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March 30, 2010 06:46 PM UTC

What in God's Name is the Pentagon Thinking?

  • 16 Comments
  • by: Middle of the Road

That is the $2 billion question.

Gates said the Pentagon had budgeted $61 million for the program in the current fiscal year and had requested $65 million in the next fiscal year.

“This is one of those cases where we had a program that ramped up slowly and then it exploded in popularity,” Gates said. “We are looking for a path forward.”

The Military Spouse Career Advancement Accounts is no longer offering their innovative program to new applicants. Why? Because it was just too darned successful.

According to Les Blumenthal,

The program, begun in 2009, was designed to help the 1.3 million spouses of active-duty personnel and spouses of reservists called to active duty. The $6,000 was to help pay for college tuition or to cover the cost of attending a professional or trade school. The money was intended to help spouses land in high-demand, high-growth fields in which there would be jobs regardless of where they were stationed. It also was to help spouses land better-paying jobs.

In a survey conducted by the Pentagon, 77 percent of spouses said they wanted to work.

Well spouses, screw you.

Applications went from 10,000 to 70,000 in January. Rather than ask for more funds to maintain the program, the Pentagon opted, without any warning, to close it down to new applicants and to stop payment to those that were already enrolled in the program.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who raised the issue with Gates at the hearing, said the Pentagon should have come to Congress.

“How they have handled this is infuriating,” Murray said in an interview. “This is crazy.”

The sudden end of the program left 136,000 enrolled spouses in a lurch. Left with no alternative, spouses organized, created a Facebook page to protest, lobbied Congress and developed plans for a rally on the Capitol. Sixty-seven legislators got involved and sent a letter to Gates and in March, the money started flowing again, at least for those that are already actively enrolled in the program.

“This was probably, in my view, a mistake,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee last week, adding that while he expected the program to resume, it eventually could end up costing $1 billion to $2 billion.

Yeah, it’s crazy and it’s disgraceful, to boot.

Good suggestion in the comments by Dan to contact Senator Udall’s office. Hat tip to Bluecat for providing the contact info: Senator Udall’s DC #: (202) 224-5941

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16 thoughts on “What in God’s Name is the Pentagon Thinking?”

  1. There was a buyout program in DoD in the 90’s for career fields that had too many mid-level NCOs. In my case (Visual Information) was crowded with E5’s, and I considered it. It was supposed to be a two-year program, so I decided to wait a year, see if my field cleared out, and then take the buyout.

    It was so successful after one year that they shut it down. Not in my career field, so we were still crowded AND I couldn’t get money to get out.

    Understand this has a lot to do with the way SecDef Gates works and thinks. He looks at every program with one standard – does this help accomplish the missions we’re in today RIGHT NOW?

    If it’s no, it goes. Read about it here:

    http://www.wired.com/techbiz/p…

    Is it a good program? YES. Is the DoD doing everything it can for spouses and family members? NO, but it still does more than any other gov’t agency.

    I’d make a call to Sen Udall’s office and mention this to his Military/Vet staffer. He might get it put back in….

    1. and I’m doing it. Patty Murray is pretty pissed off about it too and it seems like it’s on people’s radar now, which is a start.

      It just angers me to no end that these spouses, in addition to all of the other stress in their lives, particularly those with husbands/wives on active duty, have to deal with this crap.  

      1. I had the pleasure of voting for her twice. Not many senators like her.

        It sounds like there’s a good chance this will be restored. Keep your fingers crossed.

        1. She voted against the authorization for the Iraq War. The woman has balls of steel, unlike about 75% of the old white boys in that club.

            1. I called Udall’s office and gave the staffer a brief overview and then (I should have known better) insisted that someone actually call me back from his office. Which apparently is a shockingly inappropriate request, from the reaction of the staffer.

              If I don’t hear back from his office, I’m going to call back every day until I do. I pay his salary, which I do believe he tends to forget. And when I pay an employee, I have certain expectations.

              Meanwhile, I’m off to call Murray’s office and see what they suggest.  

    3. I’m calling Bennet’s office about this, primarily because this has a sizable impact on Colorado military families.

      Furthermore, I think Doug Lamborn ought to be contacted since he represents Colorado Springs although this is currently in the Senate Appropriations committee.

      This all came up in a subcommittee hearing on Defense last week. Here are the members of that committee.

      Democratic Subcommittee Members

         * Senator Daniel Inouye (Chairman) (HI)

         * Senator Robert C. Byrd (WV)

         * Senator Patrick Leahy (VT)

         * Senator Tom Harkin (IA)

         * Senator Byron Dorgan (ND)

         * Senator Richard Durbin (IL)

         * Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA)

         * Senator Barbara Mikulski (MD)

         * Senator Herb Kohl (WI)

         * Senator Patty Murray (WA)

         * Senator Arlen Specter (PA)

      Republican Subcommittee Members

         * Senator Thad Cochran (MS)

         * Senator Christopher Bond (MO)

         * Senator Mitch McConnell (KY)

         * Senator Richard Shelby (AL)

         * Senator Judd Gregg (NH)

         * Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX)

         * Senator Robert F. Bennett (UT)

         * Senator Sam Brownback (KS)

  2. Budgets are important, except apparently when they’re inconvenient.  The Pentagon seriously under-budgeted considering the economic circumstances; how they handled running out of money for the program is the major issue here – going back to Congress (or reworking their own budget) to find more money would have been a minor issue had they not bungled the communications.

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