July 30, 2010
| Congress Pans MyCAA Rules Last week, we reported MOAA’s strong disagreement with the Pentagon’s decision to make military spouses of career members ineligible for the popular Military Spouse Career Advancement Account (MyCAA) program. |
| Board Says Military Retirement “Unaffordable” A new Defense Business Board report criticizes military personnel and health spending and recommends cutting DoD’s civilian workforce by more than 111,000 jobs. |
| MOAA Addresses VA Issues at White House At a Thursday meeting with the President and senior Cabinet officials, VADM Norb Ryan (USN-Ret) urged action on jobs for vets and essential GI Bill improvements. |
| War Funding Clears Hill The $58.8 billion FY2010 war supplemental, H.R. 4899, now heads to the White House for the president’s signature. |
| Key Panel Approves VA Funding The House Appropriations Committee has approved resources for VA medical and benefit programs including special funding for mental health services, homeless veterans and rural veterans. |
Congress Pans MyCAA Rules
Last week, we reported MOAA’s strong disagreement with the Pentagon’s decision to make military spouses of career members ineligible for the popular Military Spouse Career Advancement Account (MyCAA) program.
On Tuesday, the Chair and Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee sent a bipartisan letter to Secretary Gates echoing our concerns that the new rules “send the wrong message” and “fail to achieve the objectives [Congress intended] for this program.”
With Congressional support, MOAA hopes to find a way to reopen this important program to career spouses while also accommodating fiscal constraints.
Board Says Military Retirement “Unaffordable”
On July 22, the Defense Business Board task force recommended that the Secretary of Defense reduce the DoD civilian workforce by more than 111,000, and laid the groundwork for potential future recommendations to cut spending on military retirement, health care, family support, and other programs.
Additionally, the task force recommended drastic reductions in combatant command staffing, hiring freezes, and elimination of organizational duplication. These preliminary recommendations will be followed in October by additional cost-cutting proposals.
For the last year, the Defense Business Board has predicted major problems for the Defense budget as the nation deals with deficit reduction efforts, the economic slowdown, escalating health care and personnel costs, and the potential exit from two wars.
Board members believe that avoiding a looming fiscal crisis will require cutting the Defense budget beyond Secretary Gates’ recently announced target of a $100-billion reduction in “overhead” spending.
The Board’s
“Initial Observations” briefing devoted an entire section to costs for military compensation, retirement, health care, veterans affairs, concurrent receipt, commissaries, dependent education, and military family housing. It particularly highlighted costs associated with TRICARE For Life.
A page titled “The ‘Military Retirement’ sacred cow is increasingly unaffordable” cites increases in the number of military retirees since 1980 (as if this weren’t the direct result of decisions by every administration and Congress since the 1950s to induce a large standing career force to protect America and the world) and criticizes the 20-year retirement system (as if the military could have sustained the force over the last 10 years of repeated wartime deployments without it).
Another cites personnel cost growth since 1998 – conveniently overlooking that 1998 was the nadir of two decades of erosion of military pay, retirement, health care, and other benefits and that the resulting retention problems of that era were what sparked Congress to embark on an extended program to fix them.
Unfortunately, the Defense Business Board report is only one of the early shots in what likely will be years of budget battles to reconcile military and other needs with truly daunting deficit projections.
MOAA Addresses VA Issues at White House
On July 29, MOAA President VADM Norb Ryan, Jr. (USN-Ret) was invited to the White House, along with a small group of military and veterans association leaders, for a discussion with President Obama, National Security Advisor Gen James Jones (USMC-Ret) and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.
The association leaders received updates on a variety of topics, including progress on implementing automated systems for processing GI Bill payments, efforts to reduce veteran homelessness, and reduce the disability claims backlog.
VADM Ryan related his recent discussions with VA officials in Gainesville, FL, where the VA has had significant success in reducing homelessness, but said the key is jobs – ensuring vets are meaningfully employed.
Ryan also urged the Administration’s support for Sen. Akaka’s bill to correct several important oversights on the Post-9/11 GI Bill law – most particularly the importance of authorizing payments for non-degree granting vocational and job training programs. Many returning veterans are shocked to learn that – unlike all previous GI Bill legislation – the Post-9/11 law only covers college courses, and not the vocational training programs that are essential to help vets find meaningful employment in the short term.
War Funding Clears Hill
The House approved the Senate’s $58.8 billion version of the FY2010 war supplemental (H.R. 4899) on Tuesday. The bill now heads to the White House for the president’s signature.
The vote marked the end of a five month dispute amongst members of both parties concerning inclusion of additional economic stimulus money and disaster aid. The Senate pared down a previous House version of the bill which included funding for teachers and other domestic programs.
MOAA maintained throughout the process that prompt action on essential wartime supplemental appropriations should not be held hostage to debates over domestic spending. Secretary Gates warned that failure of Congress to act before August recess would negatively impact our servicemembers serving overseas.
The Pentagon’s portion of the bill will support military operations through the end of the fiscal year.
The final bill included $13.4 billion needed to fund the newly expanded disability benefits for veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
Key Panel Approves VA Funding
The House Appropriations Committee has approved $77.3 billion for FY2011 VA programs as well as $50.6 billion in advance funding for veterans’ medical care for the succeeding fiscal year, 2012. Advance funding is needed to sustain health care activities seamlessly from one fiscal year to the next, because Congress rarely finishes VA appropriations legislation by the first of the fiscal year.
The funding measure provides $48.8 billion for veterans’ medical care, an increase of $3.7 billion above 2010. $5.2 billion of the total is to be used for mental health services.
Other elements of the package provide:
- $4.2 billion in assistance for homeless veterans. \
- $250 million to improve access to care for veterans in rural areas.
- $5.7 billion to maintain and upgrade VA medical facilities.
- $590 million for medical and prosthetic research.
- $2.6 billion to hire and train more than 4000 additional claims processors to reduce the rising claims backlog and process projected new claims
- $1.5 million for Arlington National Cemetery to hire additional personnel and address deficiencies identified by the Army Inspector General.
MOAA is grateful to the Appropriations Committee and Milcon/VA Subcommittee leaders of both parties for their bipartisan support in ensuring needed funding for the needs of America’s veterans.
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