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© Press TVThe authors of the budget deal say they will amend the provision to exempt disabled retirees and survivors of those killed in action.
A controversial provision in a recent US budget deal that will trim pension increase for working-age military retirees has angered younger military veterans in the United States, a report says.

The deal approved by Congress and signed last week by President Barack Obama.

The one-percentage-point reduction in the annual cost-of-living increase has provoked outrage among veterans, some of whom argue that the country is reneging on a solemn pact, The Washington Post reports.

"This is a pact between the greater population of the United States and the fraction of people who served and sacrificed. If you didn't want to pay us what you promised us, then you probably shouldn't have promised it," retired Lt. Col. Stephen Preston said, as quoted by the Post.

"I'm not an angry man, but I was very, very angry," Preston, 51, said in a telephone interview with the newspaper from his home in Tampa.

Many lawmakers have vowed to roll the cut back when Congress returns to work next week even though GOP lawmakers have fulminated about the need to cut the cost of federal health and retirement benefits, the report says.

The authors of the budget deal say they will amend the provision to exempt disabled retirees and survivors of those killed in action, eliminating roughly 10 percent of the $6 billion in savings projected over the next decade, according to the report.

But the authors have rejected the idea that the pension cut should be abandoned entirely.

"I stand behind the need for reform," one of the authors, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), wrote in a Dec. 22 op-ed in USA Today. He also noted that a special commission is due in May to make recommendations for an overhaul of the military compensation system.

"That's why this reform does not take effect until the end of 2015 - it gives Congress ample time to consider alternatives," Ryan wrote.

The US spends almost half of its defense budget on compensation, including health benefits and salaries paid to active-duty personnel. Opponents argue that recent changes should be made for future enlistees, not for those who have already served and planned their lives around promised benefits.

ARA/ARA