Behind The Mic With Joe Mathieu: Military Budget Cuts More Than Troops

BOSTON (CBS) – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is trying to accomplish two things.

One is to realign the mission of the U.S. military to focus on modern threats like terrorism as opposed to armies on a battlefield.

The other is to address the fact that we have less money to go around.

Remember the sequester? Those mandatory budget cuts hit the Pentagon hard and that's partly why Secretary Hagel is requesting reductions in his 2015 proposal.

The budget would shrink the size of the Army to the lowest troop levels since before World War II.

And this plan would do a lot more than that. The proposal would also hold troop pay raises to 1-percent for another year, would reportedly cut housing allowances by an average 5-percent and raise health care costs for active duty family members and veterans.

It would also dramatically cut subsidies for the commissaries where troops and their families shop for groceries and supplies - by more than 70-percent - making many things on the shelf more expensive. And there are concerns that could force many existing commissaries to close.

And they wouldn't be the only things likely to close in the coming years.

I know it seems like we just went through this, but base closings could be back on the table. Whether the proposed budget cuts are approved on Capitol Hill - which may not happen - the Defense Department continues to ask Congress for another Base Realignment and Closure Commission to help identify unneeded bases and facilities.

The Pentagon says about 20-percent of them could be on the chopping block, which could hit home once again in Massachusetts.

Follow Joe on Twitter @joemathieuwbz

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