[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 182 (Friday, December 20, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9086-S9089]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          MILITARY RETIREMENT

  Mr. GRAHAM. The Presiding Officer is from Virginia, and I know he 
understands military men and women very well. It is a very patriotic 
State when it comes to their military footprint. I am confident that he 
and I--and others--will be able to fix the problem that occurred in the 
budget agreement.

[[Page S9087]]

  Let me say about the agreement itself that I do appreciate the fact 
that we were able to find a bipartisan way forward to relieve 
sequestration from the military and nonmilitary for a couple of years. 
That is just a drop in the bucket as far as what we have to do to 
repair the military. GDP spending on the military is moving toward an 
alltime low over a 10-year period with sequestration. The historical 
average has been well over 4 percent, and we are going to hit below 3 
percent if we continue sequestration. That is an issue for another day.
  The budget agreement called for relieving sequestration in the pay-
fors. Quite frankly, they were not big. They did not change the course 
of the country. They are not what the Senator from Virginia and I hoped 
for. We would have liked to have done entitlement reform. I would like 
to do Tax Code simplification. I am willing to eliminate deductions in 
the Tax Code and take some of the money to pay down the debt, even 
though some folks on my side say we have to put it all in tax 
reductions. And I think the Senator from Virginia would be willing to 
engage in commonsense entitlement reform to keep us from becoming 
Greece.
  This was the best deal we could get. It didn't do the big deal, but 
it did provide some budget relief for a 2-year period, and it was about 
$60-something billion; I can't remember the number.
  The bottom line is that one of the ways you paid for relieving 
pressure on the defense budget and nondefense spending was there was a 
provision that will affect military retirees, which nobody will own, 
that got into the budget agreement.
  I am on the Budget Committee. I was not consulted about the 
agreement; I read about it in the paper. There is a fine line between 
having a bunch of people involved who kind of keep things from never 
developing to produce a product and having a handful of people doing 
something in a small room, not vetted.
  So the bottom line is that $6.3 billion of the pay-fors came from 
adjusting military retirement cost-of-living allowances for those who 
have served our military for 20 years and are therefore eligible for 
retirement. What they did was they took the COLA and reduced it by 1 
percent for every military retiree until they reach the age of 62.
  The President, to his credit, has called for an adjusting CPI, the 
way COLAs are calculated, for everybody--for civilians, military, 
Social Security--to make it more consistent with sustainable 
inflationary increases. This didn't adjust the COLA, it left the 
formula as it is; it just reduced the military retiree's COLA by 1 
percent until the military retiree reaches age 62, and that is the only 
group in the country that had that happen. So $6.3 billion is taken 
away from men and women who have served for 20 years, and no one else 
had the pleasure of that experience.

  Civilian employees, new hires, had to contribute additional funds to 
the Federal retirement system to help pay for the deal, but it only 
affected new retirees; the people who are in the system were 
grandfathered. The only group that Congress found fit to single out for 
the retroactive application was the retiree community.
  All I can say is that military pay--retirement, pension pay, health 
care benefits are going to be subject to being reviewed and they will 
be subject to reform, because a larger portion of our budget in DOD is 
personnel costs. The Congress, in its wisdom, set up a commission to 
look at this issue. They are supposed to report back in 2014--now maybe 
it is as late as 2015--about how to reform military pay and benefits as 
part of an overall restructuring of the Pentagon.
  One thing Congress put into the commission's charter was that they 
had to grandfather people who are currently in the system. In the 
budget agreement we singled out military retirees for a 1-percent 
reduction of their COLA and nobody was grandfathered--$6.3 billion 
coming out of the pockets of those who have served. For an E-7 who is 
going to retire at 40 and has his or her COLA reduced to age 62, it is 
between $71,984 or $80,000, depending on who you talk to, in loss and 
benefits. And the E-7 receives in retirement pay after 20 years of 
faithful service about $25,000 a year--not exactly becoming 
independently wealthy.
  We have one of the leading voices on this issue, Senator Ayotte from 
New Hampshire, who took up this challenge and came up with some 
solutions early on and has been a great voice about how unfair this is. 
So I will yield to the Senator from New Hampshire.
  Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from South Carolina.
  I picked up an editorial this morning from the Washington Post that 
calls the cuts to the cost-of-living adjustments to military retirees 
minuscule and demeans this criticism. It calls the cuts teensy-weensy.
  I don't understand why anyone would want to support a measure that 
singles out--in other words, under this budget agreement, the group 
that got the cuts to their current benefits are those who have 
sacrificed the most for our country. To call this minuscule or teensy-
weensy--I don't think it is so minuscule, as the Senator from South 
Carolina said, to an E-7 who makes about $25,000 a year in retirement 
and will lose close to $72,000 from the time he or she retires at 40 
until they are 62. That is about 3 years of their retirement. That is 
not minuscule in a working family.
  This is not a minor situation. It is not minuscule to our veterans, 
those wounded warriors who have given the most, and who have, 
unfortunately, suffered so much.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
  Ms. AYOTTE. I yield.
  Mr. GRAHAM. This applies to disabled retirees as well, right?
  Ms. AYOTTE. It does. We have all visited Walter Reed and we have all 
met our wounded warriors who are heroes. They have sacrificed more than 
we could ever ask anyone to sacrifice for our Nation. Some of them 
don't have arms, legs. They receive a medical retirement because of 
their service and their disability as a result of the service they have 
rendered so gravely for our country, and they get cut under this too. I 
don't think the cut to them is teensy-weensy or minuscule. Only in 
Washington would this be minimized in terms of how people are viewed as 
minuscule or teensy-weensy in light of the service they have given to 
our country. I thought this description of it was wrong and offensive 
and demoralizing in terms of the message it sends to our men and women 
in uniform.
  I think the encouraging part of where we are right now is that so 
many in this body have come forward and said we need to fix this and 
recognize this does have an unfair impact on our military retirees and, 
of course, those who have received a medical retirement.
  Whether I disagreed with my colleagues voting for the agreement, 
regardless of where my colleagues stand on the agreement, I think it is 
time for us to come together on a bipartisan basis and do the right 
thing and fix this on behalf of our men and women in uniform, 
especially our wounded warriors.
  Obviously, this body realizes this is not minuscule and this is not 
teensy-weensy in terms of the impact on our heroes and those who have 
sacrificed so much for our country. I am very encouraged to see so many 
of my colleagues over the last couple of days coming forward with 
different ideas about how we can fix this and do the right thing on 
behalf of our men and women in uniform.
  I have introduced a piece of legislation that would come up with 
billions of dollars for a pay-for to fix this. I know others have 
different ideas. But I know this: We can put politics aside. We can fix 
this for our men and women in uniform.
  After we go home for the holidays, I think when we come back in 
January, this should be a No. 1 priority in this body, which is to do 
the right thing for our military retirees, for those who are our 
wounded warriors. The number of people I have seen speak out on this 
issue in the last few days gives me encouragement that we will be able 
to do this and do it quickly on their behalf, to right this wrong. Some 
of them are 19 years in. Maybe they have done multiple tours in 
Afghanistan and are thinking of retiring. We need to let them know we 
understand their sacrifice, we should not have singled them out, we 
will get this right, and that we understand that of all the people who 
should not have been singled out in this agreement are those who take 
the bullets for us and whose families have

[[Page S9088]]

had to go through multiple deployments.
  I think about the fact that when someone has done a 20-year military 
career and one has had multiple deployments, the spouse can't have the 
same kind of career as if they were able to live in one place. They 
sacrifice so much because they are traveling around the world and the 
retirement they receive obviously recognizes that.
  So as we leave for the holidays, I hope when we get back, we get this 
right, we take this up, we honor the service of our men and women in 
uniform and do what is right.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Senator Ayotte mentioned this Washington Post editorial. 
The Washington Post is, in my view, a very good newspaper. I like the 
editorial board. They have been right on Syria and a lot of other 
issues. Sometimes we disagree, that is for sure. But this one editorial 
has gotten my attention to the point that I have to respond and, quite 
frankly, ask my friends at the Washington Post to reevaluate their 
position and think a little bit about what they are saying in their 
editorial when it comes to military retirees.


 =========================== NOTE =========================== 

  
  On page S9088, December 20, 2013, in the first column, the 
following language appears: . . . and do what is right. Senator 
AYOTTE mentioned . . .
  
  The Record has been corrected to read: . . . and do what is 
right. Mr. GRAHAM.Senator Ayotte mentioned . . .


 ========================= END NOTE ========================= 

  As she said, the editorial says this is a ``teensy-weensy'' small 
cut. I said that we were screwing the military retirement community and 
maybe a better way of saying it was we are disrespecting the military 
retiree community, because when I said we were screwing the military 
retirees, it was sort of like the financial package. They are having to 
give up retirement benefits--the COLA reductions--that not one other 
person in the entire country has to go through. And it is not teensy-
weensy. When it is 1 percent calculated from 40 to 62, it is $71,000 to 
$80,000; if you are an officer, $100,000. Again, you get about $25,000 
in retirement when you are an E-7; some in the thirties if you are an 
O-5. But to get that you have to serve your country for 20 years, 
uprooting your family--probably the average number of moves has to be 
five or six. If you have been on Active Duty since 9/11, God knows how 
many times you have been to Iraq and Afghanistan and other places.
  Here is the deal: Your children are not subject to being drafted. 
Why? Because we abolished the draft, and we put in place an all-
volunteer force, and part of the deal was that we would take care of 
the military member and their family in an appropriate way if they 
would bear that burden for the rest of us.
  Are these people really living large off the rest of us? Should we be 
offended at this ``great deal'' we are giving these people who retire 
at 40 or 45 or 38? You know, the ``My God, aren't they just sort of 
taking the rest of us for a ride'' attitude really offends the hell out 
of me.
  To get that $25,000 in retirement for the rest of your life--and I 
hope you live to be 80, or you just name the number--you had to work 
for it, you had to risk your life for it, you had to ask of your 
children something that most people do not have to ask; that is, move 
and leave your friends every couple years. You had to do things for the 
rest of us that, apparently, we do not appreciate anymore at the 
Washington Post.
  I do not know what the editorial board's makeup is. They are all 
patriotic, I am sure good people, and if they have veterans down there, 
boy, you let your fellow veteran down by approaching this issue in such 
a harsh, insensitive way. Their response was: No, the military retiree 
is not getting screwed. This is just a small step to something larger.
  What they are trying to do--which offends me--is, one, they do not 
know what they are talking about, which is unusual for the Washington 
Post. Do not confuse my disgust with the singling out of military 
retirees in a retroactive fashion to pay for a budget deal that does 
not do a whole lot to change the course of the country with my desire 
and willingness to reform military pay and pension benefits in the 
future through a logical process. Now, that offends me. That is pretty 
clever.
  So can you be for reform and be disgusted at the same time? Yes. And 
here is the good news. Very few U.S. Senators are taking the Washington 
Post tactic that these people deserve more cuts--not less--singled out. 
I think the Washington Post is on an island of its own, at least I hope 
so.
  People who voted yes--Senator McCain, God knows he has earned his 
retirement; Senator Chambliss; Senator Isakson--have come up with a way 
to fix this, and all three of them will say: I will embrace military 
pay and pension benefit reform in the future. I am not just going to 
single out the military retiree and reduce their COLA when no one else 
gets that reduction retroactively, violating their own commission 
charter.
  Senator Shaheen on the other side wants to fix it. Senator Murray 
wants to fix it. I am really pleased that a lot of people have said: 
Now that I understand how this works, we need to fix it.
  I have not even mentioned the fact that it does apply to disabled 
retirees. If you had your legs blown off in Afghanistan, it might be 
pretty hard to get another job. Your COLA is reduced too.
  What do you say to those people? Thank you? Itsy-bitsy, teensy-
weensy? Really? But they did not mention in the editorial that it 
applies to the disabled retiree. Mr. President, $600 million of the $6 
billion comes from that community.
  Here is my point: It is not so much that we were insensitive. It just 
shows me how far we have fallen as a nation and how comfortable we are 
for other people to do the fighting and we see these folks almost as 
the hired help, even though we profusely praise them, and we should. We 
welcome them home when they come back. We cheer when they go away. We 
trip over ourselves as politicians to show our love and affection. The 
average person at the airport says: Thank you for your service. We are 
well-meaning people. But to believe that somehow they are being fairly 
treated in this budget deal and really we are just not doing enough 
from the Washington Post's perspective, I think loses sight of what 
they have done for the rest of us.
  Let's say we never reformed a penny of military retirement in the 
future and we left it as it is. About $1.734 million is the package 
over the lifetime from the 20-year retirement point to death, which the 
average could be 40 years. We need to look at that. But let's say we 
did not change a penny. Over a 40-year period, at $25,000 a year, do 
you begrudge these people this package? After 20 years of service, they 
are now in their forties, their late thirties--the average is probably 
in the mid forties--they have to start over again. Go do that. Not so 
easy. And somehow we are suggesting that we are being too generous?
  Would you send your kid? If I gave you $1.74 million over the next 40 
years, is that worth it for you to have your kid sent over to 
Afghanistan or Iraq, if they did not want to go? That is what this is 
about.
  So to my friends at the Washington Post, I do not know what happened 
here. I do not know how you could justify and defend this provision in 
the budget agreement that nobody wants to claim credit for. Again, I 
will reform military pay and pension benefits through the commission 
process prospectively, but I will not sit on the sidelines and watch 
these people, yes, get screwed financially but, more than that, be 
disrespected.
  To my House and Senate colleagues, Republican and Democrats, we 
created this problem together. We will have to fix it together. And to 
the military retiree community, the disabled retiree, I am confident 
that Republicans and Democrats will right this wrong.

  Having said that, there will come a day when we will sit down and 
look long and hard about the sustainable nature of personnel costs--
TRICARE reform--pay and pension reform--but we are going to do it 
understanding you have a special place in our heart, but when it comes 
to balancing the budget and writing the Department of Defense long-term 
financial obligations, that we will look at this in a professional 
manner, and we will do it in the way least intrusive, and we will give 
people notice. We will not change the deal.
  Can you imagine what it is like to have fought since 9/11; you are 
getting ready to retire in 2016, after 20 years of faithful service--or 
maybe longer--you are from your last deployment in Afghanistan; you 
have been to Iraq a couple times, Afghanistan a couple times; you had a 
couple buddies die; you have missed countless birthdays and 
Christmases, and every time a strange car

[[Page S9089]]

pulls up into the driveway, your spouse loses their breath, and you 
read that this is what the Congress is doing to you--changing the deal? 
You did your part of the deal, but all of a sudden we decide to change 
the deal because we have to find some money around this place to pay 
for a budget deal that does not do a whole lot for the long-term 
indebtedness of the country. And when we look to find money, we saw you 
as a source of money--not as the patriot, not as the front-line 
defender of freedom, not as the volunteer who took the burden off our 
backs and gave our families a pass. Shame on us all.
  But the way you fix it is you fix it. To my friends at the Washington 
Post, Bowles-Simpson never said as part of their efforts to balance the 
budget--and I embrace their process--that we would eliminate military 
retiree COLAs as a recommendation. They set a target goal of saving $70 
billion over 10 years from a Federal workforce entitlement task force 
to be set up to look at civilians and the military who work for the 
Federal Government, and they created the task force with a target goal 
of achieving $70 billion as a contribution toward reforming 
entitlements on that side of the ledger.
  They gave examples of what the task force might look at: Use the 
highest 5 years of earnings to calculate civil service pension benefits 
for new retirees, rather than the highest 3 years. That could save $5 
billion. Defer cost-of-living adjustments, as we are talking about 
here. That could save $5 billion. Adjust the ratio of employer-employee 
contributions to Federal employee pension plans to equalize 
contributions, $4 billion. These are examples of things to look at--not 
Bowles-Simpson recommendations. The recommendation of Bowles-Simpson 
was to find $70 billion from military and civilian retirement programs 
over 10 years through a task force.
  What did the Congress do? We set up a commission--rather than a task 
force--to do exactly what Bowles-Simpson said to do. And to our wisdom, 
we told the commission, when it comes to the military, grandfather 
those who are currently in the system. That made sense to me. But under 
the budget agreement, we violated our own instructions to the 
commission by getting $6.3 billion from the military retirement 
community retroactively, from everybody in the system up to age 62, and 
only them. The civilian workforce had to make a contribution only for 
new hires.
  If that is OK with the Washington Post, then I would suggest you have 
lost your way down there. I hope I never get so smart that taking 
$72,000, $80,000, $100,000--whatever the number is; the bottom line is, 
the minimum was $72,000 out of the E-7 cost-of-living adjustment; 3 
years of their retirement--I hope I never get so smart about the budget 
that I find that to be itsy-bitsy, teensy-weensy. I hope I never get so 
callous that I could sit on the sidelines and allow the military 
retirement community to be singled out, unlike anybody else in the 
Nation, to find $6.3 billion when we are looking for money.
  The bottom line is we will find the $6.3 billion. We are going to 
find it in a more acceptable way. And there will come a day when we 
reform benefits, but we are going to do it consistent with the charter 
that the Congress has created.
  To our military community, you need to fight. You need to show up 
during the holiday break, and you need to remind all of us--just not 
Members of Congress--you need to toot your horn a little bit because it 
is so darn hard for you to do. You should humbly ask the U.S. House and 
Senate to reconsider this. You should humbly ask that the pay you 
received has been earned, and to change the deal in midstream is wrong. 
And you should remind us that: I have lived up to my end of the 
bargain. I am only asking that you live up to your end of the bargain. 
We need your voice.
  So to the Senator from Virginia, who is presiding over the Senate, I 
know you will be part of the solution. There is a sweeping movement 
here in the Senate to try to find a way to right what I think is an 
injustice. Reform will come with it. But it sure as hell is not going 
to come this way.
  I yield the floor. Merry Christmas.

                          ____________________