washingtonscene
prenticeship authority as well as upgrades to the current VA Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment and Survivors and Depen- dents’ Educational Assistance programs. Filner assured attendees the committee would seek to fix those problems.
Sen. Carl Levin
(D-Mich.)
Key Panels
Seek Help
Budget committee support is needed.
I
Sen. John McCain
(R-Ariz.)
Rep. Ike Skelton
(D-Mo.)
n March, House and Senate Armed Services committee leaders sent bipar- tisan letters to their respective budget committees, seeking necessary budget al- locations to meet FY 2011 military needs. House Committee Chair Ike Skelton
(D-Mo.) and ranking member “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) highlighted several top MOAA priorities, including: n a 1.9-percent pay raise (0.5 percent above DoD’s proposal); n retroactive credit for early retirement qualification for deployed guardmembers and reservists; n concurrent receipt for all medically re- tired servicemembers; and n elimination of the offset of the Survi- vor Benefit Plan (SBP) for VA Dependen- cy and Indemnity Compensation. Senate Committee Chair Carl Levin (D-
Mich.) and ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked the Senate budget leader- ship to support the administration’s concur- rent receipt proposal. The FY 2011 defense budget proposes a
Rep. “Buck” McKeon
(R-Calif.)
five-year phase-out of the disability offset for all medical (Chapter 61) retirees. But the White House didn’t identify a
funding source to offset the initiative’s cost ($264 million in FY 2011 and $5.3 billion over the next 10 years). The Skelton/ McKeon letter requested the budget com- mittee’s help to find offsets.
4 0 MI L I T A R Y O F F I C E R MAY 2 0 1 0
Career Program
Resumes
The Pentagon restarts program for spouses.
O
n March 11, DoD officials an- nounced more than 136,000 active duty spouses already enrolled in
the Military Spouse Career Advancement Account (MyCAA) program will be able to resume using their accounts as of March 13. That’s great news for thousands of
MyCAA spouses left in limbo since the Pen- tagon’s abrupt suspension of the program Feb. 18, and it’s a victory for MOAA, too. But any spouse not currently in the
system remains shut out of the program at this time. Defense officials say dramati- cally increased enrollments early this year threatened the MyCAA funding limit. They plan a broader program review. Upon the no-notice halt of the program,
MOAA President Vice Adm. Norb Ryan Jr., USN-Ret., sent a letter to Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Dr. Clifford Stanley urging restoration and full funding of the program. “We salute the large numbers of spous- es who used MOAA’s alert system to ask their elected officials to help restart this critically important program,” Ryan said. DoD officials say they erred in not no-
tifying spouses about the shutdown and now are putting notes on enrollees’ MyCAA pages and sending them individual e-mails. MOAA applauds DoD leaders for keep-
ing their commitments. We’ll continue working to provide all military spouses an opportunity to enroll.
MO
— Contributors are Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF- Ret., direc tor; Col. Mike Hayden, USAF-Ret.; Col. Bob Norton, USA-Ret.; Cmdr. René Campos, USN- Ret.; Capt. Kathy Beasley, USN-Ret.; Col. Phil Odom, USAF-Ret.; Joy Dunlap; Bret Shea; and Matt Mur- phy, MOAA’s Government Relations Department.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92