[cableshaft]

And why would software engineers stay if you did invest in their training but in the meantime you're going to reduce or eliminate bonuses, make your health plan worse (or just plain switch to high-deductible with no PPO options), stop 401k matching, other key employees have left and you don't hire new people and instead dump that responsibility on someone else without promotion or raises, etc.

I've seen all of those things happen at a single company before (and relatively quickly, over two years), and several of those things happen at several companies.