The proposed defense portion of the so-called “megabill” from the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) contains the vast majority of the quality-of-life funding boosts found in the House-passed version, to include support for key MOAA quality-of-life priorities.

The SASC text, published June 3 by Bloomberg Government, adds $62 million in DoD child care staffing modernization funds not found in the House plan, along with $100 million for casualty care research through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The rest of the bill’s quality-of-life measures mirror H.R. 1, which cleared the House by a 215-214 vote May 22, and include:

• Better BAH: $2.9 billion to raise the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) to 100% of anticipating housing costs, a major subject of recent MOAA advocacy efforts. Servicemembers received 100% of the allowance until 2015, when Congress-approved cuts began a series of annual decreases before reaching the current 95% level in 2019.
  
  
• Housing Help: More than $1.2 billion earmarked for housing modernization and sustainment, to include more than $230 million for Marine Corps barracks improvements.
  
  

• Spouse and Family Support: $100 million in child care fee assistance, on top of the $62 million in DoD staffing funds not found in the House version. Another $100 million for Impact Aid payments (designed to assist school districts with large DoD populations), and $10 million for military spouse professional licensure.
  
  
• Health Care Assistance: $2 billion in additional funding for the Defense Health Program.

What’s Next

The Senate will assemble its version of the budget reconciliation bill in the coming weeks, with reports pointing to a vote prior to the July 4 holiday.

Other portions of the legislation also will affect service-earned benefits, such as the House-approved plan to end the so-called “90/10 rule,” a move which would weaken GI bill benefits and make student-veterans easier targets for exploitation.

As part of the reconciliation process, the bill needs a simple majority of Senate support to pass the chamber. However, the chambers will need to forge final legislation from the House- and Senate-passed versions before anything can move to the president’s desk.

How You Can Make a Difference

“While many portions of this bill are pointing in the right direction for servicemembers, retirees, veterans, and their families, the final result is far from certain,” said Maj. Gen. April Vogel, USAF (Ret), MOAA’s vice president of Government Relations. “As the process moves forward, there will be opportunities to ensure MOAA priorities remain at the top of the to-do list for lawmakers – and we’ll need help from our members, and others, to make that happen.”

Register with MOAA’s Legislative Advocacy Center today and you’ll be ready to engage with your legislators throughout this process, as well as the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) negotiations. And bookmark MOAA’s advocacy news page to keep up with the latest calls to action.