As the Trump administration continues to expose federal corruption, a new report is accusing the Army of using soldiers’ food paycheck deductions for other unspecified purposes.
Junior enlisted troops who live on base in Army barracks lose part of their monthly paychecks to a deduction that is supposed to pay for food costs. But according to a new exposé by Military.com, a significant amount of the food money (over half) has — well, not been spent on food. Reportedly the money collected for food has been simply thrown back into the general Army funds pool to be used for who knows what — under the Biden-Harris administration, probably for drag shows and Pride Month displays.
It seems the Trump administration and its Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have yet another financial cesspool on their hands, courtesy of previous leadership.
The money is collected in what amounts to a tax on troops -- taken from their Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS) payments, roughly $460 per month that is automatically deducted from the paychecks of service members who live in barracks and is intended to help cover food costs. For junior enlisted troops who earn about $30,000 annually, the cost can be consequential.
2024 financial records provided by the service from 11 of the Army's largest bases show that more than $151 million of $225 million collected from soldiers was not spent on food. Given that the Army operates 104 garrisons, the true amount of unspent funds is likely far higher.
An unnamed service official explained the BAS money is “just returned to the big pool of Army funds, and it's used someplace else.”
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Military.com gave one illustration of a Georgia base, Fort Stewart, where $17 million was collected from soldiers for food, but only $2.1 million of that was spent on food (this might explain the low quality of the mostly inedibles found in so many chow halls). In fact, 87% of the fort’s BAS funds were redirected.
In Hawaii, meanwhile, at Schofield Barracks, Military.com reported $14.5 million collected but only $5.3 million used for food, or 63% of funds redirected. Only two bases reviewed by the outlet used more than 50% of the funds on food.
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It's unclear what specifically the additional funds taken from soldiers are being spent on, but they do not appear to be going toward feeding soldiers. Major expenses such as dining hall infrastructure and food service worker salaries come from separate funding sources and, when pressed repeatedly by Military.com, Army officials declined to provide additional financial data.
And some bases have fallen short of providing adequate food facilities to soldiers, according to Military.com. Regular attendance at chow halls has dropped, and with poor food and increasingly parsimonious spending, that’s not exactly a surprise. But it can quickly get too expensive for junior enlisted troops to buy many meals out.
If money is being deducted from paychecks for food, that’s what it should be spent on — not repurposed to whatever Army leadership is interested in this month.
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