Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Here are some fresh developments that feuding politicians have created for the U.S. military in wartime: - Four service branches, excluding only the Navy, have suspended tuition assistance through at least September this year, a move that will interrupt continuing education plans for tens of thousands of service members and force others to use GI Bill benefits earlier than planned. - All of the services expect recruiting to get a lot more difficult as recruiter travel is restricted, recruiting commands are forced to cut...
Defense Department civilian and military leaders gave full details last week of the readiness crisis unfolding across America's armed forces, and got back not a whit of reassurance from Congress that relief is on the way. Members of the once-powerful House and Senate armed services committees spoke as though resigned to the notion that U.S. forces could be hollowed out over the next several years due to political gridlock and a now infamous "sequestration" gimmick that made a hostage of the defense budget, then wounded it,... Full story
Congressional leaders appear to have reached consensus that it is safer politically to allow deep and arbitrary cuts to military budgets than it is to negotiate a large debt-reduction deal that would have names attached. With Republicans and Democrats unwilling to make difficult decisions to address budget deficits in a balanced way, the military is being forced to cut training, cancel construction projects, defer maintenance of ships, aircraft and vehicles, cancel professional conferences, halt most temporary duty... Full story
This time last year the Air Force unveiled a plan to cut Air National Guard strength by 5,100 members along with more than 200 Guard aircraft. They touted this as a reasonable efficiency, in part because Guard squadrons cost more to operate than active duty squadrons. That argument was dead wrong, says Maj. Gen. Arnold L. Punaro, a retired Marine Corps reservist and chairman of the Reserve Forces Policy Board. In a new report, the advisory board he leads urges the Department of Defense to stop ignoring the true and... Full story
Unbending politicians who hold defense budgets hostage while refusing to cut a deal to address the nation's debt crisis are putting at risk the readiness of America's armed forces. That's what the Joint Chiefs warned last week in a letter to the House and Senate armed services committees. "We are on the brink of creating a hollow force due to an unprecedented convergence of budget conditions and legislation that could require (keeping) more forces than requested while underfunding (their) readiness," the seven members of the... Full story
House-Senate conferees have agreed to the more modest House-passed plan for raising drug co-payments on military family members and retirees who fill prescriptions at TRICARE retail outlets or through mail order. The fee increases are scheduled to take effect Feb. 1, TRICARE officials said as the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill, with many other provisions impacting the military community next year, moved toward final passage. The new pharmacy fee plan includes a requirement that beneficiaries 65 and older have all...
Late-hour speeches by Republican Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.) and John McCain (Ariz.) on runaway military health costs led the Senate Tuesday to shelve a defense bill amendment that would have spared family members and retirees more burdensome co-pays on drug prescriptions filled off base. The timing of their opposition, in the last hours of consideration of the 2013 defense authorization bill when amendments were only being approved by unanimous consent, allowed Coburn and McCain to block the Senate from supporting the softer...
Soldiers and Marines have had the most deployments, seen the toughest fighting and suffered the greatest number of U.S. casualties in recent wars. And as with most post-war periods, ground forces also will see their career opportunities tighten faster than for other service branches. The Army plans to shed 60,000 troops, or 11 percent of its active force, to reach 490,000 by fiscal 2017. The Marine Corps will cut 20,000-5,000 a year over the next four years — to reach an end-strength of 182,100. Both services say they are d... Full story
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has proposed opening military TRICARE networks of civilian health care providers to veterans who can't get timely mental health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs. TRICARE networks currently exist to provide health care to military personnel and retirees, their families and survivors. Two days after Romney's pledge, President Obama signed an executive order with several new initiatives to improve access to mental health care services for veterans, service members and their...
Absentee ballot requests from military members and spouses are alarmingly low this election year, a voter advocacy group contends. It blames the Department of Defense for foot-dragging on absentee voter reforms that were enacted after the last presidential election. A four-page report, "Military Voting Update: A Bleak Picture in 2012," builds its worrisome conclusions on what arguably are some thin reeds of data on early ballot requests across nine states, all of which have large military populations and can track voter...
Members of Congress are more interested in winning re-election in November than in removing before then the budget "sequestration" knife that threatens to lop 10 percent off 2,500 defense programs starting Jan. 2. That was the signal that lawmakers sent at a House Armed Services Committee hearing this month where the White House budget director and the deputy defense secretary explained how sequestration would shred defense budgets and degrade force readiness if Congress fails to block the process by negotiating a new $1.2...
Members of Congress are more interested in winning re-election in November than in removing before then the budget "sequestration" knife that threatens to lop 10 percent off 2,500 defense programs starting Jan. 2. That was the signal that lawmakers sent at a House Armed Services Committee hearing this month where the White House budget director and the deputy defense secretary explained how sequestration would shred defense budgets and degrade force readiness if Congress fails to block the process by negotiating a new $1.2... Full story
The Defense Department's push to phase in substantial TRICARE fee increases for military retirees came under fresh attack from Congress and military associations last week after officials conceded an unexpected "downward spike" in TRICARE cost growth tied to private sector health care. Robert Hale, the DoD comptroller, held a press conference Thursday morning to defend the credibility of department claims that soaring health costs make the TRICARE benefit "unsustainable" unless retirees pay more. Defense officials had based...
The Defense Department's push to phase in substantial TRICARE fee increases for military retirees came under fresh attack from Congress and military associations last week after officials conceded an unexpected "downward spike" in TRICARE cost growth tied to private sector health care. Robert Hale, the DoD comptroller, held a press conference Thursday morning to defend the credibility of department claims that soaring health costs make the TRICARE benefit "unsustainable" unless retirees pay more. Defense officials had based...
The Department of Veterans Affairs is processing more than a million disability compensation claims a year, for veterans of every age and era, whether they served in wartime or during periods of relative calm. But that has not been enough to keep the claims backlog from rising through current wars and the expansion of compensation eligibility to more medical conditions, particularly for veterans who served in Vietnam. Claims today are more complex, involving nine to 11 medical issues apiece, on average, versus an average of...
The Department of Veterans Affairs is processing more than a million disability compensation claims a year, for veterans of every age and era, whether they served in wartime or during periods of relative calm. But that has not been enough to keep the claims backlog from rising through current wars and the expansion of compensation eligibility to more medical conditions, particularly for veterans who served in Vietnam. Claims today are more complex, involving nine to 11 medical issues apiece, on average, versus an average of...
Defense officials can expect a fight if they embrace a plan from an internal study group that would urge Congress to cut drill pay and annual retirement points for Reserve and National Guard members in return for allowing retired pay to start years sooner than the current age-60 threshold. The warning came last week from Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Andrew B. Davis, executive director of the Reserve Officers Association. Davis charged that the 11th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation "paints an incomplete picture" of drill... Full story
Defense officials can expect a fight if they embrace a plan from an internal study group that would urge Congress to cut drill pay and annual retirement points for Reserve and National Guard members in return for allowing retired pay to start years sooner than the current age-60 threshold. The warning came last week from Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Andrew B. Davis, executive director of the Reserve Officers Association. Davis charged that the 11th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation "paints an incomplete picture" of drill... Full story
If endorsed by the White House and enacted by Congress, a new blueprint for modernizing military compensation after 11 years of war would reshape many traditional service pays to strive for more efficiency. The 11th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, after two years of study, has produced some wide-ranging recommendations, from replacing combat zone tax exclusions and overhauling weekend drill pay to reforming reserve retirement and slicing by half a reduction in survivor benefits that widows see when they accept VA... Full story
If endorsed by the White House and enacted by Congress, a new blueprint for modernizing military compensation after 11 years of war would reshape many traditional service pays to strive for more efficiency. The 11th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, after two years of study, has produced some wide-ranging recommendations, from replacing combat zone tax exclusions and overhauling weekend drill pay to reforming reserve retirement and slicing by half a reduction in survivor benefits that widows see when they accept VA... Full story
As congressional inaction on the debt crisis deepens the threat of indiscriminate ax wielding on defense programs by next January, advocates for base grocery stores hope to emboss a "hands off" sign on military commissaries and their $1.3 billion annual appropriation. In particular, they want Congress to ignore a "dangerously flawed" cost-saving option presented last year by the Congressional Budget Office, to merge the commissary system and the three military exchange services into a single base resale operation. The CBO... Full story
As congressional inaction on the debt crisis deepens the threat of indiscriminate ax wielding on defense programs by next January, advocates for base grocery stores hope to emboss a "hands off" sign on military commissaries and their $1.3 billion annual appropriation. In particular, they want Congress to ignore a "dangerously flawed" cost-saving option presented last year by the Congressional Budget Office, to merge the commissary system and the three military exchange services into a single base resale operation. The CBO... Full story
Legal experts and military family advocates saw their advice ignored anew this year as the House again has passed a controversial bill from Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, aimed at protecting service members from losing custody of their children because of military deployments. Among the bill's critics this year is Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. The vote last week was 390-to-2 for legislation that the Senate is almost certain to kill, as senators again heed the legal warnings and shrug off, at least on this issue, some of the... Full story
The Senate Armed Services Committee has agreed with its House counterpart to block the Obama administration's plan to phase in new and some significantly higher TRICARE enrollment fees and deductibles for military retirees and their families. But the Senate panel has signaled that the administration can use existing authority to raise beneficiary co-pays on brand name prescription drugs filled through retail pharmacies or the TRICARE mail order program. The absence of any new Senate prohibition, combined with the House...
The Senate Armed Services Committee has agreed with its House counterpart to block the Obama administration's plan to phase in new and some significantly higher TRICARE enrollment fees and deductibles for military retirees and their families. But the Senate panel has signaled that the administration can use existing authority to raise beneficiary co-pays on brand name prescription drugs filled through retail pharmacies or the TRICARE mail order program. The absence of any new Senate prohibition, combined with the House...
