As Brandon’s aides get depressed just in time for Christmas, the Department of Defense is apparently trying to win the award for worst timing, announcing a cut to the living allowance it gives troops just in time for Christmas.

That’s according to Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, which reported that:

Thousands of U.S. troops will lose a monthly cost-of-living stipend beginning Jan. 1 because fewer locations across the lower 48 states — including the Washington, D.C., metro area — qualified as excessively expensive living areas, according to a Pentagon announcement Wednesday.

About 48,000 troops will lose the adjustment as their cities no longer qualify as expensive enough to justify it, in the eyes of the now penny-pinching Pentagon. Read more