Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from California for yielding. As the ranking member of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, there are a few issues I would like to highlight with regard to this year's National Defense Authorization Act. I am pleased the act adopted the Military Personnel Subcommittee mark in full and adopted some important amendments. Of note in the mark was a 1.9 percent basic pay raise for the military, as proposed in my bill, H.R. 4427. Concerning amendments, first is my amendment to ensure that the Secretary of Defense retains sole authority over TRICARE, the Department of Defense's health care system. This ensures that the health care system of our servicemen and women and families will not be overwhelmed in the health care takeover. I do have concerns about a few other issues that are not in the NDAA. First is the proposal that we would have allowed military personnel retired with disabilities to receive both their full military disability retirement pay and VA disability pay. The concurrent receipt issue has been addressed numerous times by the committee led by Congressman Jeff Miller of Florida, and while we have been making inroads, there are still many veterans who need our help. Additionally, it was not allowed to eliminate the widow's tax that results because surviving spouses are required to forfeit their survivor benefit pension annuity. This is a real burden to widows and children of servicemembers.…”