washingtonscene Spousal employment
MOAA seeks expansion of spousal employ- ment opportunities, including incentives for employers and contractors to hire military spouses. We will pursue tax credits or other support means for military spouses to ob- tain licenses or certifications required as a result of military relocations and continue to advocate at the state level for legisla- tion — and ensure implementation of the enacted laws — to support military spouse license portability. MOAA will encourage remaining states to extend unemployment benefits to spouses forced to resign due to military-directed relocations.
Additional Issues
Veterans’ employment and disability
Fifteen years of disability claims from Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and appeals of de- nied claims from earlier conflicts continue to threaten the VA’s goal to eliminate the backlog. MOAA will work with leading vet- erans’ groups to forge recommendations to further upgrade the claims processing and appeals system and support legislative and executive initiatives to support veterans’ employment and career goals after separat- ing from military service. MOAA supports recognizing for service connection Vietnam War-era Agent Orange claims from “blue water” Navy veterans.
Social Security and Medicare reform
MOAA will resist initiatives that impose disproportionate penalties on particular segments of the beneficiary or taxpayer pop- ulation or fail to protect long-lived benefi- ciaries’ income from the ravages of inflation.
Social Security
Sustaining the future financial viability of Social Security often is portrayed as
48 MILITARY OFFICER JANUARY 2017
requiring either disproportionate benefit reductions or disproportionate tax in- creases for future generations. Large num- bers of older Americans depend on Social Security as old-age insurance programs for which they have paid decades of pay- roll taxes in good faith. Actions to restore the program’s long-term financial viability must fairly balance the legitimate interests of both current and future beneficiaries, and no group should be forced to bear dis- proportionate sacrifice.
USFSPA Equity
MOAA seeks reform of the unfair provi- sions of the Uniformed Services Former Spouse Protection Act (USFSPA). Divis- ible retired pay should be based on a ser- vicemember’s grade and years of service at the time of divorce rather than at the time of the servicemember’s retirement from service. MOAA has garnered sup- port from both the House and the Sen- ate on this issue, as reflected in the 2017 NDAA, which awaits the president’s signature. Another issue MOAA contin- ues to work is barring state courts from requiring payments to start before a ser- vicemember actually retires from active duty and barring courts from dividing VA disability compensation, which is ex- clusively earned by the servicemember. MOAA will continue to work with DoD and Congress to address and overcome all unfair USFSPA provisions.
MO
— Contributors are Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF (Ret), former vice president; Col. Dan Merry, USAF (Ret), vice president; Cmdr. René Campos, USN (Ret); Col. Mike Barron, USA (Ret); Capt. Kathy Beasley, USN (Ret); Brooke Goldberg; Col. Phil Odom, USAF (Ret); Lt. Col. (select) Aniela Szyman- ski, USMCR; Jamie Naughton; and Trina Fitzger- ald, MOAA’s Government Relations Department, and Gina Harkins, senior staff writer. Visit moaa .org/email to sign up for legislative-news updates.
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