Current law prevents many veterans from receiving their full uniformed service’s retired pay and their full veteran’s disability compensation, better known as concurrent receipt. It is fundamentally unfair to deny our service men and women the compensation they both earned and deserve. In fact, our military personnel are the only federal employees who are not eligible to collect both veteran’s disability and retirement compensation.

Although progress has been made on this issue in recent years, Congressional actions to date on concurrent receipt have been inadequate. Beginning with the Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 Defense Authorization bill, Congress approved the financial equivalent of concurrent receipt for retirees whose disabilities resulted from a combat wound for which they earned a Purple Heart, and those whose disability rating was at least 60 percent as a result of a combat-related disability. Since then, Congress has approved actual concurrent receipt for retirees with at least 50% disability, with 100% disabled retirees receiving full concurrent receipt immediately. These are steps in the right direction, but they are not enough.

To truly remedy this inequitable situation, a bill has been introduced in the House (H.R. 303) to provide full concurrent receipt for all veterans. I am one of more than 200 cosponsors of this legislation. Because no action has yet been taken on this measure, a discharge petition has been initiated. If 218 lawmakers sign the petition, the bill moves immediately to the House Floor for consideration. I have joined 190 of my colleagues in the House in signing the petition, so only an additional 27 are needed for the bill’s discharge.