Political Quotes

“hopefully, we will soon be voting on final passage of S. 4, the military pay and benefits bill. This bill would significantly improve the pay and benefits available to our troops and help address the military recruitment and retention problems identified by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The bill includes an across-the-board increase in military salaries, targeted pay raises to reward performance, enhanced military retirement benefits for service members who entered after 1986, enhanced education benefits for service members under the GI bill, and numerous other benefits. These changes should help provide fairer compensation to our men and women in uniform, and I think we would all like to see them enacted into law. As I pointed out previously, this is an extremely expensive bill, and it has not been paid for. This bill has not been paid for. When the bill came to the floor, it included provisions that would cost roughly $35 billion more than current law over the 6-year course of the future year defense plan, the so-called FYDP. These costs include close to $24 billion in pay and benefits enhancements that were funded in the administration budget but almost $12 billion more in enhancements that were added by the Armed Services Committee. Since the bill has been in the Chamber, it has become even more expensive, with the addition of many amendments increasing the benefits for our men and women in uniform.”