Quality of Life Panel Chairman Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) joined Quality of Life Panel member Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) on Mark Alford’s America to discuss the Panel’s work to improve the quality of life for servicemembers in the FY25 NDAA. Listen to the full episode HERE.
A lightly edited transcript is below:
On Why Improving the Quality of Life for Servicemembers is Vital:
Rep. Bacon: I did do almost 30 years in the military. You know squadron commanders are where the rubber hits the road for command. You command E-1s – O-5s when you’re a squadron commander and you get to know people and you see the struggles. So, when you hear that roughly one out of eight of our enlisted forces are reliant on food banks or SNAP it bothers me. Right? One out of eight. That’s roughly what we heard. Then you find out barracks are getting failing grades from the GAO and I don’t want my 18 year old sons or daughters going into failing barracks, having to maybe rely on food stamps or food banks to put food on the table. So, we knew we had a problem, and it was so much fun to be part of a team and say ‘okay what do we need to do to fix this?’ And first of all, ‘what is the scope of the problem then how do we fix it?’ We had a great team… there weren’t Democrats or Republicans there. We were a single team getting a job done.
Rep. Alford: As I said, in our news conference last week, it was said many times on our Panel, that this is not a red issue nor blue issue. It’s a red, white, and blue issue because this is about recruitment and retention. We’ve got an issue right now in the Department of Defense, where young people, only 9% of young people have any interest in joining the military right now and if we can’t retain the good people who are there, we’re going to have real issues when it comes to confronting communist China.
Rep. Bacon: We have a 50-year experiment with an All-Volunteer Force, and we’ve recruited America’s best in the military, people who want to serve, they’re fired up to serve our country, they’re patriotic, they’re selfless. And we’ve been blessed, we saw what our All-Volunteer Force can do, but it’s under strain right now.
On Improving Compensation for Servicemembers:
Rep. Alford: So, one of the things General, that we’re going to do, is we’re going to give the lower enlisted, E-1 through E-4, a 15% pay hike. That’s a big deal.
Rep Bacon: So, a 15% pay raise for E1 through E4, a targeted pay raise... That’s the highlight… Since 2016, we subtracted 5% of peoples [Basic Allowance for Housing] and put that money in other places in the budget. I thought it was wrong. So, if you’re underpaid, and 5% of your allowance has been subtracted, and then your spouse can’t get a job. The number one demographic in our country, for unemployment, is military spouses. You put all that together, on one person, and they’re struggling. So, we wanted to address all those things.
On Supporting Military Spouses:
Rep. Alford: And then enhancing support for military spouses, a lot of times when families move from one base to another, maybe one state to another, their professional licenses that the spouse is holding to do business, it’s not recognized. What are we going to do about do that?
Rep. Bacon: We’re going to expand the [interstate licensure compacts] and work on getting more states to the table on this because not all the states are a part of this... But as much as we can, we should honor the license for a spouse – if they come from Alabama to Nebraska or to Missouri…but on top of that we have [the Military Spouse Career Accelerator Pilot Program] where the Chamber will help get spouses employed…We want to expand that. I think there’s some opportunities there. But again, it’s a hard issue, it’s not as easy but there’s a few things that we’re looking at.
On Improving Quality of Life as the Foundation of the FY25 NDAA:
Rep. Alford: A lot packed in this Quality of Life [report]. I forgot how many changes are gonna be made. It’s in the dozens. This is just a start though, right? I think our Chairman Rogers has really declared that the whole National Defense Authorization Act, the focus this year is really quality of life.
Rep. Bacon: It’s going to be the cornerstone of this year’s NDAA. And it’s going to cost a little money, but we need it for our All-Volunteer Force and if we want to keep our All-Volunteer Force strong, this is what we’ve got to do. I appreciate that Chairman Rogers has made this his number one priority. And as I mentioned in our press conference, I’ve been a five time commander, when your commander finds your mission the most important that’s a good thing because it means you’re going to get some success and you’re going to get some work done and you’re going to make an impact.
