President Obama’s move to set the 2016 military pay raise at a level below the unstated preference of House members\u00a0will not disrupt negotiations over the annual defense authorization bill, which remain stalled in part over issues of troops’ compensation and benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Tuesday, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said the White House decision at the end of August to set\u00a0next year’s pay raise at 1.3 percent has become part of the conference committee discussion\u00a0but has not created any new problems for lawmakers to tackle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The House bill was different from the Senate bill on a number of respects on pay and benefits, and that’s part of what we’ve been discussing in conference,” Thornberry said.\u00a0“You have to figure out a way to come together in one bill.\u00a0We’re working on it. We’ve made some good progress.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
House and Senate lawmakers were hoping to complete work on the annual military policy bill before the summer recess, but fights over military retirement reform, housing allowance growth and Tricare co-pays held up a final deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thornberry said negotiations continued through August, and he expressed optimism\u00a0that a compromise bill will be reached “as soon as possible,”\u00a0maybe before the end of the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Senate version of the bill specified a 1.3 percent pay hike for troops in 2016, identical to Obama’s order. The House draft was silent on the measure, although supporters spun it as backing a higher 2.3 percent raise, which would match the rise in average private-sector wages next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lawmakers could override the president’s order, but that would require negotiators to insert completely new pay language into the compromise bill, an unlikely scenario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
House negotiators also have indicated they would be willing to allow modest increases in health care fees in the final draft of the bill. Senators also are pushing for trims in the annual growth of the Basic Allowance for Housing, savings that Pentagon leaders have said are needed to help pay for training and modernization programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Outside advocates have decried those moves as putting increased pressure on the personal finances of troops\u00a0and their families, and widening the pay gap between service members and their civilian counterparts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
House and Senate negotiators are still working through a series of troop pay and benefit issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":88143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":68,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[12,68],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3334,1846],"class_list":["post-51466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"N5WP6JGSVBDPZJO7WXFU6IDJV4","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2015\/09\/09\/obama-s-call-on-military-pay-raise-won-t-disrupt-budget-work\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n