Bill aims to aid disabled vets in fight for benefits

WASHINGTON - A quarter-million disabled veterans who are now denied full retirement benefits could get them as part of the defense bill the House passed Friday.

In what could become an election-year issue, Republicans celebrated the $22-billion program as history making.

Democrats said it was inadequate.

The measure would partly reverse a policy, set in the 1890s, of reducing a military retiree's retirement pay by $1 for every dollar he gets in disability compensation. Veterans groups and their allies in Congress have for years tried to change this, but have been rebuffed by administrations from both parties concerned about the high cost of providing both benefits.

"Today marks an end to the unfair penalty on disabled veterans," said House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

Democrats disagreed, saying the measure, to be phased in over 10 years and mainly help the more seriously disabled, would leave out some 400,000 veterans with less serious disabilities.

"This is clearly not a victory for our veterans," said Rep. Lane Evans of Illinois, top Democrat on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee. "It's an attempt to divide and conquer veterans."

Democrats sought to send the entire defense bill, which authorizes $401-billion for defense programs, back for further negotiations, with instructions that disabled veterans receive full retirement benefits. Their motion was defeated on a party-line vote, 217-188. Providing full benefits would cost an estimated $58-billion over 10 years.

The House approved the overall defense bill, 362-40, and the Senate is expected to pass it next week, sending it to the president for his signature.

Veterans' groups were pleased, while saying that full "concurrent receipt" - eligibility for disability and retirement benefits - was their goal. "We look at this as a major battle won in the long and difficult campaign toward full concurrent receipt," said Bob Norton of the Military Officers Association of America.

"This is a wonderful, wonderful benefit and a wonderful compromise," said Veterans Secretary Anthony Principi. "I would hope that military retirees would feel good about it."

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