NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT (NDAA)
Fiscal Year 2010

pleased with a number of issues authorized in the NDAA.  The Association likewise seriously regrets some long standing concerns of wounded service members and forgotten widows failed to achieve concurrent receipt authorization due to budget rules associated with the category of mandatory funding.  The Association considers the exclusion from NDAA of these entitlements extremely questionable based on Congressional “budget rules.”    NCOA comments on these unfunded programs are listed as FAILURES following the approved NDAA entitlements listed below. 

APPROVED:

Increases in Size of Military
• Army  30,000 (also received an additional 30,000 troops for 2011/2012).
• Marine Corps   8,100
• Navy    2,477
• Air Force 14,650
• Authorizes the secretaries of the military departments to vary Selected Reserve end strength by two percent above authorized levels.

Military Pay and Compensation
• Raise       -  3.4 percent increase.
• Bonuses   -  Extends DOD authority to offer bonuses and incentive pay.
• Extends to September 2013 the option for service members to carry over 75 days of leave from one fiscal year to the next.
• Increases the maximum amount of Supplemental Subsistence Allowance from $500 to $1,100 per month and directs the Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress a plan to ensure that service members and their families are not dependent on food stamps for their nutritional needs.

Health Care
• Requires a medical examination before administrative separation of members who are diagnosed as suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
• Expands TRICARE health coverage to reserve component members and their families for 180 days prior to mobilization.
• Extends eligibility for TRICARE Standard to reserve component area retirees who have not yet reached age 60, also known as gray area retirees.
• Prevents increases in co-payments for inpatient care at civilian hospitals under TRICARE Standard during FY2010.
• Authorizes full funding for the Defense Health Program.
• Increases beneficiary access to mental health providers.
• Expands eligibility of surviving children under the TRICARE Dental Program to the longer of three years after the service member’s death, until the surviving child reaches age 21, or until the child reaches age 23 if a full-time student.
• Exempts certain disabled TRICARE beneficiaries under age 65 from the requirement to enroll retroactively in Medicare part B in order to maintain TRICARE coverage.

Wounded Warriors
• Provides travel and transportation for three designated persons, including non family members to visit hospitalized members.
• Also enables seriously injured service members to use a non-medical attendant for help with daily living or during travel to medical appointments.
• Retains Guard and Reserve wounded members on active duty until completion of disability determination process.

Family Members
• Establishes an internship pilot program for military spouses to offer federal government career opportunities that are portable when the time comes to relocate.
• Authorizes Impact Aid funding to assist schools with large enrollments of military children.

Undergraduate Nurse Education
• Directs the Department of Defense to establish an undergraduate nurse training program to address the critical nursing shortage in our military services.

Federal Employment
• Repeals the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) and will transition employees back to the General Schedule (GS) by January 1, 2012, while providing the Department of Defense additional flexibilities to ensure efficient hiring and personnel management.
• Allow Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) employees to receive credit for unused sick leave toward their retirement annuity, and will ensure retirement equity by providing locality pay for federal workers in Hawaii, Alaska, and the U.S. Territories. These provisions will result in approximately $258 million in deficit reduction over 10 years.

Hate Crimes Prevention Act
• Provides technical and financial support to local law enforcement and prosecutors so that they can more aggressively pursue violent crimes which are motivated by a victim’s race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability; expands the ability of federal prosecutors to pursue similar types of cases in federal court if state or local officials are unable or unwilling to prosecute these cases; and criminalizes attacks against U.S. service members on account of their service to our country.

Reports Required
• Requires the Secretary of Defense to develop a revised plan to implement policies aimed at preventing and responding effectively to sexual assaults involving service members, and directs the Comptroller General to report on the capability of each of the armed forces to investigate and respond to allegations of sexual assault against service members.
• Requires a report by the Secretary of Defense in consultation with the Secretary of State on international intra-familial abduction of children of service members.
• Requires a report by the Secretary of Defense on child custody cases in which deployment of a service member was an issue and on measures taken to assist service members in avoiding child custody disputes.

FAILURES

NCOA recognizes many good personnel issues supported within the House or Senate versions of the NDAA that were eventually eliminated from consideration in the NDAA.    NCOA chooses to only comment on two issues:

• Failed to achieve Concurrent Receipt for Chapter 61, Retired Disabled Veterans with less than 20 years of military service.  Lacked availability of mandatory funding or the ability to offset existing Mandatory Funding to fund new initiatives.  The Administration had identified this issue in February 2009 and had included it in the Administration’s Budget. 
• Eliminate the Widow’s Tax by allowing concurrent receipt of the military Survivor Benefit Program entitlement along with VA Dependency Indemnification Compensation.  Failed for lack of available Mandatory Funding or funding offsets in that category to allow a new entitlement.

NCOA has listened to the “Mandatory Spending” constraint voiced as the reason in the budget process by which Congress denies programs such as Concurrent Receipt for Chapter 61 disabled retirees and the elimination of the Widow’s Tax. Or, allowing concurrent receipt for the 40% and below disabled longevity retirees.  These are injustices that should not be put off on a budget rule that in past years appears to be very flexible.

The Nation has watched in recent years the passage of legislation that has added TRILLIONS of dollars to the national debt for programs to stimulate the economy, the bail outs of the financial institutions, unemployment benefits, job creation, building a fence to control immigration, the clunker program, to most recently, the first health care legislation passed by the House and considered to be dead on arrival when it gets to the Senate.   

The Association sees purpose in many of these program and recognizes that supportive comments offered in support of these fiscally deficit programs was to enhance the faltering economy through increased spending power of consumers.  Well, how about considering the Chapter 61 disabled retirees or the veterans widows in that same perspective!  NCOA recognizes the heavy burden on countless thousands of military members and their families who answered the Nation’s Clarion Call to Duty and have sacrificed dearly in service to our Nation.

The Association seems to recall bank bailouts that ultimately would save banks from implosion and allow banks to respond to consumer mortgage refinancing to preclude foreclosure actions.  The calls for help from old and young veteran families, disabled veterans, and widows evidence the failure of banks to render financial assistance necessary to stop the loss of homes and avert significant financial problems.  There is no doubt that if these citizen veterans and widows had received the authority of concurrent receipt that their contribution to the nation’s economic recovery could have also been significant.  The lack of concurrent receipt imposed by an interpreted “Mandatory Funding” barrier has placed many veterans and their families in Harm’s Way.  

Congress:  Let’s fix these problems!

The entire P.L. 111-84, National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2010 may be reviewed at http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_PL_111-84.html.