[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 132 (Thursday, October 4, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S10304]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. NELSON of Florida:
  S. 1506. A bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to repeal the 
requirement for reduction of SBP survivor annuities by dependency and 
indemnity compensation; to the Committee on Armed Services.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am introducing legislation 
today to take care of a major problem we overlooked recently in passing 
the defense authorization bill.
  I take my inspiration from Holy Scripture where we are told that in 
God's eyes, the measure of our faith is to look after orphans and 
widows in their distress.
  The fiscal year 2002 Defense authorization bill we just passed 
corrected one long-standing inequity but not another longstanding 
inequity. What the Defense authorization bill did was correct an 
inequity by restoring benefits to our disabled military retirees 
because currently our system penalizes military retirees, who have 
given our country the best years of their lives, by reducing their 
retirement pay by the amount of disability pay they are entitled to 
receive.
  This simply is not fair. Senator Reid, our great Democratic floor 
leader, offered the amendment to the Defense authorization bill, and it 
was accepted. It allows the disabled military retirees to receive both 
their disability pay and their retirement pay concurrently instead of 
one offsetting the other. It makes it effective upon the Defense 
authorization bill becoming law.
  I supported it. All of us supported the Reid amendment. It is now 
included in the final version of the bill. That correction in law is 
long overdue.
  Now there is another related injustice which needs to be addressed. 
The legislation I am offering will extend the same protection of 
benefits to the widows and orphans of military retirees because the 
same kind of rule that penalized disabled retirees, the offset of 
disability pay to military retirement pay, also hurts the widows and 
the surviving children.
  Mr. President, go back to 1972 when Congress established the military 
survival benefits plan to provide retirees' survivors an annuity that 
was specifically modeled after the civil service survival benefit plan. 
Like the civilian plan, the military survivors benefit plan is a 
volunteer benefit program purchased by the retiree. Retired service 
members pay for this benefit from their retired pay. Then upon their 
death, their spouse or dependent children can receive up to 55 percent 
of their retired pay as an annuity.
  Surviving spouses or dependent children of 100-percent service-
connected disabled retirees are also entitled to dependency and 
indemnity compensation from the Veterans' Administration. But the 
annuity paid by the survivors benefits plan and received by a widow or 
an orphan is reduced by the amount of the dependency and indemnity 
compensation received from the VA--the same unfair offset that we are 
now correcting for our military retirees.
  So the penalty for widows or orphans is no more justifiable than for 
retirees. In fact, in the absence of their veteran spouse or parent, 
the survivors' need for a stable income is often greater. They have 
depended on the person who has received this disability pay because 
that disabled person's income was lowered because of their disability, 
and often because the spouse or the children have to be caregivers to 
the disabled person, their incomes likewise are reduced; thus the need 
for this disability pay as set up in law sometime ago for the 
survivors' need.
  Well, Mr. President, I know of no other surviving spouse annuity 
program in the Federal or private sector that is permitted to offset, 
terminate, or reduce their survivor payments because of disability 
payments. Naturally, I was disappointed in this year's Defense 
authorization bill that we have left behind the widows or orphans of 
100-percent disabled retirees. I am not talking about 50-percent 
disabled; I am talking about the widows or orphans of 100-percent 
disabled retirees.
  I believe we should have and could have addressed this issue when we 
fixed the offset problem for military retirees. But we didn't. So that 
is what we are trying to correct with the offering of this legislation.
  We should honor our commitments with disabled military retirees and 
their surviving widows and dependent children. So today I am offering 
stand-alone legislation to eliminate that offset called the VA 
dependency and indemnity compensation offset against the annuity paid 
by the survivors benefit plan.
  I will repeat what I said at the outset. In the first chapter of 
James, verse 27 of the Holy Scriptures, we are told in God's eyes that 
the true measure of our faith is to look after orphans and widows in 
their distress. So we simply can't allow this situation to stand. We 
need to restore the full benefits to our country's military retirees 
and their families. I will continue to work to do right by those who 
have given this Nation their all, and especially for the loved ones 
they may leave to our care.
  Thank you for the opportunity of addressing the Senate as I introduce 
this legislation.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 1506

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. REPEAL OF REQUIREMENT OF REDUCTION OF SBP SURVIVOR 
                   ANNUITIES BY DEPENDENCY AND INDEMNITY 
                   COMPENSATION.

       (a) Repeal.--Section 1451(c) of title 10, United States 
     Code, is amended by striking paragraph (2).
       (b) Prohibition on Retroactive Benefits.--No benefits may 
     be paid to any person for any period before the effective 
     date specified in subsection (c) by reason of the amendment 
     made by subsection (a).
       (c) Effective Date.--The amendment made by subsection (a) 
     shall take effect on--
       (1) the first day of the first month that begins after the 
     date of the enactment of this Act; or
       (2) the first day of the fiscal year that begins in the 
     calendar year in which this Act is enacted, if later than the 
     date specified in paragraph (1).
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