FROM ARMY TIMES...
Service members can expect standard pay raises for the next two years - most likely 1.7 percent for 2013 - but that will change starting in 2015, according to a new budget plan unveiled at the Pentagon on Thursday.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta released details of the 2013 budget, the first since Congress ordered the Pentagon to slash more than $450 billion in planned spending over the next decade, with a few glimpses of what may be in store beyond 2013.
Under the plan, military pay will continue to rise in tandem with the average annual increase in private-sector wages, but starting in 2015, raises may be capped a level slightly below annual growth in civilian pay.
"I want to make it clear that cuts in spending will not fall on the shoulders of our troops. There are no proposed freezes or reductions in pay. There is no change to the high quality of health care our active duty members and medically retired Wounded Warriors receive," Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a written statement Thursday. "But we cannot ignore some hard realities. ... Pay will need to grow more slowly in the future."
Congress will have to approve any reduction in military pay raises because the current law requires annual increases to match the official Employment Cost Index, which would result in an increase of 1.7 percent on Jan. 1, 2013.
