Senators attempt to fund concurrent receipt - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Senators attempt to fund concurrent receipt

The Senate Budget Committee resorted to the previously failed idea of creating a deficit-neutral reserve fund to pay for improvements in National Guard and reserve transition programs for veterans, and to continue eliminating offsets in benefits for military retirees and survivors who also receive veterans benefits.

The 2011 federal spending plan approved by the committee Thursday on a 12-10 vote provides $573.8 billion for the Defense Department, which includes $133 billion for contingency operations. The amount makes the Defense Department one of the few federal agencies to see a budget increase; the non-war funding part of the defense budget would represent a 3.5 percent increase over 2010 funding.

Veterans programs also would get a increase of 7.4 percent under the Senate committee plan.

The Pentagon and VA increases approved by the budget committee are exactly what the Obama administration outlined in its 2011 budget request, which freezes funding for most non-security programs.

But no money is provided for two of the top legislative priorities for military and veterans groups: the continued phasing out of offsets in military retired pay for those who also receive veterans disability compensation, and the elimination of an offset in military survivors benefits for survivors who also receive dependency and indemnity compensation from VA.

The Obama administration proposed full concurrent receipt of disability and military retired pay to eligible veterans by Jan. 1, 2015 in the 2011 budget request, but did not specifically identify how it would cover the cost, estimated at $5 billion over five years. Failure to include a specific source of funds is a major problem for lawmakers, who have strict budgeting rules.

The budget committee’s answer to the funding issue is to create, on paper, deficit-neutral reserve accounts into which lawmakers could put money they are able to cut from other programs, or raise through new taxes, that is not specifically used for another purpose.

Deficit-neutral reserve funding also would be used to pay for improvements in Guard and reserve transition programs, something that Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., the budget committee chairman, called “soft landing” initiatives. Details on transition program will be determined by other legislation.

This is not the first time the Senate prepared a budget that used reserve accounts as the source of funding for new military benefits. The concept has not worked because when lawmakers tried to pass new benefits by tapping into the reserve funds, they were told there was no money in the accounts to spend.

The Senate committee’s passage of the budget resolution is just the first step in the long congressional budget process. The House Budget Committee has not started writing its version of the budget blueprint.