Hypoethical-Getting rid of certain ranks

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 10:55:36 -0400

It is obvious to everyone that we are downsizing and the country is trying to do whatever it can to cut their budget spending. I've seen several posts on cutting troops pay and things of that nature.

I was wondering what would happen if we got rid of certain ranks within the military in order to save money.

In this instance, I will use the rank of major. What would happen, if instead of promoting officer to the rank of major, that position was simply staff time for a Captain. Basically, you are either a CPT in a company command position or similar position that exists today, or you've moved up into commonly held Major positions but kept the rank of Captain. Similar to when Company Commanders are sometimes LTs.

Now, for this example, lets say there are currently 10,000 Majors in the Army (I think that count is a couple thousand higher). Lets also say that the average income for an active duty Major is $100,000 and the average income of a Captain is $75,000.

Paying out an average salary of $100,000 for 10,000 Majors would be $1,000,000,000 of the budget.

Paying out an average salary of $75,000 for these now 10,000 Captains (If Major didn't exist) would be $750,000,000.

The money saved in this example on a yearly basis would be $250,000,000 of the annual budget.

I am not advocating this change be made but it simply crossed my mind and intrigued me a bit. Thought I'd see what others had to say.

Response by MAJ Steve Sheridan made Apr 24 at 2014 11:03 AM

MAJ Steve Sheridan — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 11:03:04 -0400

I'm a numbers guy, that's why I wrote http://www.WagingWarOnDebt.com.

We could not get rid of ranks. Are you saying you would be at each rank longer? So instead of 6 yrs as a CPT, you would be a CPT for 10 yrs and do more jobs.

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Response by SGT Bryon Sergent made Apr 24 at 2014 11:46 AM

SGT Bryon Sergent — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 11:46:50 -0400

If we where to get rid of ranks, NOT PICKING ON ANYONE, but why not cut the congress' pay by 10 %. or a 1% reduction every year.

Response by LCDR Doug Nordman made Apr 24 at 2014 2:37 PM

LCDR Doug Nordman — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 14:37:04 -0400

The Navy keeps flipflopping on the W-5 rank, and I've read serious proposals to do away with warrant officers. I can only imagine the uproar that would evoke in ALNAV message.

We used to routinely frock E-1 through E-5 to the next paygrade when they made the selection list, although the paycheck (and the authority) might take a few months to catch up. Submarine O-3s in the Engineer billet are also routinely spot-promoted to O-4, although they usually promote to that rank on their own merits a year or two later.

Many years ago we didn't even use the O-7 rank-- we just promoted O-6s to O-8s, although that might have been frocking for the first couple years instead of a paycheck.

So I think all of the services could take a collective deep joint breath and reduce a couple hundred O-7 & O-8 billets to be filled by hot-running O-6s. That would save millions of dollars with the least pain while ending the interservice flag-billet arms race.