In 1891, Congress enacted an unjust law that adversely affects approximately 550,000 disabled military retirees.  As a result, service-disabled military retirees are required to surrender a portion of their retirement pay if they want to receive the disability compensation for which they also qualify.

 

Military retirees are the only category of federal employees required to offset their disability benefits with their retirement pay.  For years, our government has short-changed the career servicemen and women who sacrificed their health for the freedom and security of their fellow Americans.  And for the last 17 years, legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives to correct this long-standing inequity.

 

This year=s Retired Pay Restoration Act has received strong bipartisan support in Congress with more than 400 co-sponsors in the House and 82 co-sponsors in the Senate.  When over 90 percent of the House and 82 percent of the Senate promise to support concurrent receipt and both chambers endorse some overhaul of the program, how is it possible that nothing can happen?  Negotiations on the fiscal year 2003 defense authorization bill, the legislative vehicle for concurrent receipt, have come to a halt because some of the president=s senior advisors have stated that they would recommend he veto the defense authorization measure if a concurrent receipt provision is included in the final bill.

 

These senior advisers argue that concurrent receipt is too expensive.  It=s true the legislation will cost more money, and it=s true we=re facing budget deficits after a few years in the late 1990s of budget surpluses.  But what the president=s senior advisers won=t say is that we have a choice.  The White House made a tax cut of $2 trillion directed largely at the highest-income Americans their top priority, and the president signed into law a wasteful farm bill filled with subsidies.  Now they say we have no money left to keep our promises to our veterans.

 

The leadership in the House has refused to bring to the floor any bill that might put the president in an awkward position, protecting President Bush from vetoing a popular bill that would benefit our veterans and the men and women serving in our armed forces.  So as a result, this legislation enjoying majority support in both chambers has been held up for months while the president and the Republicans have played political games with the health and well-being of our veterans.

 

As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I have worked to craft our nation=s policies regarding national defense as well as benefits for military retirees and veterans.  After yeas of claiming the United States could not support the benefit, this year for the first time the House Budget Committee delivered $5.8 billion over five years to support a roll-in of the program in the fiscal year 2003 defense authorization bill.  I fought hard to secure that increase and will continue to work toward a fully-enacted, fully funded concurrent receipt.