MILITARY UPDATE
Victory on concurrent receipt may prove elusive

Military Update focuses on issues affecting pay, benefits and lifestyle of active and retired servicepeople. Its author, Tom Philpott, is a Virginia-based syndicated columnist and freelance writer. He has covered military issues for almost 25 years, including six years as editor of Navy Times. For 17 years he worked as a writer and senior editor for Army Times Publishing Co. Philpott, 49, enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1973 and served as an information officer from 1974-77.

By Tom Philpott

Prospects continue to dim for disabled military retirees seeking to ease or end the ban on concurrent receipt of both full retired pay and VA disability compensation.

Besides now-familiar hurdles — the multi-billion-dollar price, the threat of a presidential veto, a calculated delay in congressional action until after Nov. 5 elections — retirees can add one more: fear inside the House and Senate Armed Services Committees that only a quick retreat on concurrent receipt will keep these committees from a permanent loss of power.

Many lawmakers facing re-election will beat drums on behalf of disabled retirees until the polls close. After that, the Armed Services committees likely will have a new, higher priority: preserving their own relevance. To do that, they need to see a defense authorization bill passed this year, with or without a provision to raise the pay of retirees with disabilities.

The authorization bill is hung up over the issue of concurrent receipt in a House-Senate conference committee. The Bush administration threatens a veto if conferees approve even the more modest House plan to phase in full retired pay over five years and only for those at least 60 percent disabled.

Before Congress recessed for elections, Republican-led conferees in the House refused to negotiate with Senate colleagues. They didn't want Bush to have to veto a bill over benefits for disabled retirees, particularly as U.S. forces prepare for war in Iraq and many key elections are at stake.

Bush already has signed a $355 billion defense appropriations bill, which doesn't mention concurrent receipt. If a few more lines are added to another bill — language to authorize a targeted military pay raise in January and renew service bonus authorities — the military could run in 2003 without a defense authorization bill.

If no authorization bill is voted, the enormous power of the appropriations committees will be clarified and the armed services committees would be seen as ineffectual this year and perhaps unnecessary long range.

The fear is not a new one.

Staffers say the prestige of the armed services committees would be at risk if no defense authorization bill were enacted. Committee members would see their influence fall among colleagues, constituents and defense contractors.

"We're talking fundamental gut check," a committee staff member said. "This is (political) life-death here."

When Congress reconvenes Nov. 12 for a lame- duck session, the Armed Services committees will try to reach a compromise on concurrent receipt, one acceptable to the White House.

If they can't, the issue might be dropped entirely to get an authorization bill passed. Democrats are ready to blame Bush and his veto threat.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Oct. 25 that House Republicans had failed to endorse either the House or Senate concurrent receipt plan. Levin said he is committed to completing a defense bill this year, but gave no assurance, in the face of White House opposition, that a concurrent receipt provision would survive.

"There is simply too much legislation critical to our national security in this (authorization) bill, including important legislation concerning pay and benefits for our troops, for Congress not to complete action on it," Levin said.

There seem to be two possibilities for progress:

• House and Senate conferees could remove concurrent receipt from the defense bill and send it forward as stand alone legislation.
• House-Senate conferees could agree to a sharply reduced concurrent receipt plan, one that President Bush might accept.

But victory this year for even a small population of disabled retirees would be a surprise.

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