Washington, Apr 4 – Iowa Congressman Tom Latham has renewed a bipartisan push to close a loophole that makes it more difficult for National Guard members who served on active duty deployments to collect retirement pay. |
Washington, Apr 4 – Iowa Congressman Tom Latham has renewed a bipartisan push to close a loophole that makes it more difficult for National Guard members who served on active duty deployments to collect retirement pay.
Congressman Latham has co-sponsored legislation with Congressman Dan Boren, D-Okla., to eliminate a technical glitch in current law that has allowed the Pentagon to deny some members of the National Guard and Reserve the retirement benefits they’ve earned through their deployments.
“Members of the Guard and Reserve play a central role in our military operations overseas, and we owe it to them to make sure their retirement benefits reflect the incredible sacrifices they make,” Congressman Latham said. “This bill simply removes a technical glitch that is keeping some Guard members from their retirement benefits. I am committed to pushing this legislation as long as it takes to get this technicality taken care of.”
In 2008, legislation authored by Latham was approved to make retirement credit for Guard members more equitable with that of their active duty counterparts. However, an unintended technicality in its implementation caused the Department of Defense to exclude some periods of service that overlap two fiscal years from counting toward retirement benefits.
The Reserve Retirement Deployment Credit Correction Act, HR 1283, would ensure that Guard members receive the retirement credit for all time spent on active duty over the course of their career, measured in 90-day spans regardless of where they may fall in a fiscal year. This legislation will ensure that Guard members whose deployments span two fiscal years or occur within a fiscal year but don’t total 90 days still receive the retirement credit to which they’re entitled.
Latham and Boren introduced similar legislation during the previous 111th Congress and authored an amendment that was passed and incorporated into the Fiscal Year 2011 Defense Authorization Bill (Public Law 111-383) directing the Pentagon to align its legal interpretation with the original intent of Congress. However, the lack of action on this issue so far has prompted the lawmakers to reintroduce the measure.
