Interesting.........

7. Reform Military Retirement. The US military sustains one of the last defined-benefit retirement plans in the United States. Most private businesses have switched to defined-contribution plans and federal civilian government employees were largely transitioned to a defined-contribution plan in 1983. In fact, the military retirement system was reformed at about the same time, but that reform was reversed in the late 1990s. With the budget contracting, the military retirement system must be reformed. The current system provides retirement benefits to only 17 percent of military personnel, mainly those who serve the minimum required 20 years, with limited to no benefits to most leaving prior to 20 years, and thus constitutes an inflexible personnel management tool. Reform also would achieve significant savings. Even if all current service members were “grandfathered” into the old system, BloombergGov estimates that implementing a variation of the Defense Business Board’s proposed defined-contribution plan would save $700 million in its first year and close to $2 billion in fiscal year 2015, with savings growing to $7 billion a year by the end of a decade.