GOP slams Pentagon over death benefits

Republicans accused the Pentagon on Thursday of willfully misinterpreting a military pay law meant to ensure families of fallen soldiers get death benefits.

They said legislation they passed in the hours before the shutdown allows the Pentagon to pay out the $100,000
death gratuity payment. 

By not making the payments, the administration is trying to make the shutdown more painful to people, Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) said Thursday. 

“The political objective was to inflict as much harm as you possibly could in your own department,” Coffman said at a House Armed Services hearing on the measure Thursday. “The Department of Defense took it upon itself to disregard the will of American people and violate the law.”

He accused Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale of “subordinating your professionalism to a political agenda” and compromising national security.

Hale reiterated the Pentagon’s stance that it did not have authority under that bill to make the payments. 

{mosads}“I resent your remarks,” Hale said to Coffman. “I acted on the advice of attorneys and our best reading of a loosely worded law, and we did our best. It was not a political judgment.”

Families of some soldiers as a result did not get payments, something Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel earlier this week said was the fault of Congress. 

The
Pentagon announced Wednesday that the Fisher House Foundation had agreed to pay
the benefits during the shutdown. The House also passed a bill Wednesday to
allow the benefit, and the Senate approved it by unanimous consent on Thursday,
meaning the Pentagon payments could resume if the bill is signed by President Obama.

The White House on Thursday refused to say whether Obama would sign the legislation restoring death benefits. Press secretary Jay Carney said the bill was no longer necessary because the government had “developed a solution.”

But the halted death benefits have stoked political fighting
because it’s been one of the most visible effects of the government
shutdown, now in its second week.

Congressional Republicans and the Obama administration
have each accused the other side of being responsible. 

Hale said that death benefits aren’t allowed to be paid out
under the “Protect Our Military Act” because they aren’t part of the Pentagon budget’s
“pay and allowances” that were included in the military pay measure.

But Republicans say that death benefits are included among
the “pay and allowances” that the law authorized to be paid during the shutdown.
They point to a 2011 Pentagon report sent to Congress titled “Pays and Allowances
Summary” that lists $100,000 death gratuity.

“What they’re doing is trying to create pain for the American
people, in particular the denial of the death benefit,” said Rep. Joe Wilson
(R-S.C.).

A Congressional Research Service report released Thursday
says the death benefits falling under pay and allowances “would appear to be
clear on its face,” though it also notes that the benefits were not specifically
included in the bill.

However, Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the Center for
Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said he agreed with Hale’s interpretation
that death benefits aren’t part of the law.

He pointed out that death gratuity is listed under “other
military personnel costs,” not “pay and allowances,” in the 2014
Pentagon personnel budget.

“Given the wording of the ‘Pay Our Military Act,’ DOD is only
allowed to spend money on ‘pay and allowances,’ and the death gratuity does not
fall under that section of the budget,” Harrison said. “If that’s not what
Congress intended, they should not have used the phrase ‘pay and allowances’ in
the bill.”

A House Armed Services Committee aide disagreed.

“Where this program falls on a budget chart is absolutely irrelevant to the interpretation of the ‘Pay Our Military Act,” the aide said in an email. “Leaving aside the fact that this budget product is often inaccurate, it has absolutely no force of law. A budget chart simply has no bearing on this conversation.”

— Justin Sink contributed.

This story was last updated at 5:35 p.m.