[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 14 (Wednesday, January 24, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1070-S1071]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Ms. LANDRIEU (for herself, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Graham, and Mr. 
        Kerry):
  S. 384. A bill to provide pay protection for members of the Reserve 
and the National Guard, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Finance.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, today there are 91,555 members of the 
National Guard and our Reserve armed forces serving bravely in Iraq, 
Afghanistan, and any other part of the world our country calls them to 
serve. The President is sending an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq in 
one final push to bring stability to that country. Regardless of what 
we think about this plan, Americans stand by our troops. They have the 
best equipment and training for their mission and we would never deny 
them the support they need. But back at home, there is still a great 
deal that we can do to support our guard and reserves families.
  When guardsmen and reservists are deployed they leave their families, 
their jobs, and their communities behind, causing tremendous stress on 
the home front and in the workplace. Families often lose the main bread 
winner when a citizen soldier gets deployed. They may have trouble 
paying bills, the rent, the mortgage, or buying medicine for their 
children.
  The reason these families cannot make ends meet is because for 
Guardsmen and Reservists military pay is often less than civilian pay. 
We call that the ``pay gap.'' According to the most recent Status 
Forces Survey of Reserve Components, 51 percent of our citizen soldiers 
take a pay cut when they get deployed and 11 percent of them lose more 
than $2,500 per month.
  To help provide relief from the pay gap for our Guard and Reserve, I 
am pleased to introduce, along with Senators Durbin, Graham and Kerry, 
the Helping Our Patriotic Employers at Helping our Military Employees 
Act of 2007. I call the bill by its nickname: HOPE at HOME. Our guard 
and reserve families have enough to worry about when a loved one gets 
called away, the least we can do is relieve some of their financial 
worry by encouraging employers to make up the pay gap. Let me describe 
for my colleagues how this legislation works.

[[Page S1071]]

  HOPE at HOME will give a 50 percent tax credit to the thousands of 
employers around the country who have taken the patriotic step of 
continuing to pay the salary of their guard and reservists employees 
who have been called to active duty. There are literally thousands of 
employers out there who already take this noble step--they do it 
voluntarily, selflessly and at great sacrifice. The HOPE at HOME Act 
honors that sacrifice.
  HOPE at HOME will also give companies that cannot afford to make up 
the pay-gap an incentive to do so. One survey found that only 173 of 
the Fortune 500 companies make up the pay gap. If the wealthiest 
companies cannot afford to help their active duty employees, imagine 
how difficult this is for smaller companies. HOPE at HOME will allow 
companies large and small to do the patriotic thing and reward those 
employees who are serving to keep us all free.
  HOPE at HOME will also give small patriotic employers additional tax 
relief if they need to hire a worker to temporarily replace the active 
duty Guardsmen or Reservist. In addition, the bill clarifies the tax 
treatment of any pay-gap payments to make income tax filing easier for 
our Guard and Reservists.

  I mentioned that thousands of employers make up the pay-gap for their 
employees. There is one employer, however, and it happens to be the 
Nation's largest, that does not make up the pay gap: Uncle Sam. The 
Federal Government, which should set the bar for patriotism in our 
country, does not do its part to help our citizen soldiers. We cannot 
ask the private sector to do more than they are doing if the Federal 
government is not willing to step up and do its part for our military 
men and women.
  Today our Nation relies on the Guard and Reserve to meet our armed 
forces needs more than at any other time in our history. At times in 
the war on terror, 40 percent of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan 
were citizen soldiers, if not more. Many of them performed multiple 
tours of duty or found their duties extended.
  All of the experts tell us that our need for our Guard and Reserve 
troops will only get greater. During the Cold War, end strength of the 
U.S. military force never dropped below 2.0 million personnel and 
peaked at over 3.5 million during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. From 
1989 to 1999, end strength dropped steadily from 2.1 million to 1.4 
million, where it has remained. Our ground forces are stretched thin 
and the number of deployments has increased by over 300 percent. The 
Guard and Reserve have made it possible to meet these challenges. We 
still find ourselves stretched thin, but without the Guard and Reserve 
we would never be able to meet our obligation as guardians of freedom 
in the World.
  But this over-reliance on the Guard and Reserve is starting to have a 
toll on our ability to recruit and retain these men and women. The top 
reasons for leaving the Guard and Reserve, according to the Status of 
Forces Survey of Reserve Components, are family stress, the number and 
lengths of deployments, income loss, and conflict with civilian 
employment.
  HOPE at HOME recognizes that a soldier who is worrying about how his 
or her family is paying the bills is not focusing on the mission at 
hand. A soldier who is worrying about whether the family is paying the 
rent, is not going to reenlist. And every time one of our soldiers 
leaves, our nation loses the experience and service of a highly 
trained, capable professional. We need to make every effort to keep our 
citizen soldiers in service to their country. HOPE at HOME is a first 
step to addressing our military's larger recruitment and retention 
issues.
  During the Cold War we built our strength on having the biggest, best 
equipped standing army in the World. Now our military gathers its 
strength from a large reserve of qualified men and women in the Guard 
and Reserve who are ready to fight at a moment's call. We will lose 
that strength if we do not give our guardsmen and Reservists and their 
families HOPE at HOME.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in giving our Guard and Reserve 
HOPE at HOME Act.
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