50cal

Stop-loss stipend



Panel OKs defense bill that includes involuntary service extension pay
By Rick Maze - rmaze@militarytimes.com
Posted : August 11, 2008

A $487 billion defense funding bill approved July 31 by a key House subcommittee includes a long-sought reward for 160,000 people whose military service was involuntarily extended because of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Along with a 3.9 percent military raise on Jan. 1, a $1.4 million increase to improve barracks and hospitals, and a $1 billion boost for training, the House defense appropriations subcommittee has approved a $500 monthly payment for soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines whose separations or retirements were delayed by stop-loss orders since October 2001.
Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the subcommittee chairman who has been pushing to reduce the length and frequency of deployments to Iraq, persuaded his colleagues to put the stop-loss payment into the bill along with a pay raise that is larger than the 3.5 percent increase requested by the Bush administration.
Murtha said taking care of troops and their families was the top priority in the appropriations bill. “Quality personnel are our military’s backbone,” he said.
If the stop-loss benefit becomes law — and sponsors believe its approval by the panel is a major step in the process — the $500 monthly payments would retroactively cover anyone whose service was extended by as little as one day since the start of the war in Afghanistan in late 2001.
According to details provided by subcommittee staff, retroactive payments would go to 3,900 Marines and fewer than 1,000 sailors, 120,267 soldiers and 39,199 airmen. Most are believed to be no longer in the military, and would have to be tracked down to receive the payments.
Aides say stop-loss orders have lasted seven months on average, which would equal average payments of $3,500 per person.
While not spelled out in the legislation, the stop-loss payment would be tax-free for each month of payment in which a person was in a combat zone but would be taxable for any month he served under stop-loss orders outside a combat zone. Amended tax returns would have to be filed by those receiving the payments.
Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Ohio, one of the chief backers of the stop-loss allowance, said she thinks the measure is an important morale booster.
She said the payments would “help ease the financial burden” that wartime deployments have placed on troops and families.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who started the congressional effort for stop-loss payments, said extended service is a “terrific sacrifice” by service members and their families.
“We think there ought to be some recognition for that extended service,” he said.
Sutton anticipates some opposition to the proposal, but she thinks Congress will adopt the stop-loss payment in the end.
“I have to believe, regardless of party, that folks want to see troops financially compensated when asked to make exceptional sacrifice,” she said.
Stop-loss, used by the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps in the early days of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and by the Army almost continuously in recent years, has been called a “backdoor draft” by detractors who view it as a blatant indication that there are not enough people in uniform to carry out operations.
Frank Yoakum of the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States said the House subcommittee’s decision “is an excellent sign” but cautioned this was just the first step in a long legislative process.
Yoakum said he expects the House Appropriations Committee to easily approve the stop-loss payment when it takes up the bill after the summer congressional recess, and that he also expects the Senate will include the payment in its version of the bill.
He said the key decision point will come when House and Senate negotiators meet to write a final compromise bill.
Negotiations happen behind closed doors, making it easier for lawmakers to remove something from consideration without having to publicly account for their decision, he said.
Retroactive ramifications

Yoakum’s only complaint about the stop-loss payment approved by the subcommittee is that the $500 is far less than the $1,500 monthly benefit initially proposed by Lautenberg and Sutton.
House aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the subcommittee decided to reduce the payment to $500 to make it fully retroactive, covering everyone who has faced stop-loss since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.
“It was a choice between a big payment for stop-loss orders issued in the future or a smaller payment for everyone,” one aide said. “Being fair to everyone seemed the better thing to do.”
Lautenberg said the financial drain of having a parent or breadwinner away from home is more than $500 a month, and indicated he will try to get the payment raised when the Senate takes up defense legislation in the fall.
With the government paying $100,000 or more to hire civilians to do the jobs of some service members and with the war in Iraq running $3 billion or more per week, Lautenberg said a $1,500 monthly payment for those whose military service is extended is not excessive.

__________________


"Sweat dries, blood clots, bones heal. Suck it up. Be a Marine"