Legislative Accomplishments
2019 Major Legislative Accomplishments
Active/Reserve Component (RC) Force Issues
Health Care Issues
Military Family/Survivor Issues
Veterans Issues
Areas of Concern
From ending the Widows Tax, to passing major military housing reforms (and myriad other important personnel priorities enacted in 2019), TMC is grateful for the focus and hard work of both bipartisan lawmakers and DoD. But monitoring and assessment is warranted, as reforms are implemented.
Active/Reserve Component (RC) Force Issues
- Won 3.1% uniformed services payraise (highest in a decade)
- Corrected RC retirement points inequity – updates to 10 USC 12304b, providing credit for early age retirement when on Combatant Command orders.
- Defended earned commissary and exchange benefits, successfully advocating for legislatively mandated GAO review of DoD’s defense resale optimization study, before taking any action on military resale consolidation.
- Increased force structure levels.
- Achieved complete elimination of ongoing sequestration.
Health Care Issues
- Legislation requiring an analysis and report, ensuring DoD assessment and mitigation of potential negative impacts to readiness and beneficiary care before initiation of a planned elimination of 18,000 medical billets.
- Modification of eligibility for TRICARE Reserve Select (TRS), amending section 1076 to remove the restriction of Federal employees who are National Guard or Reserve from purchasing TRS, beginning in the year 2030. Will continue to work with Congress to provide funding to facilitate this before 2030.
- Blocked additional TRICARE fee increases (beyond those already scheduled) in FY20 NDAA.
Military Family/Survivor Issues
- Complete elimination – over the next three years – of the Survivor Benefits Program/Dependency and Indemnity Compensation offset penalty (the “Widows Tax”), impacting more than 65,000 survivors.
- Achieved major military housing reform, mandating a robust tenant bill of rights, landlord coverage of medical costs and relocation expenses, a formalized dispute resolution process, a proper work order system, and a complaint database, among other provisions to protect service members and families.
- Annual State report card, now including children of National Guard and Reserve under the Military Student Identifier program for the purpose of helping them with the different transitions of military life, such as deployments, that may adversely affect performance at school.
- Fixes to capacity issues of on-post childcare centers, streamlining hiring to ensure these are properly staffed.
- Increased funding to Impact Aid for schools who serve military children.
Veterans Issues
- Passage of the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019, ensuring treatment of Agent Orange (and other herbicides) exposure to Veterans serving in the coastal waters of Vietnam from January 9, 1962 to May 7, 1975.
Areas of Concern
- The Military Coalition’s (TMC’s) greatest fear in 2020 is the continued use of extensive, crippling continuing resolutions (CRs) to fund the FY 2021 budget.
From ending the Widows Tax, to passing major military housing reforms (and myriad other important personnel priorities enacted in 2019), TMC is grateful for the focus and hard work of both bipartisan lawmakers and DoD. But monitoring and assessment is warranted, as reforms are implemented.