I am sure everyone has heard that some board of people who make too much money wants to switch us to a 401k style retirement and not grandfather the current service members in. Being a financial analyst I crunched the propsed numbers. I read somewhere that they want to put 16.5% of your base pay into your TSP. If your at 4 years service like me and they contribute on average 5k per year for 16 years you only have 80k in principal that relies on the volitility of the stock market. Since I did a full term they would also kick in an annuity of 12.5% base pay which would be around $600 a month assuming I retire a Gunny and we get atleast 1.6% pay raises for the next 16 years. You also cant draw on your TSP till your 59 which would force you immediately into another 20 year career. Under this new plan I would loose about $350k between age 44-59 and you stand to loose more if you came in younger than me. Bellow is the letter that I e-mailed to my congressman. I urge everyone to use it and send it to their congressman also.

Good Morning Sir,
I understand the need to cut spending to reduce the overall debt of this great nation. I am writing you today because I feel as a service member that military retirement should not be on the chopping block in an effort to save money. Any service member that makes it to 20 years of service deserves the pay and benefits that they receive under the current system. Anything less is saying that our government does not value the sacrifices that service members make to serve their country for so many years. If changes must happen then the government must grandfather in all current service members 100% or at least allow them the option to stay with the old plan or opt into the new proposed one. Anything else is not fair to the service members who joined under the premise that one could serve for 20 years and receive a pension for the rest of their life. I urge the congress to look at other options such as welfare reform and repealing the affordable care act that will cost taxpayers over one trillion dollars to enact. The money being used to enact health care reform could fund military retirement at its current expenditure levels for the next 250 years as we only spend about four billion a year on military retirement. I strongly urge you and all members of congress to oppose changes to the military retirement system