Posted on: Monday, October 11, 2004

New defense bill a 'promise' kept

By Dennie Camire
Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON — Survivors of military retirees, and retirees who are 100 percent disabled, could find extra money coming their way under a defense bill working its way toward final congressional approval.

One provision in the bill would eliminate a cut in income from a Defense Department pension plan that affects survivors when they turn 62.

Another would allow the nation's 50,000 military retirees who are 100 percent disabled to collect both full disability pay and full retirement for the first time starting Jan. 1.

Until recently, disabled retirees had to give up $1 of their retirement pension from the Defense Department for every $1 they received in disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Congress changed the law last year to phase in the change over 10 years to allow retirees with disabilities of 50 percent or greater to receive both payments. The new provision gives the most severely disabled retirees the full amount instead of making them wait.

"We're pleased that the phase-in has been dropped for them," said David Autry, spokesman for Disabled American Veterans. "It's another step in the right direction. We're going to be back at them in the next Congress to get full (benefits) for all the retirees, regardless of the degree of their disability."

The two provisions are part of a $447.2 billion bill for next year that authorizes money for the nation's military programs and manpower levels.

"Fantastic," said Carol Mann-Marcotte, 64, of Lafayette, La., about the pension provision. Current law cuts a survivor's monthly benefit to 35 percent of their deceased spouse's retired pay, from 55 percent.

"I'm very thankful they finally realized the contribution that their military make to the country," said Mann-Marcotte, whose late husband, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, died in 2002. "I think it's only fair to them and to their families."

The pension provision would increase the annuities paid the survivors to the 55 percent level over the next 3 1/2 years.

About 937,000 of the nation's 1.9 million retirees are paying 6.5 percent of their retirement pay to participate in the pension plan, and almost 257,000 survivors are collecting the benefits with 227,000 older than 62.

Though the annuity covers all spouses of military service retirees who don't opt out of the program, women are overwhelmingly affected because most who have chosen the military as a career through the years have been men.

Calling the pension drop "a very unfair tax on military widows, Norb Ryan, president of the Military Officers Association of America, said the group was grateful Congress did the right thing in ending it.

"No other survivors of federal employees have that happen to them," Ryan said.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., a sponsor of the measure, said the government promised spouses of military retirees that if they contributed to the pension program, they would have a nest egg when their spouses died.

"What they didn't say was that the amount would drop by about one-third once the surviving spouse turned age 62," Landrieu said. "By including this measure, we are saying we will keep this promise that was made to these families."