washingtonscene
2012 Goals T
he uniformed services commu- nity has experienced an arduous decade-plus of sacrifice and hard-
MOAA’s Top Goals for 2012 • Sustain force levels to meet wartime needs • Reverse Medicare/ TRICARE payment cuts • Protect military retire- ment/COLAs • Bar disproportional TRICARE fee hikes • Implement fixes for wounded warriors and their caregivers • End disabled/survivor financial penalties • Enact Guard/Reserve retirement fixes • Improve spouse and family support programs • Improve veteran/ spouse employment
ship from fighting two wars simultaneous- ly. But the past decade also has witnessed unprecedented quality-of-life improve- ments, including: • TRICARE For Life; • TRICARE Senior Pharmacy coverage; • major pay and allowances upgrades; • concurrent receipt for severely disabled retirees; • elimination of the age-62 Survivor Ben- efit Plan (SBP) penalty; • Post-9/11 GI Bill coverage and transfer- ability; • compensation and support services for wounded warriors and their caregivers; and • veterans’ readjustment and employment. These improvements came after pay and benefit cutbacks in the 1980s and ’90s that undermined retention and readiness. Now these improvements are under serious scrutiny as our nation faces an ever-growing budget crisis. The national debt — characterized by former Chair- man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, USN-Ret., as the “biggest threat we have to our national security” — is not being taken lightly as Congress embarks on what likely will be a several-year pe- riod of ever-increasing belt-tightening. The August 2011 Budget Control Act
tasked a congressional super committee to find $1.2 trillion in deficit reductions over the next 10 years. Unfortunately, they failed to achieve consensus on that goal, initiating a “sequestration” process that
Protecting retirement, health care, COLAs, survivors, and wounded warriors and their caregivers top MOAA’s goals list.
will impose $1.2 trillion in across-the- board spending cuts — with half of that total coming from the defense budget. The Pentagon already has had to absorb budget cuts totaling $450-plus billion over the next 10 years. Defense and congres- sional leaders have acknowledged adding another $600 billion to that figure through sequestration would be devastating to military readiness. MOAA’s concern is such purely budget-
driven focus dramatically raises prospects for large and inappropriate cuts in crucial compensation programs that are essential to sustaining a top-quality career force. Changes in the crucial career incen-
tives that form the core pillars of the all- volunteer force must be approached with skepticism, considering past ill-advised adjustments hurt retention and readiness and cost the country at least as much to fix as they had been projected to save. Intensifying budget scrutiny affects not only military programs and benefits but also Social Security, Medicare, federal civilian pay and retirement, COLAs, health care, and virtually everything else the gov- ernment spends money on. The remainder of this column provides a summary of key MOAA legislative objec- tives for 2012. To help fulfill these objectives, we urge
you to subscribe to MOAA’s weekly email Legislative Update so you’ll be able to re- spond to our calls to action at key points in the coming year. Call MOAA’s Member Service Center at (800) 234-MOAA (6622) or email
legis@moaa.org to subscribe.
*take action: Go to
www.moaa.org/email to subscribe to MOAA’s weekly email Legislative Update. 40 MILITARY OFFICER JANUARY 2012
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