Mr. President, this year's conference report has many strengths. I am grateful that this year's conference report contains virtually all of the transition plan that I set forth to protect the men and women who will be involuntarily separated from the military. I am grateful for the support of Senator Glenn and my colleagues in the Senate and House Armed Services Committees in incorporating my legislation in the fiscal year 1991 Defense Authorization Act.
However, I deeply regret that the Authorization Act does not include the portions of my plan that would have provided the same unemployment benefits to men and women that are involuntarily separated from the military that are provided to men and women in civilian life.
There is no real reason for this failure to provide such compensation, except jurisdictional debates within the Congress. At present, the men and women who leave military service receive only half the unemployment compensation of civilians and must wait twice as long to be eligible for that compensation.
This lack of adequate compensation has never had any real rationale, although in a different era it was excused on the grounds that few were involuntarily separated from the service and military personnel chose to leave the service or were discharged for lack of performance.
Today it penalizes men and women who will be forced out of a career they have planned to make their life's work, and under conditions where separation will be a matter of rank, age, and special skills and not the result of talent, dedication, or part service. Men and women who volunteered to risk their lives, who often will be separated far from the location where they must find a job in civil life, and who have little past experience in seeking civilian employment, will get only half the unemployment protection of civilians.
I do not believe that the need to correct this situation should have been deferred for jurisdictional reasons, regardless of the promises made by the Senate Finance and House Ways and Mean Committees to take up this issue as soon as possible. I am also concerned that this failure to provide equitable treatment to the men and women in uniform is part of a broad pattern that badly needs to be addressed in future years.
Military pay now lags equivalent civilian pay by as much as 12 percent, and by up to 30 percent in some categories. This year, the Defense Authorization Act only asks for a 4.1-percent pay raise for the military, although current projections of inflation exceed 6 percent. In the midst of Operation Desert Shield, we will make things worse for our service people, and their families, although some have already been forced to obtain food stamps.
Deficit or no deficit, we must not penalize those who risk their lives by taking advantage of the fact they have little real recourse to inadequate pay. We also must not disguise the failure to develop and fund an adequate total force policy to provide proper payment to both Active and Reserve personnel by layering minor privileges or special pay categories over inadequate pay. Every man and woman deserves an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. Men and women who lay their lives on the line should not continue to be the victims of false economies and pawns of congressional convenience.
