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Concurrent receipt may not be properly funded

Just days after the Obama administration announced plans to provide full concurrent receipt of disability and military retired pay to eligible veterans by Jan. 1, 2015, a key House committee chairman threw a bucket of cold water on the initiative.

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a supporter of allowing disabled retirees to concurrently receive full military and veterans benefits, said the Obama initiative included in the 2011 defense budget request does not satisfy the House’s strict budgeting rules.

Skelton said the problem is that the administration has not identified specific offsets — either cuts in existing programs or revenue increases — to pay for the new benefits for disabled retirees.

“This committee has a deep commitment to this issue and our veterans, but we simply cannot enact it unless the administration identifies and advocates for specific offsets,” Skelton said Wednesday at a committee hearing on the 2011 defense request.

The budget request sent to Congress on Monday adds $408 million to the military retirement trust fund in 2011 specifically to cover the first phase of a five-year plan to expand concurrent receipt. The money would go to pay full retired pay to people medically retired from the military with fewer than 20 years of service who have disability ratings of 90 percent or greater. The Obama plan calls for full concurrent receipt to be phased in by Jan. 1, 2015, for all disabled retirees who are eligible for both military retired pay and veterans disability compensation.

But Skelton said the $408 million increase in the trust fund doesn’t meet congressional “pay-as-you-go” rules, which require a specific offset to pay for a specific increase. Without an offset, Skelton said the committee is unable to pass concurrent receipt legislation.

This is not a new problem. The same thing happened last year when the Obama administration proposed a similar expansion of concurrent receipt without including any funding. Skelton said his committee ended up “holding the bag” for an unfunded initiative.

Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga., a longtime sponsor of concurrent receipt legislation who also sits on the armed services committee, said he is not ready to give up. Marshall said he hopes the armed services committee would “work closely” with the House Ways and Means Committee, which is responsible for tax policy, to find money for concurrent receipt.

“It seems to me we ought to be able to find $5.1 billion over a 10-year period of time, as large as our mandatory spending is. We ought to be able to do that and get this done once and for all,” Marshall said.