Legion slams Congress on concurrent receipt - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Legion slams Congress on concurrent receipt

The nation’s largest veterans organization is “furious” over the omission from the final 2010 defense authorization bill of promised increases in retired pay for people whose disabilities cut short their military careers.

Clarence Hill, national commander of the 2.5-million-member American Legion, said in a statement Friday that the compromise version of the 2010 defense authorization bill approved Thursday by the House of Representatives “should be named the Unfinished Business Act of 2009.”

Hill’s ire stems from the fact that the final bill does not include a provision that would extend the right to concurrently receive full military retired pay and veterans’ disability compensation to people who received military disability retirement short of 20 years of service, sometimes known as “Chapter 61” retirees for the section of the U.S. Code that addresses their retirement status.

Also missing from the final bill is a provision allowing survivors to concurrently receive full military and veterans’ survivor benefits.

Over the last decade, Congress has been slowly repealing an 19th-century law that requires reducing military retired pay dollar for dollar by any amount received in veterans’ disability pay. But it has gone so slowly that disabled retirees have complained that many eligible retirees will die before they are allowed to concurrently receive both payments.

In this case, Hill said President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress pledged to allow concurrent receipt for retirees receiving military disability retired pay — the same as for those who receive regular military retired pay for more than 20 years of service — but then failed to deliver on the promise.

“The president’s promise, at least for Chapter 61 medical retirees, is now being broken,” Hill said.

The negotiators’ report accompanying the defense bill says lawmakers were unable to provide the promised increase because they could not find money, and blame Obama for not putting money into the 2010 defense budget that would have covered the expense.

Negotiators said they “urge the administration to resubmit its proposal next year and to include specific offsets that would allow Congress to permanently authorize concurrent receipt for medical retirees.”

A lawmaker who has been pushing concurrent receipt legislation said Congress could have covered the cost if it tried. “If the House Democratic leadership had wanted to, it could have found the funding,” said Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C. “Failure to adopt this provision sends the wrong message to our disabled military veterans that we would not take a modest first step.”

Wilson said providing concurrent retired pay and disability pay to military disability retirees would cost $5.2 billion over 10 years. He noted that Congress found $3 billion for the short-term Cash for Clunkers program that encouraged people to trade in their gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient vehicles.

“Sadly, billions of dollars for Cash for Clunkers but a lack of consideration for widows and disabled veterans,” Wilson said.

The Legion has other objections to the compromise bill, such as the omission of provision passed earlier by the Senate urging the Defense Department to find a way to reduce health care costs that doesn’t increase out-of-pocket expenses for military members and families.

“When Congress drops language that would protect military beneficiaries from more cost-shifting, it means, in plain English, ‘Watch your wallet,’ ” Hill said.

DISCUSS: The Defense Authorization bill