washingtonscene “It may look that way [to you], but it’s
not,” responded the committee’s top Re- publican, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, “in light of the national debt we have and the [fiscal] crisis in our country.” Committee Chair Kent Conrad (D-
Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.)
N.D.) agreed, saying, “The days of the open checkbook [have] ended — for ev- eryone. We’re on a collision course for a financial crash.”
Sessions noted, in contrast to cuts in other parts of the budget, the administra- tion has proposed a 5-percent increase for defense and 10-percent increases for some other departments. “These aren’t accept- able increases, and I don’t think they’ll be approved,” he said. MOAA is as concerned and frustrated
Rep. Walter Jones
(R-N.C.)
as anyone about Pentagon inefficiencies in contracting and elsewhere. Dozens of Government Accountability Office and Defense inspector general reports have documented that hundreds of billions are wasted or unaccounted for. But Congress plays a significant role
Rep. Tim Walz
(D-Minn.)
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.)
in preventing elimination of such waste, as scores of legislators influence the au- thorization and appropriations processes every year to push hardware and other projects aimed more at benefiting their states and districts than contributing to national defense needs. And it’s hard to hold defense of- ficials completely responsible for fail- ing to manage long-term costs, when those costs are driven up constantly by legislators’ partisan battles that force counterproductive short-term cutbacks and stoppages as they bicker over how to keep the government running. There is no denying two competing
facts: We’re a nation fighting a two-front war, and we’re a nation on the edge of a genuine fiscal crisis. And a third overriding fact: We’re in this terrible situation precisely because
40 MILITARY OFFICER MAY 2011
partisan and bipartisan actions of admin- istrations and Congresses of both parties put us here. It’s the same bipartisan, short-sighted deadlock that took our country to war but refused to fund a large enough force to meet the mission — leaving our troops and their families to suffer the terrible con- sequences of unending extended deploy- ments imposed on a too-small force.
Bills of Interest Pay, health care, veteran fixes
are sought. L
egislators recently have intro- duced several bills of interest to the military and veterans’ community. H.R. 1110 (Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif.)
would increase imminent danger pay from $225 to $260 a month and increase the family separation allowance paid to de- ployed servicemembers from $250 to $285 a month. H.R. 1092 (Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C.)
would repeal the Pentagon’s authority to increase health care fees and reserve that responsibility to Congress. H.R. 1025 and S. 491 (Rep. Tim Walz, D- Minn., and Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark.) would authorize veteran status for career guard- members/reservists who were never acti- vated under Title 10 orders (but may have served on active duty for airport security after Sept. 11, 2001, border security, disaster relief, and many other purposes).
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.; Kelly Cotton; Bret Shea; and Matt Mur- phy, MOAA’s Government Relations Department. To subscribe to MOAA’s Legislative Update, visit
www.moaa.org/email.
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