T
he guest speaker during our last general
membership meeting was COL Larry D. Hellikson, USAF(Ret). He was
accompanied by his wife, the former Carmen Amarillas of Santa Maria,
California. COL Hellikson is a native of Mabel, Minnesota. He is currently
serves as the New Mexico Council of Chapters Legislative Chairperson.. He
is also a member of the Albuquerque Chapter.
COL Hellikson spoke to use about the involvement of
TROA in legislative issues and presented a list of legislative
accomplishments. He also presented the NMCOC national legislative agenda
for 2001.
Among
the most important of TROA’s accomplishments was providing leadership
and grassroots support for the TRICARE for Life legislation which began
taking effect on April 1st with the Mail Order Pharmacy benefit. The
remainder of TFL provision will begin taking effect on October 1st of this
year.
He explained that all armed services retirees over the
age of 65 would be eligible for participation in TCL. The only cost to the
retiree would be the mandatory enrollment in Medicare, Part B ($600 per
annum). The savings due to the pharmacy benefit alone should more than
offset the Part B enrollment fee. And those who are currently paying for
Medigap insurance would be able to save the money spent on those premiums,
once enrolled in TFL since all co-payments will be made by TCL.
The major legislative agenda for TROA in the future is
to eliminate the unfair practice of having disabled military retirees fund
their own disability compensation by forfeiting $1 of retired pay for each
$1 of compensation. As with TCL, a major ground swell of grassroots
support will be required to get this legislation through the Congress.
Other agenda items include improvements to the Survivor Benefit Plan,
Under age 65 Retiree medical care, Uniformed Services Former Spouse
Protection reform, and getting a new National Cemetery in Albuquerque. COL
Hellikson’s presentation was informative and engaging and we thank him
for taking time from his busy schedule to be with us.
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We
welcome our own New Mexico State Senator William Sharer and his wife Beth
to the Totah Chapter as our newest members. We look forward to their
continued participation and perhaps, leadership, in the future. And for
this editor, its nice to know that there is more Army green in the blue
sea of Air Force and Navy members. Thanks for joining and we’ll see you
at future meetings.
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By Larry
Brewer
Budget Conferees OK Health Funding, Stall on Concurrent
Receipt
Batting .500 is supposed to be good, but it's not
always satisfying.
House and Senate conferees completed negotiations this
week on the FY2002 Budget Resolution, working out their differences on
innumerable tax and other proposals, including two big ones affecting
military people. One proposed to raise defense health program funding to
fully cover expected costs; the other would stop taking $1 of disabled
military retirees' earned retired pay for each dollar they get in
veterans' disability compensation.
The conferees deserve a round of applause on health
care, adopting Sen. John Warner's (R-VA) and Sen. Pete Domenici's (R-NM),
proposed $3.1 billion "plus-up" for FY2002 health care needs.
Conferees also followed Sen. Domenici's lead in taking the unusual step of
allowing for an extra $1.4 billion to meet unfounded health requirements
for the current fiscal year. Thanks to this leadership action, the defense
health program - for the first time in many years -- shouldn't have to
start the fiscal year already in the red. TRICARE For Life is funded, and
the rest of the program is, too.
But that satisfaction is colored by frustration at the
conferees' failure to act on the Senate-approved initiative to permit
concurrent receipt of military retired pay and VA disability compensation.
Something's wrong with this picture. 53% of senators
and 72% of representatives are on record as cosponsors of legislation that
would stop forcing disabled retirees to fund their own disability
compensation. 11 of 22 members of the Senate Budget Committee and a
whopping 35 of 43 House Budget Committee members are cosponsors.
Yet, faced with the opportunity to take action,
Congress elected (again) to kick the legislative can down the road and ask
the Secretary of Defense for yet another report.
No more reports are needed. The issues are clear.
Congress has asked the Defense Department for reports on two previous
occasions. No administration, republican or democrat, has ever supported
fixing the concurrent receipt problem. They have other priorities to spend
the money on.
If disability retirees are going to be treated fairly,
it's Congress, not the Department of Defense, that's going to have to step
up to the plate and fix it - as Congress did last year on TRICARE For Life
and has done on many other issues in the past, over Pentagon objections,
if necessary.
Fortunately, some leaders in Congress agree, and there
will be another chance to address the problem in the FY2002 Defense
Authorization Bill later this year. The road will be steeper without
budget resolution "headroom," but this battle is far from over.
If we can call out the troops to make this a major issue with their
legislators, it will still be possible to win real progress this year.
Issue 2: Hope For Home Tax Relief. As tax talks are heating up in
Congress, new bills have surfaced in both the House and Senate that would
provide fairer capital gains tax treatment for military homeowners.
Hope For Home Tax Relief
Tax equity champion Rep. Amo Houghton (R-NY) has reintroduced his
legislation (H.R. 1596) to restore equal capital gains tax treatment for
military homeowners. Prospects for action got a further boost when a
similar provision was included in a broader capital gains tax relief bill
(S. 818) introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and three other members of
the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees tax issues -- John Kyl
(R-AZ), Frank Murkowski (R-AK) and Robert Toricelli (D-NJ).
The military homeowner tax problem is an unintended result of the
Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, which lets homeowners exempt up to $250,000
($500,000 per couple) in capital gains from federal income taxes for a
home occupied as a principal residence for at least two of the last five
years before sale. This change was a boon to most Americans, but
inadvertently penalized some military homeowners.
Many service members keep their homes while reassigned overseas or
elsewhere, hoping to return on a future assignment, or upon retirement.
But returning often proves impossible for various reasons, and the home
must be sold to permit purchase of a new residence. Under the 1997 law,
members assigned away from home for more than three years before sale can
incur a substantial tax liability -- just for following military orders.
Houghton's H.R. 1596, Hatch's S. 818, and a similar bill (H.R. 356)
introduced by Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-NC) would amend IRS rules to exempt
time away from home on military orders from counting against the
"two-of-five-year" residency test.
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By Al
Garcia
On May 18 we celebrate our final general membership
meeting before summer break. TROA members, specially, in our chapter need
a break to go out into the world and enjoy our well earned vacations.
First of all, hearty congratulations are in order to
Steve White, Editor, Totah News, for being awarded 1st place in category G
(40-60 member chapter). Steve puts in a lot of hard work to edit the
newsletter and it pays off when it receives this honor over many other
instruments. Congratulations to all members for your participation in
helping Steve with items to be included in the Totah News.
This
is the second year in a row that the Totah News is awarded 1st place. Last
year's award was in category H for chapters smaller than 40 members.
Again, the growth of our chapter is a result of members helping recruit.
We are now a chapter to contend with and we will become better with your
help.
This month I will be completing the paperwork to apply
for TROA chapter award. I will be calling many of you for input and I know
that you are all anxious to participate in that effort.
The summer picnic will be a big event for us. We will
get input from most of you to plan it properly.
Representative Sandra Townsend will be one of our guest
speakers at our next meeting. Hope to see you all there.
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