[Vision2020] Five Promises to Keep

[Tom Hansen]

And just what have the House Democrats been up to (although they do not
assume the majority role until January), you ask?

>From the December 4, 2006 edition of the Army Times -

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5 promises to keep
Democratic win puts new focus on military benefits proposals 

By Rick Maze
Staff writer
 
.Improving mental-health screening and care, including five years of
post-service counseling.

A $100 billion plan to improve military pay and benefits is being dusted off
by House Democrats who are preparing to take control in January - and who
now must figure out how to keep their promises.

The plan, the "GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century," was introduced in
2005 with great fanfare. It included a $1,000 cash bonus for every veteran
of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, improvements in education benefits and
more money for veterans' health care, especially mental health.

It also included a promise to end what Democrats call the "disabled
veterans' tax," the reduction in retired pay that is still required of many
retirees who also draw veterans' disability benefits.

When the plan was unveiled, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, elected to
become the speaker of the House of Representatives when Democrats assume
control of Congress in January, said the idea is simply to reward sacrifice.

"The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are creating a new generation of
veterans," she said. "Every American is indebted to our troops for their
bravery, their patriotism and the sacrifice they are willing to make for our
country. Just as our soldiers pledge to leave no one behind on the
battlefield, we must leave no veteran behind once they come home."

The bill, HR 2131, has support from Democratic leaders and rank-and-file
members, and that support often was cited by Democratic candidates as an
example of how they differed from Republicans. For example, Barbara Ann
Radnofsky, a Texas Democrat who tried but failed to beat Sen. Kay Bailey
Hutchison, R-Texas, in the midterm election, used her support for the GI
Bill of Rights to stress how she would do more for veterans than Hutchison,
who heads the Senate Appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding
veterans' programs.

The plan has 172 House co-sponsors, short of the 218 votes needed for
approval. In January, however, Democrats will have at least 232 seats,
enough to push a bill through if leaders can get agreement.

"There is an opportunity," said one House Democratic aide who has been
working on the plan. "It's just a matter of putting the right package
together."

The plan is called the GI Bill of Rights because it was modeled after the
post-World War II GI Bill that provided education and home loan benefits to
returning veterans.

In the almost two years since the plan was unveiled, the Democratic minority
has been limited to orchestrating symbolic votes to try to highlight what
they felt were their differences with Republicans. Several times, this
involved asking the House Appropriations Committee to decide whether to fund
increases in military benefits by rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy.
These were invariably party-line votes, with most Republicans sticking with
the tax cuts and most Democrats voting to increase pay, benefits or housing.

Because Republicans were in control, Democrats knew chances for enactment
were slim. They didn't even figure out how much it would cost; the $100
billion price tag over 10 years is a back-of-the-envelope estimate.

All that changed with the midterm election.

"Now that we won, we have to figure out how to deliver," said another House
Democratic aide, who asked not to be identified because he was not
authorized by the new House leadership to speak on its behalf. "We cannot do
it all at once - that's clear. We are looking at ... doing a little at a
time, working our way down the list."

In its current form, the bill will die in January when the current session
of Congress ends and a new one begins.

"I expect that it will be reintroduced," said an aide who has worked on the
Defense Department portions of the bill.

But if it is to continue to have backing from Democratic leaders, the
current proposal is likely to change, if only to strip proposals that have
already been approved and put into effect, the aide said.

Here are some of the key provisions likely to be in play:

Combat-zone bonus

One of the most prominent provisions in the bill is the $1,000 bonus for
everyone who sees combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. The one-time payment would
go to anyone receiving hostile-fire or imminent-danger pay while serving in
support of Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom.

There is a catch: Service members can get the $1,000 payment only once, no
matter how many times they return to a combat zone.

The payment has no definitive link to the current system of military
compensation; Pelosi called it simply a symbol of support for the troops
bearing the brunt of the wars. 

Education benefits

A proposed major overhaul of Montgomery GI Bill benefits would raise
payments to match the average cost of college tuition and fees. This would
not happen all at once; the Democratic plan recommends hiking monthly
payments to a maximum of $1,300, up from the current $1,075, and then
following up with fee increases the next year to match average hikes in
tuition - not inflation, as is now the case.

This is a scaled-down version of a previous proposal that called for annual
increases to match hikes in tuition and fees.

Pelosi has described the package as providing for the "full cost for college
or job training." The actual legislation does not go that far, although
other bills have been introduced in Congress in the past to provide full
tuition plus a stipend.

Along with increasing monthly GI Bill payments, the bill would repeal two
aspects of the current program. First, the contribution required of
active-duty service members to enroll in the benefits plan - $1,200 over
their first year in uniform - would be canceled, although there would be no
refund for people who have paid the charge.

Second, GI Bill benefits would be available even to those who do not have a
high school diploma or its equivalent, which is required to use benefits
today.

Reserve income replacement

In ways both direct and indirect, Democrats propose to help National Guard
and reserve members who suffer a pay cut when mobilized.

Direct help would come from a provision ordering the federal government to
make up for any drop in pay for mobilized federal civilian employee, an idea
strongly opposed by the Bush administration and by military personnel
officials, who worry about the effect on morale if the government pays more
to some military people than others in the same ranks and jobs.

The bill also proposes tax incentives for private-sector employers to
continue providing full pay for their reservist employees who are called to
duty.

VA health care services

The Democrats' plan was drawn up at a time when Congress had just learned
that the Department of Veterans Affairs budget was $3.2 billion short of
immediate needs. The gap had to be closed by providing extra money - and
that problem probably is not completely solved.

One way that the Bush administration has sought to plug the funding gap is
through new health care fees for some veterans. Three times, Congress has
refused to approve a Bush administration plan to establish a new enrollment
fee and hike the current co-payment for prescription drugs provided by VA
for some veterans.

But the administration persists, and lawmakers expect that the 2008 federal
budget proposal to come from the White House in January will renew the call
for these fee increases.

But since both the House and Senate veterans' affairs committees opposed the
fee hikes under Republican control - with even some of Bush's strongest
supporters saying they could not support fee hikes for veterans while the
nation is at war - this idea is likely to be dead on arrival once again in a
Congress controlled by Democrats.

The Democratic plan also calls for improving mental health services for
returning combat veterans. In particular, it would:

.Require a study to identify factors that might increase or decrease the
likelihood of chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, something that has not
received in-depth scrutiny to date.

.Provide no-questions-asked mental health services for five years after a
service member or veteran leaves combat, three more than currently allowed.

.Establish a test program under which VA psychologists and psychiatrists
would be assigned to military hospitals and demobilization sites to conduct
advance screening for PTSD and related disabilities.

The Democratic plan also calls for more funding to improve the timeliness
and accuracy of veterans' benefits claims. 

Concurrent receipt

Under Republican control, Congress has modified a more than 110-year-old
government policy of forcing disabled military retirees to forfeit one
dollar of their military retired pay for every dollar received in veterans'
disability compensation. But Democrats promise to do better.

Full concurrent receipt of both benefits is allowed only for those with
service-connected disabilities that are the result of combat or combat
training - and then only if they completed 20 years of military service.

Those with non-combat disabilities rated at 50 percent or higher are
eligible to keep some of their retired pay, with their offset being phased
out over several years. But the net result is that about 400,000 disabled
retirees still see some reduction in their retired pay each month.

The new GI Bill promised full and immediate concurrent receipt of retired
and disability pay for everyone who served 20 years. However, this still
would not cover every disabled retiree; people separated from service with
less than 20 years on "medical disability retirement" would continue to have
their retired pay reduced.

The original GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century had the backing of most
major military and veterans' groups, which will be watching closely to see
how it all works out.

A representative from one group that endorsed the plan, who asked not to be
identified, said he cannot say for certain that Democrats made firm promises
about each and every aspect of their package.

But "they certainly were telling us that Democrats would have different
priorities than Republicans," he said. "With Democrats in power, we'll know
whether they really meant it." 


GI Bill of Rights for 21st Century

House Democrats are sponsoring a bill, HR 2131, that updates and expands on
current military and veterans' benefits. First introduced in 2005, the
package has 172 co-sponsors. Key provisions:
.Creating a one-time $1,000 bonus for combat duty in Afghanistan or Iraq.

.Raising GI Bill benefits to $1,300 a month and indexing future GI Bill
increases to tuition hikes, not inflation.

.Dropping the $1,200 enrollment fee and high school diploma requirement to
use GI Bill benefits.

.Protecting federal workers in reserve components from income loss when
mobilized for active duty.

.Rejecting fee hikes for veterans' health care.

.Improving mental-health screening and care, including five years of
post-service counseling.

.Approving full concurrent receipt for all disabled retirees who served 20
or more years.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil
and steady dedication of a lifetime." 

--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.