[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 10066-10068]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                       MILITARY RETIREE BENEFITS

  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I want to take a minute, hopefully for the 
purpose of influencing the conferees on a vote that was taken 
yesterday--it passed overwhelmingly--having to do with military retiree 
benefits.
  There are two amendments, one offered by Senator Warner, one offered 
by Senator Johnson. I appreciate the intent of both amendments and I 
appreciate very much, as well, the concerns both Senators and everybody 
who voted for both of those amendments have for military retirees, 
especially as far as it might improve our capacity to recruit and 
retain people in the Armed Forces. I think it is a legitimate concern, 
and I appreciate very much that concern being expressed yesterday, 
especially being expressed with affirmative votes, although, as I said, 
I voted against both of those amendments.
  I did not, during the debate yesterday, offer the reasons I voted 
against it, and I want to do that now. Both amendments are essentially 
dealing with the same situation; that is, once you reach the age of 65, 
you go off the TRICARE system and you go onto Medicare, as most 
individuals do who work for other businesses as well who end up with 
health care. It is not unusual today for people to leave employment to 
go onto Medicare after their retirement from employment.
  But one amendment would allow people to buy into TRICARE; Senator 
Johnson's amendment would allow them to buy as well into the Federal 
Employees Health Benefits Program with a full taxpayer-paid subsidy; 
one was $4.5 billion a year, the other was about $5.5 billion a year. 
Senator Warner's, in order to be able to get it in the budget, has it 
sunsetting after 2 years. It only goes for 2 years. I presume if it 
becomes law, we will have to extend it every couple of years.
  There is a budget issue here that causes me to vote no. The budget 
issue has to do, first of all, with I think an inadequate amount of 
study given to who needs this and who does not need this. It was 
developed fairly quickly. It was offered fairly quickly. I think it 
should have been examined much more carefully, what the impact was 
going to be, what the real need is, what the real demand is out there; 
especially the second concern I have, which is that it adds to one of 
the biggest problems we have with our current budget, and that is the 
growing share of our budget that is going over to mandatory spending.
  The checkpoint for Senator Johnson's amendment was people who were 
enlisted prior to 1957. In 1957, over 70 percent of our budget was 
appropriated; 70 percent of our budget went to such things as the GI 
bill and other kinds of investments. I benefited enormously from those 
investments, not just as a veteran myself, but it was most important 
for my own parents' generation. That is what they were doing. They were 
endowing their future. They were really investing in their future as a 
consequence of those appropriations.
  This year, 66 percent of the budget is mandatory. This amendment that 
was put on the Defense authorization bill will make that problem worse. 
I could not in good faith vote for the amendment as a consequence of 
those two concerns, even though I recognize for some veterans, some 
employees, this is a problem.
  Also, I want to comment on some of the things that were said during 
the debate. I want to comment, especially from the point of view of 
myself because I am military retired. I am one of the retirees who 
would benefit from this change in the law. I am service-connected 
disabled as a result of an injury in the war in Vietnam, and I have 
been receiving a military retirement check since I left the Navy in 
1969.
  I understand the recruiting difficulties. I understand we have to be 
competitive with the private sector. I understand we have a volunteer 
service today, and so forth. I think it has all been very well said. 
But focusing on money in this debate, we underestimate and 
underemphasize the importance of people joining our service because 
they are patriotic, because they love their country, because they want 
to serve their country in some meaningful way, because they believe 
service makes them better, they believe putting themselves on the line 
for somebody else isn't something that is just good for the other 
person, it is good for them as well. That was the benefit for me in my 
service.
  Though I appreciate very much people coming and saying my country 
owes me something, I reject that idea. My country owes me nothing. If 
the Congress of this Nation wants to provide me with retirement, wants 
to provide me with medical assistance--they

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provided me with the GI bill and COLAs all these years--they have given 
me enormous benefits. They gave me a hospital I could go to, to get my 
care. I appreciate all that. I am grateful for all that. It makes me 
more patriotic than I was before.
  But I do not believe as a consequence of my service that the people 
of the United States of America owe me anything. I want to make that 
point because I entered the service because it was my duty. I entered 
the service because I believed it was the right thing to do. I entered 
the service because I thought I was going to get something intangible 
out of it--and I did. I learned how to lead, learned how to take 
responsibility, learned how to do lots of things. And I learned as well 
what it is like to be injured, what it is like to be injured in a 
nation that takes care of its veterans, that provides care. I learned 
what it is to suffer a little bit and to feel compassion for other 
people as they go through their lives and suffer as a consequence of 
things that were unforeseen, unexpected, unanticipated, and 
unavoidable.
  I have talked to a lot of colleagues on the floor during this debate. 
They said: Oh, gosh, we can't say no to our veterans, can't say no to 
our military retirees.
  There are times we can. I believe, especially when we think about the 
budget impact that these amendments are going to have, there are times 
when we should. I do not believe we should fall into the trap of 
believing that men and women will not still join the Armed Forces of 
the United States of America because they love this country and they 
want to serve.
  Yes, we need to have good pensions. Yes, we need to make certain they 
are not getting food stamps. Yes, we need to take care of them when 
they are in. But let them serve as a consequence of feeling loyal, 
feeling good about their country, and wanting to put themselves on the 
line. Let service, all by itself, be one of the motivating factors, be 
one of the reasons that men and women do it. And be grateful for that 
and reward it, applaud it, pay attention to it.
  I wish, in fact, people in Hollywood as they make decisions about 
what they are going to put on television, what they are going to put in 
movie theaters, told more of the stories of the men and women who are 
serving today not because they are being paid well, not because there 
are health care benefits promised, not because of a retirement program 
waiting for them, but because they love their country, because they 
feel a patriotic desire to serve the United States of America, serve 
the people of the United States of America and the cause of freedom for 
which we stand.
  It is not a cliche; it is a real thing. I am concerned, concerned 
with some of the debate I heard yesterday, that only the pecuniary 
interests were involved; that all we had to do was get the pay high 
enough, retirement benefits high enough, health care benefits high 
enough, and we would solve all of our problems.
  We will not solve all of our problems if that is what we do. If we do 
not recognize that one of the reasons people serve is that they love 
their country, A, we will find ourselves falling short of recruitment 
and retention objectives, but, in addition to that, we will not know 
when the correct time is to say to that man or woman who served their 
country: We have to make certain we have enough money in our budget to 
invest in our children and their future as well.
  We cannot, as we are doing, simply put more and more money in people 
over the age of 65. I love them. They have served their country. They 
are the greatest generation ever. But this action comes on top of 
eliminating the earnings test, which was a $22 billion proposal over 
10. I voted for that. There were 100 of us on this floor who voted for 
that. It was a reasonable thing to do. But if you look at the 
diminishing amount of money we invest every single year through our 
appropriations accounts, and you look at that trend continuing to go 
further and further down, it gets harder and harder to say we are 
endowing our future the way our parents endowed the future for us.
  Mr. President, I did not want anybody to suffer the illusion that I 
do not care about our military retirees. I do. There were good fiscal 
reasons why not to support the amendment, but I hope as we go into 
conference we do not get lulled into thinking the only thing we have to 
do to recruit and retain people in our Armed Forces is to provide some 
pecuniary reimbursement that enables them to feel they are getting 
rewarded in some way that is competitive with what they can get in the 
marketplace. I yield the floor.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I am glad to hear the Senator's 
statement. I inform my friend, I spent a substantial portion of the day 
discussing how to meet the problems associated with the feelings of so 
many people in the military that there were, in fact, substantial 
commitments made that lead on into the future as enormous costs as 
compared to the costs of the past.
  We need to have a commission of some kind. I hope after the Senator 
steps down from this body that he might see fit to be one who will help 
take on the task of defining the commitments that were made and how we 
fulfill them. I say that because in the past, many of those benefits 
were paid out of the Veterans Affairs Department from veterans 
benefits. They are now coming from the Defense funds, and if they grow 
at the rate it appears they are going to grow, they are going to 
seriously hamper our ability to modernize our force and our systems and 
defend our country as it must be in this century.
  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments. There is no 
question that should be a very big concern of the conferees because 
Senator Warner yesterday, when we were debating this issue, expressed 
his understanding that this would increase the requirement to build 
additional military hospitals and military health care facilities. This 
will shift the burden of paying for health care from Medicare over to 
the Defense budget.
  There is no question that is the case. I say to the Senator, I 
remember talking to my recruiter very well. I remember the day I sat in 
front of a Navy recruiter and he said to me: Join the Navy; see the 
world. He made all kinds of promises to me. I have not sued my 
Government because they did not give me a chance to see the world.
  I believe the Senator is right. There were some legitimate written 
promises made, and if there were legitimate written promises that were 
made, then we ought to make certain we keep those commitments.
  Sometimes it becomes much more a political rhetoric than it becomes 
reality. I do think, whether it is a veteran or whether it is some 
other American, one of the hardest things for us to do when somebody 
asks us for something is to say no. The Senator from Alaska has had to 
do that many times in his career in the Senate. ``I want some of the 
taxpayers' money to do something'' and the Senator has had to 
repeatedly say no.
  It is not easy to do that. It is too easy for us to get caught up, 
when we talk about making sure we take care of our retirees, in the 
feeling that you just cannot say no.
  I argue that the answer is you can say no, and there are times you 
need to say no. If you do not say no, it is going to be difficult for 
us to keep our force modernized and weapons systems modernized and our 
people who are in the services well paid.
  Again, I say to my friend, the thing I fear--and I will say it 
directly--is we have a declining number of people who have been in the 
services in the Congress. I am very much aware it is easy to say: Gee, 
I have to do this; I wasn't in the service, I have to do this.
  I had to say I did not join the Navy because they promised me health 
care benefits, retirement benefits, and promised me I could go to 
school on the GI bill. That was not the contract. It was all there.
  People say: We owe you. No. I have a bigger debt to my country than 
my country has to me. It is a very important attitude for us to instill 
not just in our young people but retirees as well. We have to be very 
careful that in doing something we do not undercut

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the most important reason men and women come into the Armed Forces. We 
ought to praise them. We ought to recognize that and not forget it is 
still a very big reason people serve.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, again I thank the Senator. His statement 
reflects the comments I made in the meetings today. I do hope we can 
address this subject. I find it odd that many of the people who are 
raising the issues and talking about the commitments that were made in 
the war in which Senator Inouye and I served were not alive then, but 
they are telling us what the commitments were. We ought to make certain 
we fulfill all of those commitments, but we have to have a definition 
of what they really were.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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