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Obama calls for 2.9% pay raise in 2010

President Obama is proposing a 2.9 percent military pay raise effective Jan. 1, 2010, a figure that would match — not exceed — average wage growth in the private sector.

The pay raise is contained in a broad-stroke summary of Obama’s first federal budget, titled “A New Era of Responsibility.” Full details of the budget are not expected to be released until some time in April.

In every year of this decade so far, the military pay raise has been at least one-half percentage point above the average private-sector wage growth, a sustained effort by Congress to close a purported gap between military and civilian pay that some say has existed since 1982. The gap reportedly stands at 2.9 percent today.

The Bush administration also proposed military pay raises that matched private-sector wage growth in at least two years of this decade, but lawmakers consistently have bumped up the increase slightly in the final defense budget.

Obama’s defense budget request for fiscal 2010 totals $533.7 billion, which would be a 4 percent increase over this year’s figure of $513.3 billion. That does not include funding for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama has asked for $75.5 billion for the rest of this fiscal year and $130 billion in fiscal 2010 in wartime supplemental funding.

At the same time, the administration will begin shifting back into the base defense budget spending for some programs that have been supported with emergency supplemental funds in recent years.

The administration says these programs do not belong in the “wartime emergency” category. They include “certain medical services, family support initiatives, security assistance to foreign governments, and enhancements to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.”

In other areas, Obama’s 2010 budget proposal would:

• Expand concurrent receipt of full veterans disability payments and military retired pay for those who are eligible for both payments. The budget document does not explain what this proposal entails. Currently, many disabled military retirees still have a portion of their retired pay offset dollar-for-dollar by the amount they receive in VA disability payments. The offset is being phased out over a 10-year period that is scheduled to end in 2014.

• Increase Veterans Affairs Department funding by $25 billion over the next five years. The budget also would restore eligibility for VA health care to veterans who have at least modest incomes and do not have service-connected conditions. These “Category 8” veterans have been shut out from enrolling in VA’s health care system since 2003. By 2013, this would bring more than 500,000 more veterans into the system.

• Fund expanded VA mental health screening and treatment services, with a focus on reaching veterans in rural areas by establishing more Vet Centers and mobile health clinics.

• Support continuing efforts to “improve the medical care and housing for wounded, ill and injured service members.” The Defense Department will complete new Army wounded warrior complexes at posts throughout the U.S., including in Alaska and Hawaii, as well as in Germany.

• Expand Pentagon and VA pilot programs to expedite the processing of injured troops through the Disability Evaluation System. The pilots are designed to substantially cut the time required to determine disability ratings and begin paying benefits to wounded troops.

• Continue to “sustain and modernize barracks and dormitories housing service members around the world and works to end all inadequate housing for military families.”

• Fund a comprehensive Defense Department traumatic brain injury registry, “including a single point of responsibility to track incidents and recovery.” The military services also will expand the number of mental health professionals integrated with deployed units “to better channel medical attention to those who need it quickly.”

Obama’s 2010 budget proposal also would support additional permanent end-strength increases in the size of the Army and Marine Corps to 547,000 and 202,000, respectively, that are on track to be achieved by the end of 2009.