[Gimpy]

Originally posted by SuperScout

And in closing, as I've stated before, the Democrat control that existed for so long before the current control by the Republicans provided them ample opportunity to fully fund and pass concurrent receipt when they wanted, had it been a priority for them then. Blaming the current situation solely on the Republican party is simplistic, childish, and lacking in historical perspective.

You're in dire need of an advanced history lesson there Super my friend!

And, I'm JUST the old redneck, hardnosed history X-purt ta give one!

Now pays CLOSE A-tention to whut I'm about to learn y'all, OK?

First, let me congratulate you on your recent approval for CRSC. It was a long time coming and I concur that it IS appreciated by those who have been fighting this battle for years now.

But, the "current situation" Is...by all present "evidence" directly attributable to the LACK of support from the "present" administration and the "present" majority of Republicans in Congress! I''ll get to the "past history" in a minute.

Back to the "Lesson"!

Passing a Bill into law in Congress can be likened to giving birth.

Where the gestation period for an elephant is 22 months, for legislation to become a public law it is often as long as five to 10 years, or longer.

Although it is perhaps the one type of conception where many claim to be the father, it is the antepartum care, as with any pregnancy, that promotes growth. Legislation needs to be nursed through the system to succeed.

After an idea is conceived, a member of Congress must decide to sponsor a bill. Then the bill has to be drafted: Legislation is reviewed, existing laws are researched, and effective language is written. Once in a technical form, the draft bill is reviewed by lawyers and costed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The member of Congress then seeks initial co-sponsorship--essential for the bill's success.

The draft of the bill is then placed into the clerk's "hopper." The clerk assigns a number, and it is publicly printed; the draft has become a bill. The bill is read on the floor and is referred to a committee or subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the area affected by this measure.

Additional cosponsors are solicited; the more cosponsors on a bill, the more visible it becomes.

If the chair schedules the bill, the committee will consider the legislation, and the bill gets "marked-up." The committee may report the bill to the House or Senate as is, or it might be amended or even replaced, by a substitute bill. If not considered, the bill remains in committee, where it dies.

If reported to the floor, the bill is voted upon, but not without debate and further chance of amendment. If a final vote is not taken, the bill is considered at another time or recommitted to the original committee. If a vote is not taken by the end of a congressional session, the bill is lost and must be reintroduced at the next session.

With the majority of either the House or Senate in favor, the bill is sent to the opposite chamber, where the procedure repeats itself. Both chambers must pass identical bills. When they don't, both versions (House and Senate) go to the joint conference committee, which develops a compromise bill that both chambers must then vote upon. Key elements of a bill can be lost "in conference." And this is a normal cycle.

Blame an extended gestation on similar bills, public hearings, budget resolutions, positions by the administration, House and Senate leadership, congressional and DoD studies, party politics and personalities, and elections.

Further delays can occur when a champion of a bill is replaced in Congress or when staff members move between congressional offices. The two-year election cycle for the House and the four-year term for the president have a great impact on how quickly a specific piece of legislation is considered, processed and made available for vote.

The perfect example of this process is the recent attempts to pass Concurrent Receipt (CR). Far from providing full coverage for every disabled military retiree, a bill expanding CR for many became public law 108-136 with the president's signature on 24 November 2003.

It took 17 years, however, to even accomplish what was passed, limited as it is.

Like I've said before, Concurrent Receipt legislation attempts to correct an offset that reduces a disabled military retiree retirement pay by the amount of disability compensation paid to the same retiree for his or her disability.

The offset rule had its genesis 110 years ago after hearings on disability pensions for veterans of the Mexican War (1846-48, NOT after the Civil War as has long been misreported) when Congress learned that some elderly military retirees were drawing both their retired pay and veterans' disability pensions from that war.

In response, the fiscally conservative Congress enacted a law to prohibit the concurrent receipt of military retirement pay and disability compensation.


The current law that is being changed was enacted 27 May 1944 ,P.L. 78-314, (Yes Super, by a Democratic controlled Congress worried about of ALL THINGS.....fiscal responsibility and paying for a World War of all things, can you believe that!) and took a different approach but has a similar net effect.

It stipulates that any disabled veteran receiving uniformed services retired pay would receive disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) only if he or she waives receipt of an equal amount of retired pay.

For the next 35 to 40 years it was a virtual "non-issue" among political circles due to the limited amout of individuals affected by it's enactment (most of those WWII vets affected didn't start retireing until the 60's or 70's)

In the 1980s a group was formed called the Uniformed Services Disabled Retirees (USDR). By 1984 the organization had grown to 2,600 members. USDR then filed a suit in the United States Court of Claims. Known as the Absher lawsuit, it had 2,048 plaintiffs.

In 1985, the court ruled against the organization and it was appealed to the U.S. Appellate Court, which in 1986 also ruled against USDR. A Petition of Certiorari was forwarded to the U.S. Supreme Court. In April 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider a further USDR appeal, effectively closing the door on any relief through the courts. The Absher decision stated that only Congress can fix the problem.


The first Concurrent Receipt reform bills were introduced in 1985 with the principal focus on H.R. 303 , and was sponsored by my very own Congressman here in Tarpon Springs, FL and one of very few Republican politicians I continue to support.......... Rep. Mike Bilirakis (R-Fla.), and its original Senate companion bill, S. 2120, sponsored by the late Sen. Spark Matsunaga (D-Hawaii). An apparent "bi-partisan" effort!

Each proposed eliminating the offset for retirees with 20 or more years of service and rated disabled by the VA. Over the years, Bilirakis reintroduced Concurrent Receipt reform; H.R.303 became synonymous with CR reform.

At a 1988 hearing before the House Veterans' Affairs Compensation, Pension, and Insurance Subcommittee, Bilirakis highlighted the unfairness of the ban on concurrent receipt. During that hearing, 18 associations and six members of Congress testified in support of H.R. 303. The only dissenters were from the Department of Defense (DoD) and the VA. Funding clearly was the biggest hurdle, as House Subcommittee Chairman Douglas Applegate (D-Ohio) chastised the congressional witnesses for not proposing other program cuts to offset the then-estimated $1.2 billion to $1.7 billion annual cost of concurrent receipt.

H.R. 303 won 244 cosponsors but died without action when the 100th Congress adjourned.

In the 101st Congress, Matsunaga introduced a less-expensive alternative (S. 563) referred to as "inverse ratio" concurrent receipt, which reduced the offset depending on the retiree's VA disability rating (100 percent disabled retirees would have no offset; 90 percent disabled, 10 percent offset; 80 percent disabled, 20 percent offset; etc.).

In 1991, the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee recommended enactment of "inverse ratio" concurrent receipt authority (S. 190) in memory of Matsunaga, after his death in 1990. The initiative died when Congress adjourned.

In 1992, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Bob Graham (D-Fla.) won Senate approval to require the Pentagon to submit legislation and funding for concurrent receipt. The Senate bill was diluted in final House action to require only a DoD report on alternatives by 1 April 1993.

In 1993, DoD's failure to submit the April report prompted Congress to pass legislation exempting 100 percent disabled retirees from the offset--unless the Pentagon submitted the report by 1 January 1994. DoD submitted the report in September 1993, opposing any change, thus voiding the legislation.

In 1994, Bilirakis offered a discharge petition, which starts the process to force his inverse ratio concurrent receipt bill (H.R. 65) from committee for a House floor vote. His effort failed when only about 50 of the 165 cosponsors of H.R. 65 were willing to sign the discharge petition.

In 1995, McCain offered an amendment to the FY95 Defense Appropriations Act to authorize concurrent receipt for 100 percent disabled retirees. The bill was challenged on a budget point of order; the language was amended to require another DoD report, which again recommended against any change.

In 1996, Bilirakis tried to amend the FY97 Defense Authorization Act to allow a monthly $100 to $300 "special compensation" for certain severely disabled retirees. The amendment was disallowed by the House Rules Committee.

In 1997-98, Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) reintroduced the inverse ratio bill (S. 657) in the Senate. Bilirakis introduced several bills in the House, from H.R. 44 (limited special compensation) to H.R. 303 (full concurrent receipt), but Congress adjourned without action.

In 1999, McCain, Bilirakis, and Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) proposed an extra $100 to $300 a month special compensation for disabled retirees who served at least 20 years on active duty and received Department of Veterans Affairs disability ratings of 70 percent or higher within four years of leaving service. Finally, the provision was included in the FY00 Defense Authorization Act, the first change in the dollar-for-dollar offset law.

In 2000, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) won Senate approval of his full concurrent receipt amendment (S. 2357) to the FY01 Defense Authorization Act. House-Senate conferees dropped the provision, opting only to extend the $100 to $300 special compensation (SCSD) to disabled retirees.

First elected into the Senate in 1986 , Reid championed the cause of concurrent receipt in that chamber, introducing legislation every session .

In 2001, 82 percent of House members and 71 percent of the Senate had cosponsored, respectively, Bilirakis' H.R. 303 and Reid's S. 170. House leaders rejected a Senate proposal to put funding in the FY02 Budget Resolution. Instead, the resolution called for yet another DoD report.

On 28 December 2001, history was made when the 2002 National Defense Authorization Act (Public Law 107-107) included language to eliminate the concurrent receipt offset for some retired members, contingent on the president proposing, and Congress enacting, funding. This is the first time concurrent receipt language made it into the final version of a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

However, in 2002 President Bush failed to include funding for concurrent receipt in his budget. The House Budget Committee included $516 million in the 2003 budget and the Senate Budget Committee included $17.8 billion over 10 years to provide full concurrent receipt.

The House Budget Committee recommended that any military retirees with VA disability ratings of 60 percent or higher be eligible for concurrent receipt. Senator Reid and Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.) reintroduced legislation (S. 2051) to remove the contingencies placed on previous amendments to the Defense Authorization Act.

Variations of Concurrent Receipt were in both the Senate and House versions of the NDAA. At DoD's urging, the president threatened to veto the Defense Bill. Confrontation between the Congress and the White House was risked. Leaders met. In Concurrent Receipt's place, through the tremendous efforts of Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), Senate Armed Services Committee chair, the Administration agreed to a new program called "Combat-Related Special Compensation" (CRSC). Unfortunately, language all but excluded drilling Guard members and Reservists.

The success in 2003 has been the biggest yet, limited as it was...... H.R.303 was reintroduced at the beginning of the 108th Congress by Representative Bilirakis. As the year progressed, 376 members of the House cosponsored the bill.

Yet the committee would not report the bill to the floor. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.) introduced a discharge petition for consideration of H.R. 303 on the floor. Requiring 218 signatures, it was signed by only 203 House members(virtually along party lines!) . An intense retiree and association grassroots effort tried without success for the balance of the signatures.

Through an amendment introduced by Senator Reid, senators called for full concurrent receipt in their version of the National Defense Authorization. Recognizing a heated issue, House, Senate and White House officials negotiated a compromise, permitting Concurrent Receipt for those disabled retirees with 50 percent or higher ratings, and expanding CRSC to 100 percent with combat disabilities.

Since 1986, military retiree groups, VSO's and the ROA, as a member of The Military Coalition, have lobbied annually to get Congress to repeal the 1944 statute that revised the original law. It has taken the collective effort of numerous congressional offices (from BOTH partys), behind-the-scenes arm-twisting at DoD and the White House, and lobbying by many veteran, military and Reserve associations to get where we're at today.

And yet, still MORE is needed!

Now, I''l have your "homework" assignment later.

Have a nice day!

PS------------By the way, there was NOTHING else "attached" to, and neither were any other amendments added to that "bill" (the 2006 Defense Authorization Bill) except for the two amendments offered by Democrats Marshal & Salazar which would have corrected CR and the Survivors Benefits & Indemnity offset! It IS the DOD Budget bill...............which I suppose some may call a "bad bill" if recent budget outlays are examined closely, huh?