In 1999, confronted with a serious retention problem after years of capping military pay raises below private sector pay growth, Congress passed legislation calling for plused-up military pay raises from 2000 to 2006. That has had a positive effect, and the cumulative military pay gap has dropped from 13.5 percent in 1999 to 6.4 percent today. 

That’s marked progress, and the executive and legislative branches both deserve credit for taking positive action.

But two things give us pause about the country’s long-term commitment to the principle of military pay comparability.

First, this year the president’s budget director initially proposed only a 2 percent military pay raise (vs. the 3.4 percent experienced by the average private sector worker). While that shortsighted proposal was overruled, the fact it was seriously considered while American troops were under fire sends a troubling message for the future. 

Second, we’re coming toward the end of the temporary pay raise plus-ups. It’s the permanent law that really reflects the government’s long-term thinking. And the permanent law says military pay raises should be capped one-half percentage point below the average American’s every year after 2006. 

That should outrage anyone who thinks a strong national defense is an important priority and who has the faintest inkling of our active duty, Guard, and Reserve forces’ sacrifices in protecting our freedom and national interests around the world.

We demand the vast majority of new recruits score in the upper half of the population. Then we spend months and millions giving them the latest high-tech training. We give them responsibility beyond their years. And we require that they keep improving their education and keep competing successfully for promotion -- or we’ll put them back on the street.

On top of that, we require them to work long hours of overtime without extra pay in jobs that can get them severely injured or killed, make them move every two or three years, disrupt their spouses’ careers and make their children change schools with every move, separate them from their families for extended periods, and require them to forfeit many personal freedoms most Americans take for granted.

How can we then specify in law that they don’t deserve the same pay raises as the population they’re sworn to defend?

Something is very, very wrong with that picture.

Fortunately, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep Susan Davis (D-Calif.) are trying to rectify the situation. In introducing S. 945 and H.R. 1885, respectively, they’ve proposed to change the permanent law to establish full pay comparability with the rest of America as the standard for annual military pay raises.

Congress and the rest of the country are effusive in their praise for the troops’ performance in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Let’s see if Congress will back up those words by reestablishing the principle of military pay comparability in permanent law. 

Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF-Ret., director of MOAA government relations