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Bill would expand reserve retirement credit

Two years after Congress decided to give credit toward earlier reserve retirement checks for time spent on active duty, its chief supporters are still fighting to make the new rules apply retroactively to Guard and reserve members called to active duty immediately after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

Congressional negotiators writing a compromise version of the 2010 defense authorization bill will decide whether 600,000 National Guard and reserve members mobilized between Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 27, 2008, will be eligible to get their retirement checks 90 days before their 60th birthday for every 90 days of mobilization.

The 90-for-90 rule now in law applies only for time spent mobilized since Jan. 28, 2008, when the 2008 Defense Authorization Act became law.

Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., who have championed legislation to allow reservists to receive retired pay before age 60, initially wanted mobilization credit to apply to anyone called up since 2001. But they were stymied when Congress finally got around to approving the initiative because they couldn’t find money to cover the cost, estimated to be about $550 million.

Kerry and Chambliss convinced Senate colleagues to accept an amendment to S 1390, the Senate’s version of the 2010 defense authorization bill that applies the 90-for-90 rule to mobilization since Sept. 11, 2001.

Inclusion of the amendment in the Senate bill sets the stage for discussions by House and Senate negotiators about whether to include retroactive retirement credit in the final defense bill.

While the House version of the bill, HR 2647, includes no similar provision, one of the chief House negotiators on personnel issues, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., unveiled a bill earlier this year that also would make the mobilization credit retroactive to 2001.

Wilson was blocked from offering his legislation as an amendment to HR 2647 because budget rules are stricter in the House than in the Senate about paying for new initiatives.

Negotiators are not expected to make final decisions on the defense bill until September.

DISCUSS: The bill