National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2647. This bill contains significant policy and funding initiatives that address important issues for our military personnel and quality of life.

I was honored to serve with Military Personnel Subcommittee Chairwoman SUSAN DAVIS, who I have seen firsthand promote our servicemembers, their families, and veterans.

Mr. Chairman, I would also like to thank Chairman IKE SKELTON and the professional staff for their efforts; particularly John Chapla and Jeanette James.

To that end, the bill contains many important initiatives, including a military pay raise of 3.4 percent. The raise is 0.5 percent above the President's budget request.

Mindful of the challenge the Army is having with large numbers of nondeployable personnel, we have recommended continued growth in Army end strength. The bill would allow the Army to increase by 30,000 in 2011 or 2012. I am particularly pleased that we changed the matching fund requirement to a 75-25 percent ratio between the Department of Defense and the States for the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program.

In addition, the bill protects child custody arrangements for deployed parents, championed by Congressman Mike Turner of Ohio. With all these good things in the bill, I must again raise my disappointment that we were unable to even debate my amendment in full committee dealing with concurrent receipt; the elimination of the survivor benefit plan; the dependency and indemnity compensation offset, more sadly known as the widows tax; the extension of health care to early retiring Reserve component members; and the use of the misnamed Reserve fund in the budget resolution.

Had the Democratic leadership seen eliminating these injustices as a priority, they could have allocated the small percentages necessary in the $15 trillion they provided for government spending in 2010 to 2014. This is less than one-sixth of 1 percent of mandatory spending for this period.

In addition, I was disappointed by the fact that for the second year in a row, we were unable to include my amendment to extend early retirement credit for service for National Guardsmen and Reservists back to September 11, 2001, retrospectively. The prospective retirement credits since January 28, 2008, is a start; but as a 31-year veteran of the Army National Guard, I know more needs to be done. As a Nation, we owe more than our gratitude for the brave men and women in uniform and their families, past and present, for the sacrifices they make to protect our freedom.

With that, Mr. Chair, H.R. 2647 is a strong defense authorization bill. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' in support of H.R. 2647.

Congratulations to our dedicated colleague Congressman John McHugh of New York for his selection to serve as Secretary of the Army.

Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2647, The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. This bill contains significant policy and funding initiatives that address important issues for military personnel and quality of life.

I was honored to serve with Military Personnel Subcommittee Chairwoman Susan Davis who I have seen firsthand promote our servicemembers, their families, and veterans.

Mr. Chair, I would also like to thank Chairman Ike Skelton and the professional staff of the Armed Services Committee for their efforts, particularly John Chapla and Jeanette James.

To that end, this bill contains many important initiatives, including: A military pay raise of 3.4 percent. The raise is .5 percent above the President's Budget request which reduces the pay gap to 2.4 percent from 13.5 percent in fiscal year 1999, culminating ten years of enhanced pay raises.

Mindful of the challenge the Army is having with large numbers of non-deployable personnel, we recommend continued growth in Army end strength. The bill would allow the Army to increase by 30,000 in 2011 or 2012. Such growth would significantly improve the Army's ability to deploy fully manned units.

I am particularly pleased that we changed the matching fund requirement to a 75-25 percent ratio between the Department of Defense and the states for the National Guard Youth Challenge Program. Other initiatives I would mention are:

The statutory mandate for the Department of Defense to account for all the missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War and other conflicts designated by the Secretary of Defense, and increase the number of identifications from the current 70 per year to 350 per year by 2020; and

Extending TRICARE Reserve Select to members of the Retired Reserve who qualify for a non-regular retirement but have not reached age 60, otherwise known as ``grey area retirees.''

Continuing our commitment to support our wounded warriors, the bill would:

Establish a database to track service members who have been exposed to blasts to further enhance the care provided to for blast-related health issues, and;

Require medical examinations before service members with post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain injury may be involuntarily separated from the service.

In addition, the bill protects child custody arrangements for deployed parents championed by Congressman MIKE TURNER of Ohio.

With all the good things in this bill, I must again raise my disappointment that we were unable to even debate my amendment at full committee dealing with concurrent receipt, the elimination of the Survivor Benefit Plan and the Dependency and Indemnity Compensation offset, more sadly known as the widow's tax, the extension of health care to early retiring reserve component members, and the use of the misnamed Reserve Fund in the Budget Resolution.

I would note that since the introduction of my amendment, the Democratic leadership has found a way to fund for nine months a very limited concurrent receipt for disabled military retirees. That is a step forward to eliminating some of the injustice inflicted on disabled retirees. It however does nothing to cure the injustice still being suffered by most persons losing their rightly earned benefits because of the remaining concurrent receipt prohibitions.

Had the Democratic leadership seen eliminating these injustices as a priority, they could have allocated the

small percentages necessary in the 15 trillion dollars they provided for government spending in 2010 to 2014. This is less than one-sixth of one percent of mandatory spending for this period. Or, they could have used the Reserve Fund authority as proposed in my amendment.

Instead we must settle for a small pittance for a small group of retirees.

I hope that since the authority for this limited concurrent receipt is for only nine months, that the Democratic leadership makes resolving all the concurrent receipt and the Survivor Benefit Plan and Dependency and Indemnity Compensation injustices a real, not symbolic priority, next year. We should focus on eliminating the widow's tax.

In addition, I was disappointed by the fact that, for the second year in a row, we were unable to include my amendment to extend early retirement credit for service for National Guardsmen and Reservists back to September 11, 2001, retrospectively. The prospective retirement credit since January 28, 2008, is a start, but as a 31 year veteran of the Army National Guard I know more needs to be done.

As a nation, we owe more than our gratitude to the brave men and women in uniform and their families, past and present, for the sacrifices they make to protect our freedom.

With that, Mr. Chair, H.R. 2647 is a strong defense authorization bill. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' in support of H.R. 2647.

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