About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

Letter from Dan L. Crippen, Director Congressional Budget Office to John Warner with attachment: The Effects Of The Military Retirement Reform Act Of 1986 On Midcareer Retention (Feb. 1999) [i] (March 1999)

handle is hein.congrec/cbo9966 and id is 1 raw text is: March 2, 1999 Honorable John W. Warner Chairman Committee on Armed Services United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Mr. Chairman: As requested in Senator Thurmond's letter of October 9, 1998, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has examined the effects of the 1986 Military Retirement Reform Act (known as REDUX) on the retention of military personnel. CBO concludes that the retirement changes enacted in 1986 appear to be having little effect on the midcareer retention of officers or enlisted personnel. A preliminary summary of CBO's analysis is attached. That analysis focuses on the effects of REDUX on retention; it does not address whether the services are experiencing serious problems in retaining midcareer personnel. It finds only that if such problems do exist, they are probably not the result of REDUX. The general lack ofa statistically significant relationship between REDUX and retention is not surprising. In 1985, CBO testified that the law might reduce the career content of the enlisted force (the percentage of that force in its second or later enlistment) by about 3 percent. In CBO's current analysis, such modest predicted effects could easily be swamped by other factors. Given the level of statistical uncertainty that surrounds CBO's estimates, the possibility that the new retirement system is having a small negative effect on retention cannot be ruled out. Nonetheless, these results suggest that REDUX has not had a large negative impact on retention among the first groups of personnel to enter under that system. The findings raise questions about the benefits of repealing the law. Increasing retirement benefits might not stem a decline in retention if that decline resulted from factors such as the quality of military health care and housing, the level of pay and bonuses, or the frequency of deployments. Instead, such increases could divert resources away from more cost-effective forms of compensation or other pressing

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most