Murtha pushes retroactive stop-loss payments
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Dec 11, 2008 13:15:33 EST
Retroactive stop-loss allowances of up to $500 a month could be included in the next supplemental war funding bill, providing back payments for anyone whose military service was involuntarily extended since the 2001 terrorist attacks, a key lawmaker said Wednesday.
Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, said about 185,000 people would be eligible for one month of retroactive payment for any month during which their separation or retirement was delayed by as little as one day.
Congress created the stop-loss allowance earlier this year, but restricted the payments only to people affected by involuntary extensions in fiscal 2009, which began on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30. Those payments have not yet begun because the Army — the only service that has had people under stop-loss orders since Oct. 1 — is still working out details, including whether to pay the full $500-per-month maximum authorized under the law, or a lesser level of payment.
Retroactive payments were part of the initial proposal before Murtha’s committee, with an allowance that originally was to be up to $1,500 a month. As a compromise to get the new benefit improved, the allowance limit was reduced to $500 and targeted only at people affected by stop-loss in the future, not in the past.
The chief sponsors of the stop-loss allowance, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Ohio, vowed to work in 2009 to provide backdated payments because they said it is unfair to provide extra pay to some people whose lives are disrupted by stop-loss but do nothing for others.
Murtha’s pledge on including stop-loss allowances in the next war supplemental was made during an appearance before the Center for American Progress, where he talked about defense-related issues before Congress.
“I’m not going to predict how much of a change we’ll see in the coming years, but I do know that defense spending is going to be under severe pressure,” he said. “Our job will be to manage the current and future threats under a constrained defense budget.”
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Thursday, December 11, 2008
Murtha pushes retroactive stop-loss payments
