Ayotte Introduces Legislation to Repeal Unfair Cuts to Military Retirement Benefits

Press Release

Continuing her efforts to protect military retirees from unfair reductions in their retirement benefits, U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) announced that she has introduced legislation - the Keeping Our Promise to Our Military Heroes Act (S. 1869) - that repeals the harmful Cost of Living Allowance reduction for military retirees that was included in the recent budget agreement that Congress passed this week (which Ayotte opposed). Senator Ayotte's proposal would repeal and replace the military retiree benefit cuts by stopping a scheme that currently allows illegal immigrants to claim the additional child tax credit - which currently costs taxpayers billions.

"The budget deal unfairly singled out military retirees by cutting their hard-earned retirement benefits - including disabled veterans who retire because of their injuries," said Ayotte, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "My legislation is just one approach that would easily replace these unfair cuts. With the Congressional Budget Office estimating that the federal government will spend $47 trillion over the next decade, the notion that we can't find $6 billion from somewhere else is absolutely ridiculous."

Ayotte's legislation makes a simple fix to the U.S. tax code to require filers to have Social Security Numbers in order to qualify for the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC). In 2011, the Treasury Department's Inspector General reported that individuals who were not authorized to work in the U.S. received billions by claiming the ACTC.

A provision in the budget deal requires a one percent annual reduction in the cost of living adjustment for military retirees. Under the legislation, a Sergeant First Class in the Army who qualifies for retirement at twenty years of service at age 40, and who has most likely deployed multiple times to war, could lose approximately $72,000 between retirement and turning age 62.

Over the past three years, the Government Accountability Office has uncovered 162 areas of fragmentation, overlap, and duplication in federal agencies - adding up to hundreds of billions in unnecessary spending. And just this week, Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released his annual oversight report "Wastebook 2013" highlighting 100 examples of wasteful and low-priority spending totaling nearly $30 billion.

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