Pentagon soon to spend more on vets’ benefits than active personnel, study says

A new bipartisan study projects that by 2014 the Pentagon will spend more on veterans’ benefits than on active duty servicemembers, according to a story in U.S. News & World Report.

As a decade of war slows down, the Bipartisan Policy Center report expects health care and other retirement benefit costs to pick up speed in a few years.

According to the article, military retirement cost $52.2 billion last year; by 2035, that cost is expected to more than double to $116.9 billion.

The story also quotes figures from the Defense Business Board and the Center for a New American Security, the latter saying that personnel costs for the Army have grown by almost 50 percent the last decade.

Also factored into the story is the looming automatic defense spending cuts, called sequestration, that would trim an extra $50 billion from the Pentagon budget every year for the next decade.

Source: U.S. News & World Report