retiree pay, not including health care."
