House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday that House lawmakers had no knowledge that the Pentagon planned to demand that thousands of military personnel repay bonuses they were given illegally.
“That is outrageous” said McCarthy, R- Calif., on Fox News. “Never did I hear this come up. This is outrageous going forward. I cannot imagine anyone who knew about this in the House that would not have acted upon this.”
The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that the California National Guard told their members of Congress two years ago that the Pentagon intended to take back improperly given bonuses to thousands of service members, rendering some potentially $15,000 or more in debt. The situation is the result of illegal decisions made by Army Master Sgt. Tony Jaffe, who was convicted in 2011 for overseeing $20 million in bonuses to unqualifying military personnel as a method of boosting numbers. Those who received the money had no idea at the time that they received the funds illegally.
Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., and ranking member on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, told CNN “We should not have ignored it.”
“The Guard did come forward with a proposal, the proposal languished, I believe part of the reason why it did languish is this philosophy of extreme austerity that comes over the Congress. We’ve allowed Zika funding to languish because of a lack of an offset. My understanding is there was an initial Congressional Budget Office ruling that this would be new spending, which makes no sense to me because this is money that’s already been spent and the department is trying to claw back.
“Veterans should be right up there with emergency funding such as Zika or what’s going on in Flint. Protecting our veterans from harm is certainly our top priority and they didn’t get treated as our top priority. And this is very regrettable. But I’m telling you, we need to get over any kind of austerity philosophy which says we need to find an offset even for this kind of financial decision we’ve gotta make in Congress. We need to just settle this problem once and for all in the lame duck Congress.
“If the Department of Defense has this completely within their authority they need to stop the clawbacks now and we need to take a look back and redress the harm that was done to other service members.”
“We should not have ignored it” — @RepMarkTakano on vets paying back reenlistment bonuses https://t.co/Mb3ImN2yr2 https://t.co/cFaTesbOli
— New Day (@NewDay) October 25, 2016
McCarthy said he has already heard stories from veterans living paycheck-to-paycheck who fear being financially crippled by the sudden demands for the payment.
“I want to know the person who made the decision to go after these individuals asking for the return of the money,” McCarthy said, indicating the possibility of a congressional investigation.
He said the Department of Defense has the power to waive the charges and said he would lead the charge to pass legislation to ensure military personnel are not asked to pay back the funds.
“These veterans, it was not their fault. The military promised it to them. They did not make the decision. They should not go after them and this has to stop. If it doesn’t stop, we will move legislation to stop it,” said McCarthy. He signed a letter sent Monday to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter demanding that “further attempts to retrieve outstanding debt be halted.”
Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, previously said after the story broke that the issue has come to the attention of military leadership and that “We’re looking at this to see what we can do.”
