Military Officer - December 2006 - (Page 42)

washingtonscene The short answer is “yes.” It’s certainly true that many Capitol Hill ofﬁces are implementing administrative or technological hurdles to block spam and validate that incoming messages are really coming from individual constituents. But MOAA’s legislative e-mail contractor, Capitol Advantage (the nation’s largest grassroots e-mail ﬁrm), has made special arrangements with congressional information technology ofﬁces to ensure that messages generated through MOAA’s Web site are recognized as legitimate and are properly routed to legislators’ ofﬁces, despite the wording of the response from some congressional ofﬁces. The Washington Post recently reported on a congressional e-mail delivery study overseen by a George Washington University professor, which concluded that a surprisingly large percentage of e-mail messages to Congress never actually get delivered to their intended recipient. However, it highlighted Capitol Advantage as the exception to the rule, with a 97.3percent successful delivery rate. Please continue to support MOAA’s legislative alerts, and be assured that your messages are making a difference. military pay raise, authorizes lower-cost health coverage for drilling Guard and Reserve servicemembers and their families, and bars any increases in retiree TRICARE fees for FY 2007. It will be the last defense bill shepherded through Congress by Warner, who steps down as chairman at the end of the year, in compliance with Senate tenure rules. As this issue went to press, the mid-term elections were still one week away, but when the 110th Congress convenes next year, the new chairman is expected to be Sen. John McCain (RAriz.) — if the Republicans retain control of the Senate. Should the Democrats regain leadership, the chairman likely would be Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.). Warner assumed the committee chairmanship in 1999 — a time of turmoil and retention problems in the armed forces due largely to pay and beneﬁts cutbacks over the previous two decades. During his tenure, he oversaw the most signiﬁcant period of military compensation and beneﬁt improvements in more than 50 years, including: ■ major progress in restoring militarycivilian pay comparability; ■ enactment of TRICARE For Life and pharmacy coverage for older beneﬁciaries; ■ repeal of the “REDUX” retirement system that cut lifetime retired pay value by 25 percent for post-1986 entrants; ■ concurrent receipt for thousands of severely or combat-disabled military retirees; ■ phaseout of the age-62 beneﬁt cut for Survivor Beneﬁt Plan annuitants; and ■ major death beneﬁt increases for survivors of servicemembers who die during active duty, Guard, or Reserve service. Both a World War II veteran of the Navy and a Korean War veteran of the Marine Corps, Warner rose to become secretary of the Navy in the early 1970s and has served in the Senate since 1979. In the early 1980s, he coauthored the Nunn-Warner compensation improvements that helped the services Senator Warner Steps Down 2007 will see a new Armed Services chairman. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) I n signing the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2007, President George W. Bush honored the many accomplishments of Sen. John Warner’s (R-Va.) eight-year leadership tenure on the Senate Armed Services Committee. At a White House ceremony Oct. 17, President Bush signed the new legislation (Public Law 109-364) into law. Among other things, it provides a 2.2-percent 42 MILITARY OFFICER DECEMBER 2006

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Military Officer - December 2006

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