What: Just 34 percent of senior U.S. noncommissioned and commissioned officers making at least $50,000 per year said that they are very confident of their military retirement funding.

How: The congressional supercommittee’s failure to reduce the deficit could trigger $500 billion in Department of Defense spending cuts. And a high-level DOD panel is looking at switching the military retirement system to riskier 401(k) plans.

Why it’s outrageous: America’s military personnel have been serving repeated high-stress deployments in two wars for a decade. Gutting the retirement promises made to them would be shameful.