Bill Text: HI SCR195 | 2021 | Regular Session | Introduced

Hawaii Senate Concurrent Resolution 195 (Prior Session Legislation)

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Bill Title: Urging The United States Congress To Amend The United States Code To Permit All Retired, Disabled Veterans To Receive Concurrent Retirement And Disability Payments.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)

Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2021-04-08 - Report adopted; referred to the committee(s) on FIN with none voting aye with reservations; none voting no (0) and Representative(s) McDermott excused (1). [SCR195 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2021-SCR195-Introduced.html

THE SENATE	S.C.R. NO.	195
THIRTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2021
STATE OF HAWAII

SENATE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

Urging the United States Congress to amend the United States Code to permit all retired, disabled veterans to receive concurrent retirement and disability payments.

WHEREAS, under federal law, the phrase "concurrent retirement and disability payments" refers to a retired, disabled veteran's simultaneous receipt of the veteran's full retirement payments and disability compensation; and

WHEREAS, prior to implementation of the concurrent retirement and disability payments program, the retirement payments for all retired, disabled veterans were offset by the amount of disability compensation received by the veteran; and

WHEREAS, the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2004 amended 10 United States Code section 1414 to permit retired, disabled veterans who served in the armed forces for twenty or more years and have a United States Department of Veterans Affairs disability rating at or above fifty percent to receive concurrent retirement and disability payments; and

WHEREAS, however, the retirement payments for retired, disabled veterans who are ineligible for concurrent retirement and disability payments continue to be offset by the amount of disability compensation received by the veteran; and

WHEREAS, in 2017, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the annual cost to provide concurrent retirement and disability payments was $11,400,000,000; and

WHEREAS, the Congressional Budget Office also estimated that providing concurrent retirement and disability payments to retired veterans having a disability rating below fifty percent would cost approximately $30,000,000,000 over a ten-year period, and providing concurrent retirement and disability payments to retired, disabled veterans having less than twenty years of service in the armed forces would cost approximately $5,800,000,000 over a ten-year period; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Thirty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2021, the House of Representatives concurring, that the United States Congress is urged to amend 10 United States Code section 1414 to permit all retired American veterans who have a service-connected disability to receive concurrent retirement and disability payments regardless of the veteran's disability rating or years of service in the armed forces; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and each member of Hawaii's Congressional Delegation.