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Senators seek funds for concurrent receipt

The Senate Armed Services Committee has given a sliver of hope to some disabled military retirees still waiting for the right to receive their full military retirement pay and veterans disability compensation.

The committee is asking the Senate Budget Committee to make adjustments in the 2011 federal budget to accommodate $264 million in additional benefits in 2011 and $5.4 billion over the next 10 years to allow an expansion of “concurrent receipt.”

The request comes in the committee’s letter to the Senate Budget Committee making recommendations about the $708 billion defense budget for 2011.

A bipartisan letter signed by committee chairman Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and ranking Republican John McCain, R-Ariz., warns against cutting the Obama administration’s proposed defense budget.

“We note that after almost a decade of combat operations, the readiness of our nondeployed force has declined due to equipment being taken to support deploying units, in addition to a heavy emphasis being placed on training for counterinsurgency operations versus training for full-spectrum operations,” the letter says.

“We urge the budget committee to fully support the administration’s national defense budget request so that we can assist the department in restoring and protecting vital readiness accounts.”

On concurrent receipt, the Obama administration proposes to add $264 million into the military retirement trust fund in 2011 so it can begin providing concurrent receipt of retired pay and disability pay to people who received medical retirement from the military with fewer than 20 years of service.

Over five years, the administration wants to phase in concurrent receipt for people receiving military disability retired pay, ultimately providing full military and veterans benefits to all disabled retirees.

The problem with the Obama administration’s proposal is that it does not comply with congressional budget procedures; it does not specifically identify a source of the money that would be spent on new retiree benefits. This same problem prevented Congress from passing a similar proposal last year.

Levin and McCain told the budget committee they support providing full concurrent receipt, and hope the budget committee can identify offsets in the budget to cover the costs.

The Levin-McCain letter was sent to the budget committee on March 5 but released only late Tuesday.