[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 69 (Friday, May 24, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E903]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       CONCURRENT RECEIPT PART II

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                          HON. DARLENE HOOLEY

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 22, 2002

  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, most of this body is aware of the 
so-called concurrent receipt penalty affecting our military retirees 
with service-connected disabilities. While Congress has undertaken 
gradual steps to remedy this situation, numerous veterans in my home 
state of Oregon have contacted me about a situation which I feel is 
equally unfair.
  With the conclusion of the Cold War, the Department of Defense 
employed numerous separation programs to comply with Congressional 
mandates and decrease the number of active military personnel. The DoD 
implemented the Special Separation Benefit (SSB), and the Variable 
Separation Benefit (VSI) which were both designed to award servicemen 
and women with immediate compensation in return for early retirement 
from the Armed Services.
  What many of these servicemen and women did not know is that by 
agreeing to leave active duty and accept the SSB or VSI payment, they 
were effectively signing away the right to receive future service-
connected disability payments from the Veterans Administration. As it 
currently stands, any service member who accepted the SSB payment and 
is diagnosed with a service-connected disability must repay their 
payment in full before he or she can receive disability pay. Likewise, 
members who receive the VSI payment cannot receive the full disability 
payment to which they would otherwise be entitled.
  I find this practice reprehensible. Many service-related disabilities 
might not become apparent for several months or years after separation. 
Consequently, everyone who made use of these programs could not have 
possibly known the way in which they would be affected by the offset 
provisions. What's more, many service members made the decision to 
accept the separation pay only because the alternative would be an 
eventual, forced retirement.
  To remedy this problem, I am introducing bipartisan legislation with 
my colleagues Congressman Richard Baker from Louisiana and Congressman 
Jim Gibbons from Nevada which would revise current law and allow for 
full concurrent receipt of separation and disability pay. Additionally, 
I urge all of my colleagues to join us in ending this objectionable 
practice.

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