Senate OKs receipt of both survivor benefits

[unhappycamper]

Senate OKs receipt of both survivor benefits
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Sep 12, 2008 9:05:51 EDT

The Senate voted 94-2 Wednesday to allow survivors of deceased service members and military retirees to receive full military and veterans survivor benefits concurrently with no offsets, a move that addresses one of the top issues raised by associations representing the interests of active, reserve and retired service members and their families.

The vote came on an amendment offered by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., to the 2009 defense authorization bill. Two Republicans, Sens. Jim Bunning of Kentucky and George Voinovich of Ohio, voted against allowing receipt with no offset of dependency and indemnity compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs and survivor benefits from the Defense Department.

While passage of Nelson’s amendment is a victory for the Military Coalition, a group of more than 30 military-related organizations, it is a small one and possibly hollow.

This is not the first time the Senate has passed a Nelson-sponsored amendment on survivor benefits. The hurdle that sponsors and supporters have been unable to overcome is opposition from the Bush administration and the House of Representatives, which has tougher rules than the Senate about identifying funding to cover the costs of pending legislation.

About 61,000 survivors, mostly widows, are affected by current law that reduces military survivor benefits dollar for dollar by any amount received in veterans’ survivor benefits.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/09/military_survivorbenefits_offset_091108w/%2e