On the recordJuly 12, 2017
Despite all of these additions, the committee was unfortunately unable to find the required offsets to fund an extension to the Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance to ensure it does not expire in May 2018. This falls short of my strong desire, shared by other members of the committee, to permanently fix the survivor benefit compensation. This also amounts to a shameful tax on over 60,000 surviving spouses who are already struggling emotionally and financially. While the SSIA extension would be an important temporary fix, Congress must make a permanent fix to the offset. We cannot continue to allow surviving military spouses to suffer from our inaction.
