Senate panel OKs new reserve retirement plan

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Senate panel OKs new reserve retirement plan




By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Friday May 25, 2007 14:52:24 EDT

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved two major benefits improvements Thursday as part of its version of the 2008 defense authorization bill, one involving retired pay for reservists and the other involving disability benefits for combat-injured service members.
Neither is a new idea, but having the provisions in the defense policy bills provides another opportunity for lawmakers to make a run at expanding retirement benefits — despite almost certain opposition from the Bush administration.
The reserve retirement proposal would allow some National Guard and reserve members a chance to receive retired pay before age 60, when retirement checks start under current law. This would be done by allowing anyone mobilized since the 2001 terrorists attacks to receive retired pay 90 days earlier for every 90 days of mobilization for a contingency operation.
When a similar initiative passed the Senate last year as part of the 2007 defense budget, the Defense Department opposed the plan and it was removed from the final bill. But its bipartisan band of supporters, led by Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., has not given up.
For combat-injured retirees, the bill includes an expansion of the right to receive full military retired pay and veterans’ disability pay without having one payment decreased by the amount of the other payment. The committee approved making disabled retirees who left the military with a disability retirement with less than 20 years of service eligible to receive both payments in full. They had been excluded from previous legislation allowing concurrent receipt of both payments for disabled retirees with more than 20 years of service.
The bill includes a 3.5 percent military pay raise effective Jan. 1 for all ranks, the same amount approved by the House in its version of the bill, and denies a Bush administration request to increase Tricare health insurance fees for retirees.
The bill includes about $648.8 billion in defense spending authority when the regular 2008 defense budget and extra funding to cover the ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are combined.
The Senate plans to take up the defense bill for debate and amendments in June, after finishing pending legislation on immigration reform. But the ultimate fate of the defense bill is unclear. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Friday that Democrats plan to attach legislation to the bill setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, which is exactly what led President Bush to veto the first version of the 2007 wartime supplemental spending bill sent to him by Congress.



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