thedrifter
11-29-05, 11:25 AM
December 05, 2005
Battle for your benefits
10 issues Congress must decide to complete the 2006 defense bill
By Rick Maze
Times staff writer
Big decisions face congressional negotiators as they try to work out differences on the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill — a process that for various reasons has dragged on far longer than usual and well into fiscal 2006, which began Oct. 1.
The Pentagon has been urging Congress to hold down personnel costs and, in particular, to focus spending on troops directly involved in the war on terrorism rather than drilling reservists, retirees and their families. Given that, negotiators from the House and Senate armed services committees are faced with several precedent-setting initiatives that go against the military’s wishes.
In this battle over benefits, here are 10 key issues in play:
1 Wounded warrior pay. The House and Senate have taken different approaches to the problem of service members losing imminent-danger pay and combat-zone tax breaks when hospitalized with combat injuries.
The House bill proposes a $430 monthly special pay — “wounded warrior pay” — for hospitalized troops injured in combat. The pay would continue as long as a service member was hospitalized on active duty. Those separated from active duty and hospitalized elsewhere, including veterans’ hospitals, would not get the pay.
The idea came from Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., but has the support of Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who will be the chief House negotiator in meetings with the Senate.
The Senate bill, in contrast, would let troops keep drawing $225 a month in danger pay for as long as they are hospitalized. The danger pay now stops after three months of hospitalization.
The Senate proposal would be less costly, but the House plan would do much more to replace lost income.
2 Tricare for reservists. Better benefits for National Guard and reserve members are a high priority for Congress, but negotiators must decide whether full-time health care coverage — a benefit now limited to active-duty members, retirees and their families — is worth providing.
A bipartisan Senate plan extends Tricare health insurance to all drilling Guard and reserve members, though unlike active-duty people, drilling reservists would have to pay a monthly premium for coverage.
Tricare coverage for reservists now is limited to periods of active duty and short time frames before and after mobilization.
The Pentagon has resisted the idea of Tricare for drilling reservists, arguing that health care is one of the important noncash benefits of active duty and that opening the door to all reservists could be a disincentive to serving on full-time active duty.
That resistance, along with administrative hurdles, delayed the Pentagon from offering demobilized reservists one year of Tricare coverage for every 90 days of mobilization, something Congress approved two years ago but was only implemented in the spring.
The plan, crafted by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has broad bipartisan support. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman who has expressed concerns about blurring the lines between active and reserve benefits, also is a backer, which gives the plan an extra boost.
Graham, an Air Force Reserve colonel, said he is simply trying to make reserve benefits equal to those of other federal workers.
“Guardsmen and reservists are the only part-time federal employees who are ineligible for federal government full-time health care benefits,” he said.
3 Income replacement. Both the House and Senate have passed precedent-setting plans to make up any differences between military and civilian wages for mobilized Guard and reserve members, up to identical caps of $3,000 per month.
Negotiators have to decide when payments would begin, and must withstand strong Pentagon opposition to the entire idea because senior military officials worry that paying more money to reservists would hurt the morale of active-duty members.
Both proposals are modeled on a plan developed last year that will provide income replacement for those on long or frequent deployments. Under that House-passed plan, crafted by Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Armed Services military personnel panel, mobilized reservists who suffer a pay cut of at least $50 a month when they go on active duty can get a monthly supplement by meeting one of three conditions: Serve at least 18 continuous months; serve 24 months in a 60-month period; or be mobilized within six months of a previous call-up.
The Senate proposal has one difference: Income replacement would begin after just six months of mobilization, not the minimum of 18 months in the House bill.
“The House plan is good, but the qualification period is unrealistically long,” said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., chief sponsor of the Senate proposal. “It is rare that a reservist is going to be called up for 18 months.”
Indeed, McHugh initially did not favor the 18-month minimum service requirement, either. He wanted to start payments after 12 months, leaving room for negotiation this time around.
The Pentagon has encouraged private-sector employers to offer income protection to workers who earn less in the military than in civilian life, to the point of giving awards to top employers. But administration officials argue it is entirely different for the federal government to pay more money to some people than others for doing the same job — the chief reason the administration also has opposed legislation requiring federal agencies to pay salary differentials to employees who make less money when mobilized.
Durbin believes it is important to do something. “Income loss is going to hurt us” in terms of reserve-component recruiting and retention, he said.
4 Equality in death. Negotiators face the question of whether all military deaths are equal or, as the White House suggests, deaths in combat are deserving of extra benefits for surviving family members.
The Senate bill would apply the current $100,000 death gratuity to all active-duty deaths, not just those resulting from combat or combat-related training. This payment, made within days of death, used to be $12,000 but was raised for combat-related deaths under an agreement between Congress and the Bush administration. The $12,000 payment has since been adjusted for inflation to $12,420 and would increase to $12,805 on Jan. 1 if the two-tier system remains.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., was the chief sponsor of a Senate-passed amendment that would apply the $100,000 payment to all active-duty deaths, retroactive to Oct. 7, 2001, the effective date of the higher payment for combat deaths.
The Senate bill also includes a provision sponsored by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, providing retroactive payments of $150,000 to survivors of service members who died of non-combat causes on active duty between Oct. 7, 2001, and May 11, 2005.
DeWine’s amendment would close a loophole created when Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance coverage was increased to a maximum of $400,000. That coverage applies to all active-duty deaths, but payments for combat-related deaths were provided retroactively to the date military operations began in Afghanistan.
DeWine believes that’s unfair to the estimated 1,200 families who got $250,000 in life insurance during that retroactive period because their service members died on active duty but not in combat.
The House includes a provision making the $100,000 death gratuity permanent, but makes no changes in eligibility or SGLI coverage in its version of the bill — leaving much to be worked out.
5 Thrift savings. Graham, who will be the Senate’s chief negotiator on personnel issues, wants the military to encourage junior service members to develop the habit of saving money early in life. He proposes to do this by having the federal government match contributions of first-term service members to the federal Thrift Savings Plan.
The House has no similar proposal, but Graham, chairman of the Senate Armed Services military personnel panel, will be in a position to press his idea — though it won’t be easy. The Bush administration opposes the plan, even though Graham is asking only for a test, limited to the Army, in which matching funds would be offered as a recruiting-incentive alternative to bonuses.
The idea isn’t entirely new. The Pentagon has authority, which it has never used, to offer matching government contributions to the TSP as a retention incentive.
Because Graham’s provision would authorize, but not require, matching TSP contributions from the government, it is possible his idea could end up in the final defense bill but also never be offered by the services, adding it to a growing pile of unused re-enlistment incentives, such as the right to transfer earned GI Bill benefits to family members, preferential placement for military housing and extra leave.
6 Transfer bonuses. Negotiators will consider the cost-effectiveness of bonuses as a way to entice people to transfer between services.
The Senate bill has a provision, added at the urging of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., authorizing a $2,500 bonus to encourage people to leave the Navy or Air Force for the Army. This would be similar to, though smaller than, lateral transfer bonuses now authorized within a service from overmanned to short-staffed specialties.
Nelson believes paying a bonus to keep experienced people is cheaper than separating someone from one service while recruiting and training someone else for a job in another service.
The House bill has no similar provision, but the House Armed Services Committee has shown great interest in the so-called Blue-to-Green program that has had only modest success to date.
If House negotiators agree to Nelson’s plan, the question will be the size of the bonus. When he discussed the idea in April, Nelson said any bonus lower than the cost of separating one person and fully training another is a better deal for the government — and would extend the careers of people facing separation only because the Navy and Air Force are downsizing.
7 Survivor benefits. The Senate approved a two-part upgrade to survivors’ benefits, which the Pentagon opposes. The House bill did nothing similar.
A Senate amendment, sponsored by Sen. Bill Nelson, R-Fla., eliminates the current dollar-for-dollar offset in military survivor benefits when a survivor also is eligible for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, or DIC, from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The VA benefit, currently $993 but expected to increase to $1,033 with the next annual cost-of-living adjustment in disability and survivor pays, goes to a surviving spouse when a member dies on active duty or of a service-connected cause or was 100 percent disabled under certain other conditions.
The offset “mistreats” the survivors of service members, Nelson said.
A second part of his amendment would advance the effective date of a move to stop requiring Survivor Benefit Plan premium payments after a retiree has paid into the plan for 30 years. Under a 1999 law, the premium cutoff is to take effect Oct. 1, 2008, but Nelson would make it effective immediately.
The changes in the so-called SBP/DIC offset are one of the top legislative priorities for military and veterans’ groups this year, and House negotiators will be pressed to accept the Senate plan.
Again, the Bush administration will fight; the Pentagon is urging negotiators to drop Nelson’s plan, arguing that it is expensive and unnecessary, particularly in light of upgrades to two other primary survivor benefits in recent years: Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance and the death gratuity.
The cost of Nelson’s plan is indeed large: an estimated $9.3 billion over 10 years. The House has tighter legislative budget rules than the Senate and might be unable to approve the plan without a way to pay for it.
8 Helping senior enlisteds. Lawmakers are being asked to look out for the interests of senior enlisted members who are often bypassed on benefits increases because they are beyond the point at which re-enlistment bonuses and other incentives are offered.
Negotiators must decide whether to raise household-goods weight allowances for E-7s, E-8s and E-9s, something included in the House bill but not approved by the Senate.
Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, has been the chief sponsor of legislation to increase shipping limits for senior enlisted troops, but he will not take part in the authorization bill negotiations because he is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, not the House Armed Services Committee, from which negotiators will be drawn.
But several co-sponsors are on the armed services committee and could help press the issue, first raised by the Fleet Reserve Association.
If the plan is approved, the Congressional Budget Office does not expect senior members to use their full shipping privileges. CBO suggests the average shipment weight would increase by about 275 pounds.
9 Reserve retirement. A big difference between active-duty and reserve retired pay, besides the amount of the checks, is that active-duty troops start getting checks as soon as they retire, while Guard and reserve members must wait until age 60.
Congressional negotiators will decide whether to make a modest change as they consider a Senate-passed provision to reduce the reserve retirement age by three months for every three months of continuous active duty. The minimum retirement age would be 50, and mobilizations since Sept. 11, 2001, would count.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., co-chairman of the Senate Reserve Caucus and chief sponsor of the amendment, said he knows the proposal is less generous than some other ideas, but the cost — $320 million over five years — is modest and rewards reservists who have been mobilized most often, whereas other initiatives have provided earlier retirement based on length of service.
The House version of the defense bill includes no similar plan. Military advocacy groups, particularly those representing the Guard and reserve, support the Chambliss plan because it at least sets a precedent that could lay the foundation for further changes.
10 Concurrent receipt. The House and Senate defense bills agree that military retirees who have 100 percent disability ratings from the VA because they cannot work should get their full veterans’ disability and military retired pay. They just can’t agree on when to do it — and the dispute has major ramifications.
The Senate would make the change right away, at an estimated cost of $1 billion over five years. The House would wait until Oct. 1, 2009, delaying the expense. Either proposal would be better than current law, which requires disabled retirees rated as unemployable by the VA to wait until 2014 to receive both full retired and disability pay.
The issue is the newest chapter of the so-called concurrent-receipt saga, referred to by affected veterans as a “disability tax.” It is a century-old government policy of reducing military retired pay by any amount received in veterans’ disability compensation. The policy is phasing out, with full concurrent receipt now allowed for veterans with combat-related disabilities.
Those with non-combat disabilities rated at 50 percent or more were to have the offset in their retired pay phased out over 10 years. Last year, Congress decided that veterans with 100 percent disability ratings from service-connected but non-combat conditions should be allowed full concurrent receipt without waiting until 2014. But lawmakers, faced with a demand to fully pay for any new benefits, wrote the authorizing language so that veterans rated as totally disabled solely because they cannot work weren’t specifically included.
This was done purposely in the hope that the Pentagon would be creative in interpreting the law so the “unemployables” received the same benefits as other 100 percent disabled retirees.
The Pentagon was willing, but the White House Office of Management and Budget refused, throwing the issue back to Congress.
The House Armed Services Committee, trying to reduce the cost, ordered unemployables covered as of Oct. 1, 2008 — four years and three months earlier than under the phased 10-year timeline in the law.
Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate Democratic leader and longtime sponsor of concurrent-receipt legislation, persuaded the Senate to cover unemployables effective Dec. 31, 2004, the date they would have been covered if lawmakers had not tried to play budgetary games last year.
Reid’s plan has the backing of major military associations, but its higher cost is likely to draw complaints from White House and Pentagon budget officials.
That leaves negotiators in the difficult position of keeping a promise to disabled retirees or spending defense funds that could be badly needed in the face of rumored major cuts in weapons programs looming in 2007.
Household Goods
Congressional negotiators will soon discuss a proposed increase in household-goods weight limits for senior enlisted members making official reassignment moves. Current and proposed weight limits, in pounds:
Paygrade limit Current limit Proposed (single)
E-7 10,500 11,000
E-8 11,000 12,000
E-9 12,000 13,000
Paygrade
(with families)
E-7 12,500 13,000
E-8 13,500 14,000
E-9 14,500 15,000
Source: House fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill
Ellie
Battle for your benefits
10 issues Congress must decide to complete the 2006 defense bill
By Rick Maze
Times staff writer
Big decisions face congressional negotiators as they try to work out differences on the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill — a process that for various reasons has dragged on far longer than usual and well into fiscal 2006, which began Oct. 1.
The Pentagon has been urging Congress to hold down personnel costs and, in particular, to focus spending on troops directly involved in the war on terrorism rather than drilling reservists, retirees and their families. Given that, negotiators from the House and Senate armed services committees are faced with several precedent-setting initiatives that go against the military’s wishes.
In this battle over benefits, here are 10 key issues in play:
1 Wounded warrior pay. The House and Senate have taken different approaches to the problem of service members losing imminent-danger pay and combat-zone tax breaks when hospitalized with combat injuries.
The House bill proposes a $430 monthly special pay — “wounded warrior pay” — for hospitalized troops injured in combat. The pay would continue as long as a service member was hospitalized on active duty. Those separated from active duty and hospitalized elsewhere, including veterans’ hospitals, would not get the pay.
The idea came from Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., but has the support of Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who will be the chief House negotiator in meetings with the Senate.
The Senate bill, in contrast, would let troops keep drawing $225 a month in danger pay for as long as they are hospitalized. The danger pay now stops after three months of hospitalization.
The Senate proposal would be less costly, but the House plan would do much more to replace lost income.
2 Tricare for reservists. Better benefits for National Guard and reserve members are a high priority for Congress, but negotiators must decide whether full-time health care coverage — a benefit now limited to active-duty members, retirees and their families — is worth providing.
A bipartisan Senate plan extends Tricare health insurance to all drilling Guard and reserve members, though unlike active-duty people, drilling reservists would have to pay a monthly premium for coverage.
Tricare coverage for reservists now is limited to periods of active duty and short time frames before and after mobilization.
The Pentagon has resisted the idea of Tricare for drilling reservists, arguing that health care is one of the important noncash benefits of active duty and that opening the door to all reservists could be a disincentive to serving on full-time active duty.
That resistance, along with administrative hurdles, delayed the Pentagon from offering demobilized reservists one year of Tricare coverage for every 90 days of mobilization, something Congress approved two years ago but was only implemented in the spring.
The plan, crafted by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has broad bipartisan support. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman who has expressed concerns about blurring the lines between active and reserve benefits, also is a backer, which gives the plan an extra boost.
Graham, an Air Force Reserve colonel, said he is simply trying to make reserve benefits equal to those of other federal workers.
“Guardsmen and reservists are the only part-time federal employees who are ineligible for federal government full-time health care benefits,” he said.
3 Income replacement. Both the House and Senate have passed precedent-setting plans to make up any differences between military and civilian wages for mobilized Guard and reserve members, up to identical caps of $3,000 per month.
Negotiators have to decide when payments would begin, and must withstand strong Pentagon opposition to the entire idea because senior military officials worry that paying more money to reservists would hurt the morale of active-duty members.
Both proposals are modeled on a plan developed last year that will provide income replacement for those on long or frequent deployments. Under that House-passed plan, crafted by Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Armed Services military personnel panel, mobilized reservists who suffer a pay cut of at least $50 a month when they go on active duty can get a monthly supplement by meeting one of three conditions: Serve at least 18 continuous months; serve 24 months in a 60-month period; or be mobilized within six months of a previous call-up.
The Senate proposal has one difference: Income replacement would begin after just six months of mobilization, not the minimum of 18 months in the House bill.
“The House plan is good, but the qualification period is unrealistically long,” said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., chief sponsor of the Senate proposal. “It is rare that a reservist is going to be called up for 18 months.”
Indeed, McHugh initially did not favor the 18-month minimum service requirement, either. He wanted to start payments after 12 months, leaving room for negotiation this time around.
The Pentagon has encouraged private-sector employers to offer income protection to workers who earn less in the military than in civilian life, to the point of giving awards to top employers. But administration officials argue it is entirely different for the federal government to pay more money to some people than others for doing the same job — the chief reason the administration also has opposed legislation requiring federal agencies to pay salary differentials to employees who make less money when mobilized.
Durbin believes it is important to do something. “Income loss is going to hurt us” in terms of reserve-component recruiting and retention, he said.
4 Equality in death. Negotiators face the question of whether all military deaths are equal or, as the White House suggests, deaths in combat are deserving of extra benefits for surviving family members.
The Senate bill would apply the current $100,000 death gratuity to all active-duty deaths, not just those resulting from combat or combat-related training. This payment, made within days of death, used to be $12,000 but was raised for combat-related deaths under an agreement between Congress and the Bush administration. The $12,000 payment has since been adjusted for inflation to $12,420 and would increase to $12,805 on Jan. 1 if the two-tier system remains.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., was the chief sponsor of a Senate-passed amendment that would apply the $100,000 payment to all active-duty deaths, retroactive to Oct. 7, 2001, the effective date of the higher payment for combat deaths.
The Senate bill also includes a provision sponsored by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, providing retroactive payments of $150,000 to survivors of service members who died of non-combat causes on active duty between Oct. 7, 2001, and May 11, 2005.
DeWine’s amendment would close a loophole created when Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance coverage was increased to a maximum of $400,000. That coverage applies to all active-duty deaths, but payments for combat-related deaths were provided retroactively to the date military operations began in Afghanistan.
DeWine believes that’s unfair to the estimated 1,200 families who got $250,000 in life insurance during that retroactive period because their service members died on active duty but not in combat.
The House includes a provision making the $100,000 death gratuity permanent, but makes no changes in eligibility or SGLI coverage in its version of the bill — leaving much to be worked out.
5 Thrift savings. Graham, who will be the Senate’s chief negotiator on personnel issues, wants the military to encourage junior service members to develop the habit of saving money early in life. He proposes to do this by having the federal government match contributions of first-term service members to the federal Thrift Savings Plan.
The House has no similar proposal, but Graham, chairman of the Senate Armed Services military personnel panel, will be in a position to press his idea — though it won’t be easy. The Bush administration opposes the plan, even though Graham is asking only for a test, limited to the Army, in which matching funds would be offered as a recruiting-incentive alternative to bonuses.
The idea isn’t entirely new. The Pentagon has authority, which it has never used, to offer matching government contributions to the TSP as a retention incentive.
Because Graham’s provision would authorize, but not require, matching TSP contributions from the government, it is possible his idea could end up in the final defense bill but also never be offered by the services, adding it to a growing pile of unused re-enlistment incentives, such as the right to transfer earned GI Bill benefits to family members, preferential placement for military housing and extra leave.
6 Transfer bonuses. Negotiators will consider the cost-effectiveness of bonuses as a way to entice people to transfer between services.
The Senate bill has a provision, added at the urging of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., authorizing a $2,500 bonus to encourage people to leave the Navy or Air Force for the Army. This would be similar to, though smaller than, lateral transfer bonuses now authorized within a service from overmanned to short-staffed specialties.
Nelson believes paying a bonus to keep experienced people is cheaper than separating someone from one service while recruiting and training someone else for a job in another service.
The House bill has no similar provision, but the House Armed Services Committee has shown great interest in the so-called Blue-to-Green program that has had only modest success to date.
If House negotiators agree to Nelson’s plan, the question will be the size of the bonus. When he discussed the idea in April, Nelson said any bonus lower than the cost of separating one person and fully training another is a better deal for the government — and would extend the careers of people facing separation only because the Navy and Air Force are downsizing.
7 Survivor benefits. The Senate approved a two-part upgrade to survivors’ benefits, which the Pentagon opposes. The House bill did nothing similar.
A Senate amendment, sponsored by Sen. Bill Nelson, R-Fla., eliminates the current dollar-for-dollar offset in military survivor benefits when a survivor also is eligible for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, or DIC, from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The VA benefit, currently $993 but expected to increase to $1,033 with the next annual cost-of-living adjustment in disability and survivor pays, goes to a surviving spouse when a member dies on active duty or of a service-connected cause or was 100 percent disabled under certain other conditions.
The offset “mistreats” the survivors of service members, Nelson said.
A second part of his amendment would advance the effective date of a move to stop requiring Survivor Benefit Plan premium payments after a retiree has paid into the plan for 30 years. Under a 1999 law, the premium cutoff is to take effect Oct. 1, 2008, but Nelson would make it effective immediately.
The changes in the so-called SBP/DIC offset are one of the top legislative priorities for military and veterans’ groups this year, and House negotiators will be pressed to accept the Senate plan.
Again, the Bush administration will fight; the Pentagon is urging negotiators to drop Nelson’s plan, arguing that it is expensive and unnecessary, particularly in light of upgrades to two other primary survivor benefits in recent years: Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance and the death gratuity.
The cost of Nelson’s plan is indeed large: an estimated $9.3 billion over 10 years. The House has tighter legislative budget rules than the Senate and might be unable to approve the plan without a way to pay for it.
8 Helping senior enlisteds. Lawmakers are being asked to look out for the interests of senior enlisted members who are often bypassed on benefits increases because they are beyond the point at which re-enlistment bonuses and other incentives are offered.
Negotiators must decide whether to raise household-goods weight allowances for E-7s, E-8s and E-9s, something included in the House bill but not approved by the Senate.
Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, has been the chief sponsor of legislation to increase shipping limits for senior enlisted troops, but he will not take part in the authorization bill negotiations because he is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, not the House Armed Services Committee, from which negotiators will be drawn.
But several co-sponsors are on the armed services committee and could help press the issue, first raised by the Fleet Reserve Association.
If the plan is approved, the Congressional Budget Office does not expect senior members to use their full shipping privileges. CBO suggests the average shipment weight would increase by about 275 pounds.
9 Reserve retirement. A big difference between active-duty and reserve retired pay, besides the amount of the checks, is that active-duty troops start getting checks as soon as they retire, while Guard and reserve members must wait until age 60.
Congressional negotiators will decide whether to make a modest change as they consider a Senate-passed provision to reduce the reserve retirement age by three months for every three months of continuous active duty. The minimum retirement age would be 50, and mobilizations since Sept. 11, 2001, would count.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., co-chairman of the Senate Reserve Caucus and chief sponsor of the amendment, said he knows the proposal is less generous than some other ideas, but the cost — $320 million over five years — is modest and rewards reservists who have been mobilized most often, whereas other initiatives have provided earlier retirement based on length of service.
The House version of the defense bill includes no similar plan. Military advocacy groups, particularly those representing the Guard and reserve, support the Chambliss plan because it at least sets a precedent that could lay the foundation for further changes.
10 Concurrent receipt. The House and Senate defense bills agree that military retirees who have 100 percent disability ratings from the VA because they cannot work should get their full veterans’ disability and military retired pay. They just can’t agree on when to do it — and the dispute has major ramifications.
The Senate would make the change right away, at an estimated cost of $1 billion over five years. The House would wait until Oct. 1, 2009, delaying the expense. Either proposal would be better than current law, which requires disabled retirees rated as unemployable by the VA to wait until 2014 to receive both full retired and disability pay.
The issue is the newest chapter of the so-called concurrent-receipt saga, referred to by affected veterans as a “disability tax.” It is a century-old government policy of reducing military retired pay by any amount received in veterans’ disability compensation. The policy is phasing out, with full concurrent receipt now allowed for veterans with combat-related disabilities.
Those with non-combat disabilities rated at 50 percent or more were to have the offset in their retired pay phased out over 10 years. Last year, Congress decided that veterans with 100 percent disability ratings from service-connected but non-combat conditions should be allowed full concurrent receipt without waiting until 2014. But lawmakers, faced with a demand to fully pay for any new benefits, wrote the authorizing language so that veterans rated as totally disabled solely because they cannot work weren’t specifically included.
This was done purposely in the hope that the Pentagon would be creative in interpreting the law so the “unemployables” received the same benefits as other 100 percent disabled retirees.
The Pentagon was willing, but the White House Office of Management and Budget refused, throwing the issue back to Congress.
The House Armed Services Committee, trying to reduce the cost, ordered unemployables covered as of Oct. 1, 2008 — four years and three months earlier than under the phased 10-year timeline in the law.
Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate Democratic leader and longtime sponsor of concurrent-receipt legislation, persuaded the Senate to cover unemployables effective Dec. 31, 2004, the date they would have been covered if lawmakers had not tried to play budgetary games last year.
Reid’s plan has the backing of major military associations, but its higher cost is likely to draw complaints from White House and Pentagon budget officials.
That leaves negotiators in the difficult position of keeping a promise to disabled retirees or spending defense funds that could be badly needed in the face of rumored major cuts in weapons programs looming in 2007.
Household Goods
Congressional negotiators will soon discuss a proposed increase in household-goods weight limits for senior enlisted members making official reassignment moves. Current and proposed weight limits, in pounds:
Paygrade limit Current limit Proposed (single)
E-7 10,500 11,000
E-8 11,000 12,000
E-9 12,000 13,000
Paygrade
(with families)
E-7 12,500 13,000
E-8 13,500 14,000
E-9 14,500 15,000
Source: House fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill
Ellie