On 15 May 2012, the Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs (SAC-MILCON/VA) held their markup and passed by voice vote its draft version of the Senate FY13 MILCON/VA.

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On 8 May 2012, the House Appropriations Committee- Subcommittee on Defense (HAC-D) completed its markup of the Defense Appropriation bill for Fiscal Year 2013 (FY13). Highlights of the FY13 HAC-D markup include: $128.5 billion to provide for 1,401,560 active-duty troops and 843,400 reserves ($2.6 billion below last year, due to the reduction in troop totals).

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Congress was in full gear this week as they held a few hearings and began markup consideration of the Fiscal Year 2013 (FY13) National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), H.R. 4310.  Some hearings that AUSN attended included the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on 25 April 2012 which focused on mental health treatment concerns in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

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This week, Congress returned from recess, finalizing a few hearings before consideration of the Fiscal Year 2013 (FY13) National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), H.R. 4310.  On 17 April 2012, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) held a hearing regarding other Members of the House’s priorities for the FY13 NDAA, a forum to allow Members not on HASC an opportunity to speak.

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Congress continued its work this week, trying to accomplish as much as it could before leaving town for the first two weeks of August.  On Thursday, the House passed Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI-01), Fiscal Year 2013 (FY13) Budget Resolution, H.Con.Res. 112 by a vote of 228-191.  The Ryan Resolution would limit discretionary appropriations to $1.028 trillion and propose overhauling the tax code as well as entitlement programs.

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There was no shortage of excitement this week on Capitol Hill, as the House of Representatives introduced and passed out of Committee hearings and deliberation, its Budget Resolution, the formal response of Congress to the President’s FY13 Budget Request that is mandated to be released no later than 6 weeks after the submission of the President’s request.

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This past week, the House was in recess, however the Senate was still in and on Thursday, March 15, the Senate Armed Services Committee held an important hearing on Navy Posture and the Fiscal Year 2013 (FY13) Budget. The hearing focused primarily on equipment and procurement shortfalls that are within the FY13 Budget Request.

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This past week, Congress held numerous Appropriations, Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Committee hearings investigating everything in the FY13 Budget Request from changes to TRICARE rates, to BRAC, to the newly proposed reorganization of the Defense Health System into a Defense Health Agency and the effects all these changes will have upon possible recruitment and retention.

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The last few weeks have been quite busy on Capitol Hill. On 13 February 2012, the President released his Fiscal Year 2013 (FY13) Budget Request to Congress, amongst a flurry of backlash at the proposals that lay within it. Having attended House and Senate Armed Services, Appropriations and Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearings, I can conclude that the budget contains a good news/bad news outlook when it comes to the proposals for our nation’s Sailors and veterans. I’ll start with the bad news first (DOD Budget) then move to the good news (VA Budget):

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Early this week Senator McCain, Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, “dropped” an amendment to the NDAA prior to its passage. This amendment would have allowed enrolment fees for TRI CARE Prime for retirees in 2013 and beyond to be indexed as the DoD had originally intended.

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