House Subcomittee Votes for 1.9% Military Pay Increase

[Rocky C]

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday May 12, 2010 15:50:55 EDT

A House subcommittee showed Wednesday that lawmakers are not yet ready to embrace Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ call to hold down military personnel costs.

By voice vote and with no dissent, the military personnel subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee approved a 1.9 percent Jan. 1 military pay increase — 0.5 percent percentage points more than Gates and the Obama administration wanted — and also approved increases in hostile fire pay, family separation allowance and health care benefits for some early retirees that the Defense Department had not requested.

This is the first step of a legislative process that will take at least until October, and possibly longer, to approve a 2011 defense budget.
Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif., the subcommittee chairwoman, said she understands and shares the concerns expressed by Gates in a May 8 speech at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan., about needing to cut personnel costs to make room in a tight budget for weapons modernization. But she said the timing doesn’t seem right when troops are deployed in combat, leaving them and their families under stress.

“It is becoming painfully apparent that the extraordinary high operations tempo has exacted a high penalty on our service members and their families,” Davis said. “Although we have done much to improve existing programs and initiate new solutions, the demand to further enhance personnel and family support programs remains great.”

Hostile fire pay, now $225 a month, would increase to $260 monthly under the panel approved bill. Family separation allowance, now $250 a month, would increase to $285 monthly. Both increases would take effect when the bill is signed. When that might be is unclear, and the subcommittee markup is just the first step of a long process.

Also in the bill:

• Tricare beneficiaries would be able — for an additional and undetermined premium — to extend health care coverage to dependent children up to the age of 26.

• Caregivers of catastrophically wounded service members would receive a one-time cash payment of up to $3,500 to cover some expenses.

• The spouses of deployed service members could receive a lapel pin to identify them as someone making a sacrifice for the country.

• The portion of the 2011 defense authorization act approved by Davis’ panel shows some fiscal restraint because there is not a bottomless pit for military spending.

For example, lawmakers did not pay for any expansion of concurrent receipt of disability and retired pay for military retirees eligible for both payments, a disappointment to people who received disability retirement from the military who have fewer than 20 years of service. Lawmakers also could not find funding for improvements in reserve retirement benefits and money to reduce the offset in military survivors benefits for survivors also receiving dependency and indemnity compensation from the Veterans Affairs Department.

Davis said her panel “continues to be frustrated” but congressional budget rules that prevent funding of new entitlements without offsetting cuts in other federal benefits or an increase in taxes. Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, the panel’s ranking Republican who had sponsored legislation to address those three issues, said he was “disappointed,” especially after the Obama administration had proposed to address the disability retiree pay offsets, but said that he was not giving up.

Davis said she expects the unfunded benefits will be discussed next week when the full armed services committee takes up the 2011 defense budget but would make no promises

[Beltayn]

I'd much rather they take that money and replace our broken gear, rebuild the 70+ year old asbestos-ridden facilities we work out of, give us the training support we need to be more effective in our jobs, and integrate all the amazing new technology that the other branches have but we don't into our arsenal.

They can keep the whole extra 25 bucks a month. We'll just blow it on beer anyway and not even notice it.

And while we love our spouses, they didn't marry Marines in the expectation of getting lapel pins for their sacrifices out of our limited war time budget.

Just my humble opinion.

[Kegler300]

Does the Pentagon know about this? Shouldn't this being going to postal workers instead??

[Danny C Smith]

I'd much rather they take that money and replace our broken gear, rebuild the 70+ year old asbestos-ridden facilities we work out of, give us the training support we need to be more effective in our jobs, and integrate all the amazing new technology that the other branches have but we don't into our arsenal.

They can keep the whole extra 25 bucks a month. We'll just blow it on beer anyway and not even notice it.

And while we love our spouses, they didn't marry Marines in the expectation of getting lapel pins for their sacrifices out of our limited war time budget.

Just my humble opinion.

Agreed.
Well said Marine.

Smitty