The White House needs to ask Congress for enough money to reverse an "alarming erosion" of quality of life in the military in its fiscal 2025 budget request, bipartisan leaders from the House Armed Services Committee wrote in a recent letter to President Joe Biden.
In a letter dated Feb. 16 and released publicly Tuesday, the chairmen and ranking members of the full committee and its military quality-of-life subpanel pressed Biden to "focus significantly more attention and resources" on service members' quality of life in its upcoming budget request.
"The committee's quality-of-life inquiry thus far has revealed an alarming erosion of military quality of life that, if not addressed quickly, will soon place the all-volunteer force at risk," Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.; Adam Smith, D-Wash.; Don Bacon, R-Neb.; and Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., wrote in the letter. "Reversing this decline will require a national commitment of resources to address quality-of-life concerns for service members and their families."
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The letter comes after months of work both publicly and privately by the committee's quality-of-life panel, launched last year to examine military pay, housing, health care, child care and spouse employment amid a growing pile of media and watchdog reports of problems in those areas.
The panel, led by Bacon and Houlahan, held several closed-door briefings with key players on a range of quality-of-life issues. It also held an open hearing with civilian officials on housing, and a hearing with the senior enlisted leaders from all the services that ran the gamut of quality-of-life topics. Lawmakers have said they expect the panel to release its findings later this spring with recommendations to include in the annual defense policy bill Congress will consider later this year.
Bacon has warned that some proposed remedies for quality-of-life issues could be costly. For example, raising the basic allowance for housing from 95% of housing costs to 100% to help with housing affordability is estimated to cost $225 million for each percentage point it's raised, Bacon has said.
But lawmakers and military leaders say fixing quality-of-life issues will be essential to reversing an ongoing recruiting crisis and ensuring that service members stay in the military. At the hearing with senior enlisted leaders, all said that reforming military pay and benefits and improving housing conditions should be addressed immediately.
The letter from Rogers, Smith, Bacon and Houlahan comes ahead of the Biden administration's expected release of its fiscal 2025 budget request March 11. The budget is essentially a blueprint of the administration's priorities. It is up to Congress to actually provide the funding.
While the release of the 2025 budget is approaching, Congress has yet to approve full-year funding for fiscal 2024, which started in October.
In their letter, the quartet outlined some of the initial findings of the quality-of-life panel, including that barracks and family housing are plagued with mold, pests and "other unacceptable habitability problems."
Other findings include that pay for junior enlisted service members has not kept pace with pay for officers or civilians, resulting in food and economic insecurity; access to medical care, particularly behavior health care for family members, remains challenging; a nationwide shortage of child care workers is hitting the military particularly hard, especially in high-cost areas such as San Diego and remote places such as Alaska; and spouses are continuing to struggle with employment because of frequent moves, isolated locations and licensure issues.
"Our efforts and forthcoming recommendations, expected in the FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), will focus on improving the daily lives of especially the most junior of our service members and their families," the lawmakers wrote. "This is a large, costly undertaking, but it is our moral and national security imperative to support those who serve."
