SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO AM) - There's concern among veteran's groups over budget pressures in Washington D.C. and the impact on earned benefits and entitlemements that service members gained over a career in the military.
The President and CEO of the Military Officers Association of America, Lieutenant General Dana Atkins, USAF Retired, says there are two priorities, including ending sequestration.
Atkins says sequestration is an artificial budgetary cap on the Department of Defense, which he says encumbers the department of being an efficient agency.
Atkins says the other priority is the Dependent Indemnity Compensation, or what he calls the widow's tax.
He says if a military member gets killed, their surviving spouse gets the Survivor Benefit Plan. Atkins compares it to a life insurance policy at about $15,000 a year.
He says congressional law will not allow both of those payments to occur so the surviving spouse actually gets $15,000 extracted from their life insurance that was purchased seperately by the service member.
Atkins says almost 64,000 widows nationwide are encumbered by current law. He says the biggest success story happened three years ago. He says military retirement income was calculated at cost-of-living-allowance at minus 1%. He says they were able to get the minus 1% taken off the law.
Atkins says the new calculation has translated to a much larger benefit package for military retirees.
Atkins was in Watertown Monday night at a special chartering event for the Association which boasts 400,000 members across the country.
(Thanks David J. Law, KXLG Watertown)