Defense bill allows military recruiters to offer new incentives

Mindful of the wartime strains on the U.S. military's ground forces, the House and Senate Armed Services committees have padded their fiscal 2006 defense authorization conference report with provisions intended to make it easier for the services to attract and hold onto troops.

Despite years of beefing up military benefits, the latest authorization bill has the "most enhanced personnel package I've seen in my 14 years here," House Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee Chairman John McHugh, R-N.Y., said shortly before the report was signed Friday.

In particular, conferees agreed to allow the Army to explore four new ways to attract young men and women, including the possibility of offering money for downpayments on houses and other signing incentives.

"We basically gave the Army recruiting advantages over other services," a House committee aide said Monday, hours after the House passed the authorization conference report. The Senate is expected to take up the measure before adjourning later this week.

The committees also doubled current enlistment bonuses for both active duty and reserve troops across all the services, sweetening bonuses to $40,000 and $20,000, respectively.

In addition, the conference report also makes the military's Tricare healthcare system available for the first time to all current reservists and their families, for a fee based on three eligibility levels.

"For the first time in the history of the program, every Guardsman and reservist has access to the Tricare program," McHugh said. The language in the conference report, the product of a deal struck between the House and the Senate, would cost the military about $2.3 billion over the next 10 years.

McHugh and other House Armed Services Republicans batted away attempts to insert a broader Tricare amendment into the House bill, saying it would cost $12 billion over 10 years. But similar language got the backing of Senate Armed Services Chairman John Warner, R-Va., and other key Republicans, who added it to the Senate's version.

While the House-Senate compromise is less generous than the Senate provision, it still expands benefits in last year's defense authorization bill, which gave reservists and their families access to a year of Tricare coverage for every 90 days they serve on active duty.

Elsewhere in the conference report, lawmakers agreed to increase oversight of the Army's massive Future Combat Systems program with four policy initiatives, including a requirement for an annual report by the Government Accountability Office. They also decided to withhold 30 percent of the funds appropriated for the program's manned ground vehicles until Pentagon leaders submit a comprehensive FCS report.

Navy shipbuilding programs, particularly the DD(X) destroyer, also got the attention of lawmakers, long concerned about burgeoning program costs. Conferees capped the cost of the fifth destroyer at $2.3 billion. The House had recommended a more stringent $1.7 billion cap, but bowed to Senate pressure to set a slightly higher limit.

The cost cap is "really just an effort to try to encourage the Navy to reduce the cost of shipbuilding," according to a second House committee aide.

One late stumbling block to a conference agreement had been a bid by House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., to authorize the transfer of an island off the coast of southern California to the Defense Department for hunting and other recreational activities for the military.

After much pressure from other California lawmakers, Hunter dropped his provision, deciding to address the issue in separate legislation next year. One of those lawmakers, Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., said Friday, "That let the conference go forward."