The GOP-led Senate is advancing a way to shave a rather modest amount of money off the $600 billion Pentagon budget by dipping into the pockets of military personnel. In the latest defense budget bill, the Senate replaced a set monthly stipend for the housing allowance of service members with a reimbursement system that only covers their actual costs. The change will keep soldiers from pocketing any leftover cash from their housing stipend—"a popular way for single soldiers and "dual military" couples to offset low military pay," reports Max Rosenthal.

The stipends range from a little over $600 a month for an unmarried private to more than $5,000 a month for a high-ranking officer with dependents. [...] The changes would cost many soldiers hundreds of dollars of a month. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the move would save $2 billion over the next five years. "This seems like a very odd thing to go after, just because it's such a drop in the bucket in the overall big scheme of things," says Dan Grazier, a fellow at the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group.

Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says more meaningful cost savings can be found elsewhere in the budget, such as with the military health care system known as Tricare.