The Military Times posted an article yesterday about cuts to military benefits included in President Obama’s 2019 Defense Authorization Bill. This is a disgrace.

If Congress goes along with this, it is because we don’t have enough men in Congress who have actually served in the military.

To begin with, according to a white paper written by the Cato Institute, a person on welfare makes more than $15 an hour. According to a site listing military base pay, an enlisted man in the Army makes less than $15 an hour. Admittedly, the soldier has benefits–health care and a housing allowance, but so does the person on welfare. Why not cut the benefits of the person who has not earned them rather than cut the benefits of the person who makes sacrifices every day to keep America safe?

The Military Times reports:

If the measure becomes law, troops would see growth in the Basic Allowance for Housing steadily shrink in coming years, to cover only 95 percent of average off-base housing costs. Tricare co-pays would rise on a host of prescriptions obtained through off-base retail pharmacies.

Troops are in line for a 1.3 percent pay raise in January, a full percentage point below expected growth this year in average private-sector wages — the third consecutive year that the military pay raise would fall below civilian levels.

…Lawmakers also want defense officials to offer a plan in coming months to completely wean the military commissary and exchange systems off taxpayer funding, potentially leading to fewer discounts or offerings at the stores.

“Over the last 10 years, the (military) community has fought hard to increase benefits to catch troops up to the private sector,” said Bill Rausch, political director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “Now, after all the battles we’ve won, we’re starting to see retreats. That’s concerning to us.”

There are much better places to trim the federal budget. We need a President and a Congress that will support our troops–not continually shrink their benefits.