By Lynn Goya

The last two years saw the biggest boost to the VA budget in 30 years to deal with the backlog in claims processing, increased need for mental health services and other benefits for veterans.

That was last year.  This year, a new congress is in place and the main weapon the new congress plans to use to get the deficit under control is the budgetary ax.  Even five years ago it would have been unthinkable that firefighters, police and teachers would be under fire for being paid too much and expecting benefits like subsidized healthcare and a stable retirement.  But as public employees face a fierce battle at the local, state and national level over wages and benefits, those receiving military benefits may soon stand alongside their other public employee compatriots as they try to protect hard-won benefits.

Veterans groups are concerned that the budgetary knife could stab them in the back. As the new congress takes its oath of office, budget cutting is its top priority according to new Speaker John Boehner, telling reporters that nothing is off the table.

Right wing Newsmax reports that the Republican leadership has committed to cutting $100 billion from the federal budget during the first year. (Since being sworn into office, that $100 billion has been shorn to $50 billion.  But that’s not chump change.) Brian Riedl, lead budget analyst for the Heritage Foundation says, “I expect them to do everything in their power to enact it. They’re on the record, they ran on this, and if it’s brushed aside there would be harsh political consequences.”

“In fact,” the article continues, “some Republicans want much deeper cuts. Outgoing Florida Republican Sen. George LeMieux tells Newsmax that he [wants] to roll back all federal spending, including entitlements, to 2007 levels.”

Then there’s the bipartisan debt commission.  Co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, former Republican Senator Alan Simpson, listed spending cuts that will include Social Security, military pay freezes and military benefits. “The irony,” he explained, is “that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess.”

Left wing Talking Points Memo (TPM) reported in August, that one member, Honeywell’s CEO David Cote, a military contractor, would prefer to save money by freezing military pay and scaling back benefits, rather than by cutting back defense contracting. The talk about potential cuts to veterans services have infuriated progressives who finally got through key benefits that they had fought for, for years.  Simpson also recommends bumping up health care costs to military and their dependents.

This week Defense Secretary Robert Gates listed $78 billion in military proposed spending cuts (excluding combat operations) over the next five years from an annual operating budget of over a half trillion dollars. Cuts include slicing private contractors by nearly a third; chopping entirely the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a non-functioning amphibious tank; increasing retired veterans’ health insurance fees; and putting off production of the Joint Strike Fighter airplanes. The operating budget does not include funds for the Afghanistan or Iraq wars.

Military healthcare cost the Pentagon $19 billion a decade ago and is expected to cost $50 billion this year.

“This plan represents, in my view, the minimum level of defense spending that is necessary, given the complex and unpredictable array of security challenges the United States faces around the globe,” Gates said.  Changes to TRICARE payments have to be approved by congress.