Republicans of late have targeted military pensions for reforms, including a 2015 budget measure which reduced COLA for actual retired people actively receiving pensions significantly, to the tune of $150,000 over the course of 20 years for an O5 retiree. They did that in a budget measure - not a reform bill - and pulled the rug out from under actual retirees in one day. MOAA and other organizations pointed this out, and they removed the clause from their budget, but only after MOAA called them on it. Total savings would've been $620 million dollars. There's a system known as RAMICS which was designed, built and tested to be put on helicopters to serve as a gatling gun to shoot surface and near-surface maritime mines. The development and testing cost $640 million dollars, and it never met the requirement and the program was scrapped. Republicans have done nothing to reform acquisitions. John McCain is trying, but fighting an uphill battle in his own party.
Now, the creation of the Blended Retirement System was a necessary step, and I applaud it. The other measure they snuck in the budget was a low blow and a poor attempt to save money.
Sorry to tell you some truth, but Republican (indeed the whole Government) priorities are all screwed up with respect to military spending, IMO. As a future retiree, I'd rather have Democrats in control because they're less likely to screw the people in order to keep funneling money to defense contractors. Republicans are fine when you're serving. They *generally* approve better pay raises and expand the force, but they're not looking out for Veterans basically ever.
Both parties need to target acquisitions before they go poking around personnel benefits.