National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020--Motion to

Floor Speech

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Mr. JONES. Mr. President, I want to echo what my colleague and friend, the Senator from Maine, has said about the elimination of the widow's tax and rise today to urge this body to bring the Military Widow's Tax Elimination Act of 2019 to the Senate floor for a vote this week as an amendment to the NDAA.

I introduced this bipartisan legislation with my friend and colleague Senator Collins this year. It has been introduced numerous times. Legislation that is designed to right a terrible wrong has been introduced numerous times over the last 18 years but without success.

Today, we are at an alltime high for cosponsorship. Seventy-five Members of this body, Republicans and Democrats, support this legislation and have signed on as cosponsors. The only other major bill with support in this Congress like that was the one we recently passed by unanimous consent to crack down on robocalls, which I know is something we can all agree needed to be done, and just like that, this legislation is needed as well.

As Senator Collins talked about, the military widow's tax bill has earned overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle and from groups like TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, the Military Officers Association of America, and the VFW. Support out there is overwhelming because it is simply the right thing to do.

The law currently prohibits military widows from receiving their full survivor benefits from both the VA and the additional Department of Defense Survivor Benefit Plan that they paid into voluntarily. These Gold Star families--as many as, I think, 65,000 across the country and as many as 2,000 in my home State of Alabama--are being ripped off. It is just that plain and simple.

To add insult to injury, they are being ripped off by the very U.S. Government that their loved ones swore to protect. That is absolutely shameful, that we would treat our military families in such a way. We obviously--obviously--can never repay these families for their loss and the sacrifices they have made, but it is our duty, I submit--our duty-- to try to do all we can. And we can dang sure stop the government from robbing them of the benefits they have paid for and earned.

At the end of the day, this is a cost of war. It is a cost of freedom, more importantly. It is a cost of freedom. So for folks to say that this fix is too expensive or that there is not an obvious pay-for in our budgets that we have today, I would remind my colleagues that this bill has made it into the NDAA several times before, and we have waived--this body has waived the pay-go rules for it several times in the past because Members of this body have recognized that there are more important issues at play here. Many of my colleagues have supported this bill without a pay-for in the past.

This week, we will be considering the NDAA, and I am very grateful to Senator Inhofe, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who is responsible for shepherding this defense authorization on the floor this week.

The committee, of which I am a member, has done just incredible bipartisan work to get the NDAA to the floor this week.

Senator Inhofe is a cosponsor of this bill. In 2008, when the bill came to the floor of the Senate as an NDAA amendment earlier, also without a pay-for, he noted that an effort to eliminate the widow's tax had been in the works for 8 years at that point, since 2000. He urged his colleagues to right this wrong. He spoke on the floor, stating:

It is time we give back these benefits to those families of those who have served bravely in defense of our Nation. I think it is an insult to their honor and their memory to do anything else.

I couldn't agree more, and I hope that our colleagues today will, too, and will continue their support for our veterans and widows and will work with our leaders to ensure that this amendment gets a vote during the NDAA deliberations.

This is our chance to right this wrong once and for all. This is not a partisan issue. It is an issue of common ground and, significantly, of common purpose. That is precisely why 75 Members of this body have signed on as cosponsors, to say that it is their fundamental belief that we should honor our promise to the families of the best and bravest among us who have given their lives in service to our Nation.

I thank my Republican colleague, Senator Collins of Maine, for her leadership on this important issue and for being a great partner in the fight to finally get this legislation passed once and for all. Like she did a few moments ago, I urge all the rest of my colleagues in this body to call for this amendment to be brought to the floor for a vote this week as an amendment to the NDAA. Let our votes speak louder than our words. Let's finally right this wrong.

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