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Senator restarts stalled benefits bill

The top Republican on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee proposes jump-starting a stalled veterans benefits bill by reducing a promised pension for World War II Filipino veterans and using the money to improve benefits for combat veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The proposal from Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., has been endorsed by the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit organization representing new combat veterans, but is opposed by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, the Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman, who has been pushing for the improved Filipino pensions.

Akaka’s bill, S 1315, which passed the committee last year, would provide pensions to Filipino veterans who served alongside U.S. troops in World War II. Those living outside the U.S. would receive up to $4,500 a year if married and $3,600 if single under the pension proposal. Pensions were to begin May 1 under the plan, which was delayed once it passed the Veterans’ Affairs Committee because of opposition to the Filipino benefits.

“These veterans have been denied these benefits for over 50 years. ... I believe it is time to give these elderly veterans the benefits that they earned and so richly deserve,” Akaka said. “In the 62 years since the end of the Second World War, Filipino veterans have worked tirelessly to secure the veterans status they were promised when they agreed to fight under U.S. command during World War II.”

The Filipino pensions are “wrong and costly,” Burr said. “It is wrong because it takes money from American veterans and sends it to the Philippines to create a special pension for non-citizen, nonresident Filipino veterans with no service-connected disabilities.”

Burr said his bill is a fair compromise. “It improves benefits for Filipinos, but it also places the appropriate priority on our returning Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom veterans,” he said.

Akaka said he has been trying to reach a compromise but has not found grounds for agreement.

He said Burr’s proposal “is not acceptable to me” but added that he may be willing to allow a vote if other senators agree.

Jeremy Chwat, executive vice president of the Wounded Warrior Project, said his group supports Burr’s compromise as a “balanced approach to funding programs and providing assistance to our nation’s wounded warriors.”

The disagreement over Filipino pensions is holding up urgently needed benefits changes, including retroactive traumatic injury insurance payments to about 700 troops severely injured between Oct. 7, 2001, and Dec. 1, 2005, who were not covered by previous legislation, Chwat said in a letter to Burr.

A similar dispute in the House has held up passage of a benefits bill approved by the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee last year. That bill, HR 760, also remains in limbo, with no sign of compromise.

Burr’s alternative, S 2640, would provide full pensions to Filipino veterans of World War II legally living in the U.S. and would provide full disability pay to any of those veterans with service-connected disabilities resulting from their support of U.S. operations.

“It would free up over $220 million to spend on benefits for veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Burr said, while still leaving $100 million for Filipino veterans in the U.S.

The money saved on pensions to Filipino veterans overseas would be used to increase other benefits, such as burial benefits that keep pace with inflation, better adaptive housing and auto grants for disabled veterans, and improved education benefits for National Guard and reserve members mobilized for two or more years.

Adaptive housing grants would increase by 10 percent effective July 1, to $55,000 for a severely disabled veteran and $11,000 for those with less severe disabilities. Also effective July 1, auto grants would increase by $5,000 to a total of $16,000 and would be adjusted each year to keep pace with the increase in the average retail cost of new vehicles in the previous year.

Burr’s reserve education plan would allow Guard and reserve members to receive GI Bill benefits equal to those of full-time active-duty members after serving two cumulative years of mobilization in support of a contingency operation.

This would be more liberal than allowed under current law, which requires either two years of continuous active duty or three years of cumulative active duty in order to receive full benefits.