Pentagon asking Congress to hold back on generous increases in troop pay

Again, neocons, is this what you mean by 'support the troops'?

Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy. - Henry Kissinger

Washington Post -

The Pentagon, not usually known for its frugality, is pleading with Congress to stop spending so much money on the troops.

Through nine years of war, service members have seen a healthy rise in pay and benefits, with most of them now better compensated than workers in the private sector with similar experience and education levels.

Congress has been so determined to take care of troops and their families that for several years running it has overruled the Pentagon and mandated more-generous pay raises than requested by the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. It has also rejected attempts by the Pentagon to slow soaring health-care costs -- which Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has said are "eating us alive" -- by raising co-pays or premiums.

Now, Pentagon officials see fiscal calamity.

It's really a testimony to how braindead stupid the majority of people are, that for 50 years the Soviet Union, one of the most powerful empires in history, with a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons and the ballistic missile technology to deliver them anywhere in the world, couldn't bankrupt the United States, but a bunch of cavemen who don't even have access to cell phones can, and is. And this is just completely lost on people. Nobody thinks, hey, this is utterly RETARDED. Read it all.