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Pale Rider
05-02-2007, 11:35 AM
Air Force Might Cut Pay for Surge


Military.com | By Christian Lowe | April 25, 2007

The Air Force’s top officer said Wednesday that if nearly $1 billion in personnel funds taken from the service to pay for combat in Iraq and Afghanistan isn’t restored by the end of the summer, Airmen and civilian employees might not get their pay.

Due to a congressional delay in approving a wartime supplemental funding bill this year, the Pentagon pulled about $880 million from the Air Force’s personnel accounts to make up for a shortfall it warned lawmakers would come in mid-April.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael “Buzz” Moseley said at a breakfast meeting with reporters today that the money is coming out of the military personnel account earmarked for the last four months of the year.

“Somebody’s going to have to pay us back,” Moseley said. “You have to pay people every day when they come to work.”

“A: it’s the right thing to do, and B: it’s kind of the law,” he added.

The shortfall could delay permanent change of station moves, temporary duty expenses and other pays that “take care of people,” he said.

On April 15, the Army announced it would have to cut training, depot repair, and maintenance of non war-related gear because funding for the surge in Iraq, combat operations in Afghanistan and other Global War on Terrorism costs was running dry.

The Army also requested that about $1.6 billion be diverted from the Air Force and Navy personnel accounts to help put the wartime funding tab in the black.

With Congress locked in a political battle with the Bush administration over withdrawal deadlines and troop rotation schedules, the $100 billion wartime spending bill to pay for operations through the end of the fiscal year has yet to be signed into law.

Though both the Senate and House have submitted the supplemental bill to the floor for a vote this week, President Bush has vowed a veto over withdrawal deadlines inserted into the law.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace has said if the wartime funds aren’t in place by mid-May, even more drastic cuts will have to be made, including reductions in training for forces on their way to Iraq, which will force the Pentagon to extend the deployments of units already there.

“The comptroller now has a check that they’re going to have to give us back to pay for [personnel] as we get closer to the end of the summer,” Moseley explained, putting the screws to Pentagon and administration budgeteers to recoup the loss.

“I don’t want to have any concerns about getting that money back,” he said. “It would be a breach of faith to take mil-pers money out of a service and then fast forward a couple of quarters and then just say ‘eat it.’”

Moseley said he’ll resist providing Airmen to man jobs the Army and Marine Corps can’t fill due to high operational tempo and increased demand, insisting his service is “drawing some red lines” to deny ground commanders’ requests.

About 20,000 Air Force personnel have filled shortfalls in the ground services’ manning – dubbed “in lieu of taskings” – including convoy and base security operations and even detainee handling jobs. As early as 2005, Air Force security personnel began augmenting Army detainee-handling troops at Camp Bucca prison near Baghdad and have continued to man prison jobs in Iraq.

“We don’t guard prisoners, we don’t even have a prison,” Moseley said. “To take out people and train them to be a detainee-guarding entity requires time away from their normal job.”

Some U.S.-based Air Force commands have as many as 25 percent of their personnel deployed to Iraq and are still executing their home station duties. For example, the San Angelo, Texas-based 17th Training Wing has its crash, fire, and rescue teams and security force units deployed “and we’re still operating the wing,” Moseley said.

Moseley said he’s happy to provide personnel with job skills the Air Force has in abundance, including drivers and information technology specialists. But “I am less supportive of things outside of our competencies,” he said.

“We’ve drawn some red lines on some of the ‘in lieu of’ taskings to get away from the tasking of our folks that is incredibly outside the competencies.”

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,133428,00.html?ESRC=airforce.nl

darin
05-02-2007, 11:41 AM
What a misleading, crappy headline they used. :-/

Pale Rider
05-02-2007, 11:59 AM
What a misleading, crappy headline they used. :-/

True... it should have read... "Air Force Pay Cut From Lack Of Funding."

typomaniac
05-02-2007, 12:36 PM
Without that veto from their CIC, they would have their funding now. :lol:

Hobbit
05-02-2007, 12:39 PM
Without that veto from their CIC, they would have their funding now. :lol:

Yeah, and we'd also have billions in pork, an idiotic minimum-wage increase, not to mention that the funding would be used to pass out white flags.

Hagbard Celine
05-02-2007, 12:48 PM
Yeah, and we'd also have billions in pork, an idiotic minimum-wage increase, not to mention that the funding would be used to pass out white flags.

Don't be a simpleton. All funding bills have ancillary issues built into them. If Congress wrote a separate bill to deal with every single issue separately they'd never get anything done. Also, cut it with the "white flag" b.s. Nobody is buying it.

darin
05-02-2007, 12:49 PM
Don't be a simpleton. All funding bills have ancillary issues built into them. If Congress wrote a separate bill to deal with every single issue separately they'd never get anything done. Also, cut it with the "white flag" b.s. Nobody is buying it.

Not 'all'. Not those of THIS importance.

LiberalNation
05-02-2007, 12:55 PM
Sucks for the airforce dudes and civilians working for the military.

Pale Rider
05-02-2007, 01:46 PM
And gee... what's the surrender crowd doing now? They're having an up or down vote to try and over ride the veto... even knowing full well it doesn't stand a snow balls chance in hell.

Looks like they just want it to go away. Maybe they've seen a new poll that say's most American's think they're spineless bags of piss.

gabosaurus
05-02-2007, 02:41 PM
Lack of funding? They should complain to the Bush House for vetoing the troop funding bill. More proof that the GOP doesn't support the troops.

5stringJeff
05-02-2007, 07:11 PM
It's budget games, that are played all the time. EVeryone will get paid.

Kathianne
05-02-2007, 07:59 PM
Without that veto from their CIC, they would have their funding now. :lol:

and if the democrats had balls and believed their own hype, there would have been no bill. They should be shouting, "Bring the troops home today." Not in 3-9 months. It's pure garbage.

diuretic
05-02-2007, 08:27 PM
Didn't government run out of money a few years ago when Congress refused to pass some bills to facilitate payments? Was it when Gingrich was running the show?

Gaffer
05-02-2007, 08:59 PM
Didn't government run out of money a few years ago when Congress refused to pass some bills to facilitate payments? Was it when Gingrich was running the show?

I do remember a day they shut down the government offices because they didn't pass a spending bill needed to run the country. Don't remember who was in office then. Gingrich was probably involved in it.

I believe the bill was overloaded with pork as this one was, but it didn't contain an attempt to usurp the presidents power.

diuretic
05-02-2007, 09:11 PM
I do remember a day they shut down the government offices because they didn't pass a spending bill needed to run the country. Don't remember who was in office then. Gingrich was probably involved in it.

I believe the bill was overloaded with pork as this one was, but it didn't contain an attempt to usurp the presidents power.

Ah yes, thanks, it was a very brief time, as you say.

Pale Rider
05-02-2007, 10:01 PM
Lack of funding? They should complain to the Bush House for vetoing the troop funding bill. More proof that the GOP doesn't support the troops.

I know you like to play around gabs, but don't you think that if you keep up spewing garbage like that, no one will take you seriously anymore?

5stringJeff
05-03-2007, 10:39 AM
I know you like to play around gabs, but don't you think that if you keep up spewing garbage like that, no one will take you seriously anymore?

What do you mean, "anymore?"

typomaniac
05-03-2007, 11:36 AM
and if the democrats had balls and believed their own hype, there would have been no bill. They should be shouting, "Bring the troops home today." Not in 3-9 months. It's pure garbage.You're maybe 10% right: the best way to bring the troops home quickly and safely is to impeach Bush and Cheney.
:salute:

darin
05-03-2007, 11:38 AM
You're maybe 10% right: the best way to bring the troops home quickly and safely is to impeach Bush and Cheney.
:salute:

...which would lead to them being acquitted of any crimes, and they'd go back to running the country. Maybe Impeachment WOULD be a good thing; then FINALLY the whack-job lefties would STFU about it. :)

typomaniac
05-03-2007, 12:24 PM
...which would lead to them being acquitted of any crimes, and they'd go back to running the country. Maybe Impeachment WOULD be a good thing; then FINALLY the whack-job lefties would STFU about it. :)Acquittals? Not likely. Those two are guilty of every white collar crime for which we have a law.

:cheers2: :death:

darin
05-03-2007, 12:32 PM
Acquittals? Not likely. Those two are guilty of every white collar crime for which we have a law.

:cheers2: :death:

Except they are not. (shrug)

typomaniac
05-03-2007, 12:40 PM
Except they are not. (shrug)"A 'no' is just a 'yes' that needs a little convincing." :p

Gunny
05-03-2007, 09:15 PM
Without that veto from their CIC, they would have their funding now. :lol:

Without a rider irrelevant to funding attached to the bill, they would have their funding now.

Doniston
05-09-2007, 04:59 PM
I know you like to play around gabs, but don't you think that if you keep up spewing garbage like that, no one will take you seriously anymore?I think you ought to take your own advice.

That bill was an attepted power play from both sides, both sides were wrong, and everyone knew it wouldfn't pass. My complaint is that they took to long to approve, and change, and submit, and veto, and try to override a veto. all for nothing but power politics. no one won, and we all lost. and now they are doing it again, but with slightly different tactics.

I don't beleive this one will even get past the Senate.

Pale Rider
05-09-2007, 06:08 PM
I think you ought to take your own advice.

Then don't think, I don't want you to hurt yourself.

glockmail
05-09-2007, 06:57 PM
Their pay should have been raised long ago. Piss on Congress for not doing that. :pee:

theHawk
05-10-2007, 08:01 AM
Lack of funding? They should complain to the Bush House for vetoing the troop funding bill. More proof that the GOP doesn't support the troops.

Everybody I work with and know in the Air Force blames the Congress.

Doniston
05-10-2007, 03:24 PM
Then don't think, I don't want you to hurt yourself. Ah Yes, as usual, you don't respond to the comment, but just object to anyone disagreeing withyou.

Pale Rider
05-10-2007, 07:14 PM
I think you ought to take your own advice.


Ah Yes, as usual, you don't respond to the comment, but just object to anyone disagreeing withyou.

I give what I get. Remember that. Take a cheap shot at me, I'll return the favor.