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Panel votes to speed up survival benefit reform
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By Tom Philpott
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Northwest Florida Daily News, May 17th, 2004
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Using money unspent from a controversial Air Force tanker program, the House Armed Services Committee has voted for a speedier phaseout of a sharp drop in survivor benefits for military widows and widowers at age 62.
What lawmakers call the "widow’s tax" feature of the military Survivor Benefit Plan has existed since SBP began in 1972. But the reduction wasn’t briefed well to all participants. Retirees, spouses and widows have been angered over the years to learn that SBP benefits fall from 55 percent of covered retired pay down to as low as 35 percent at age 62, when Social Security benefits typically become available.
The committee’s Total Force Subcommittee voted May 5 to phase out that drop in benefits over five years, but said it couldn’t start until 2009 because any hike in mandatory spending under the Defense Department’s five-year budget must be paid for with an equivalent spending reduction.
As the full committee considered final amendments to the 2005 defense authorization bill May 12, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., announced that funds had been found to begin phasing out the widow’s tax next year. The cost of more than $2 billion over five years would be covered by money previously earmarked for the Air Force to lease tanker aircraft.
With no dissent heard, the committee approved Miller’s amendment to raise SBP benefits, starting with 270,000 beneficiaries age 62 and older. As of Oct. 1, 2005, their SBP would climb to 40 percent of covered retired pay. It would increase again to 45 percent on April 1, 2006, and to 50 percent a year later. It would be fully restored, to 55 percent, on April 1, 2008.
The amendment would make corresponding adjustments to the SBP supplemental annuity program, which allowed retirees to avoid the age-62 drop in survivor benefits through payment of higher premiums.
Major military associations have made SBP reform their top legislative goal this year with a fall election approaching. Indeed, moments before the vote, committee Democrats and Republicans squabbled over who deserved credit. Miller praised committee leaders and mostly Republican supporters. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., committee chairman, praised Miller, noting that that his recent bills to reform SBP had attracted more than 300 cosponsors apiece, and the backing of thousands of retirees and survivors.
But Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga., said Miller was remiss not to mention Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, who had filed a discharge petition in an attempt to force Miller’s bill out of committee. Marshall suggested that the petition forced the Republican-led committee to back SBP reform this year.
That angered Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., chairman of the Total Force subcommittee, who said the petition had no influence on the committee and that Marshall was wrong to cast a "partisan light" on a vote that resulted from hard work by Miller and committee leaders.
While House passage is virtually assured, Senate approval is a bigger hurdle. The defense bill crafted by the Senate Armed Services Committee contains no mention of SBP reform. The Senate in March left "headroom" in its 2005 budget resolution for $2 billion to phase out the age 62 offset over 10 years. It did so on a floor amendment from Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., approved without a recorded vote. Republicans, in fact, aren’t keen on Landrieu’s plan to pay for SBP reform by raising corporate taxes.
BRAC DELAY — The House committee also voted to delay next year’s round of military base closings until 2007, citing uncertainty over future infrastructure needs in light of the expanding war on terrorism and Bush administration plans to realign and transform active and reserve forces.
"We cannot afford to close a base in a 2005 BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) round only to discover in 2010 that assets at that base are both irreplaceable and now are lost forever," said Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., chairman of the committee’s readiness panel.
Congress in 2001 authorized a new round of base closings. Defense officials estimate the military has 24 percent excess base "capacity." Next May, the defense secretary is to provide to a new nine-member BRAC commission with a list of facilities to close or realign. Commissioners will review, amend and send a revised list through the president to Congress.
That process would be pushed back two years under the House committee provision.
"The only thing better than delaying BRAC would be repealing it," said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss. His amendment to do that was not adopted. Hefley warned that a "kill BRAC" amendment would draw a presidential veto.
Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., argued against any BRAC delay.
"The world is never going to declare a time out for three or four years … while America aligns its bases," Snyder said.
WARTIME PAYS — The House and Senate Armed Services Committees moved in lock step this month to make permanent last year’s increases in monthly Family Separation Allowance (up $150) and Imminent Danger Pay (up $75).
The Bush administration last year had urged Congress to roll back the April 2003 increases in favor of raises in Hardship Duty Pay (HDP) which can be targeted more precisely at service members sent to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The House committee did vote to raise the ceiling on monthly HDP from $300 up to $750, as Defense officials requested. But both committees voted to keep FSA at $250 a month and IDP at $225.
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