Dr. William Perry’s affection for military people has deepened during his three-year term as Secretary of Defense. His fondness for Congress clearly has not.
Discouraged by what he describes as a sharp decline in “bipartisan spirit” on defense issues during the Republican-led 104th Congress. Dr. Perry says he would weigh the composition of Congress after the election before deciding whether to remain as defense chief.
In an interview. Dr. Perry spoke with pride of steps he has taken to maintain force readiness and improve service quality of life. Still, he does not seek to remain as Defense chief. If President Clinton wins reelection and urges Dr. Perry to stay, he said, a factor he would consider is the new political mix on Capitol Hill.
The 68-year-old scientist noted that he initially turned down Clinton’s request, in late 1993, to succeed Les Aspin as Defense Secretary. He is not sure what he would tell the President now. “The most positive aspect of being secretary has been my relationship with the military, . . . particularly our enlisted personnel,” said Dr. Perry. “The feeling that I’ve been able to do something positive for them gives me an enormous sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.”
But Dr. Perry said he believes defense decisions should be made in a bipartisan spirit, which he saw erode after Republicans gained control of Congress in January 1995. It could get worse in the 105th Congress. “We’re losing some people who have been very, very strong in a bipartisan role,” Dr. Perry said. Included among them. Dr. Perry said, are resigning senators Republicans Alan Simpson (WY), William Cohen (ME), and Nancy Kassebaum, (KS) and Democrat Sam Nunn (GA).
Dr. Perry believes he has shown how a Defense Secretary can and should use his office as a “bully pulpit” to focus White House and congressional attention on quality-of-life issues. Congress this year added hundreds of millions of dollars to the 1997 defense budget to build more housing, raise housing allowances, and eliminate a S475 million shortfall in healthcare funding. In so doing, Republicans said the administration talks a good game on quality of life but doesn’t back it up with budget dollars. Dr. Perry declined to answer the critics but praised Congress for supporting military people. They “came through like champions,” he said.
Dr. Perry bragged that his own administration is the first to endorse annual military pay raises as part of its five-year defense plan, although the size of increases are assumed to be one- half percent below civilian wage growth. “I do not see it as a pay cap. I see that as a baseline” intended to protect, not to penalize, service people, he said. “What the [actual] raise will be in any given year will be determined on a year-to-year basis. . . . And that’s a much, much better frame of reference than starting from zero” each year.
Dr. Perry acknowledged that the military’s transition to managed health care—along with tightening medical budgets—has reduced “space available” care for the elderly in its clinics and hospitals. “I care about that very much,” he said. “That’s front and center of unsolved problems we need to solve.”
The best solution. Dr. Perry said, would be “subvention” legislation, requiring the Medicare trust fund to reimburse the military for care of elderly. “I’m not pessimistic about getting [such] legislation." he said. The first step is to “demonstrate that this can be done in a fiscally neutral way,” without raising costs either to Medicare or defense. “And if we can demonstrate that, I don’t think there will be any opposition to it.”
And if you can't? Dr. Perry was asked.
"If we can't, we're sort of back to the drawing board. But I am optimistic....It's a problem that must be solved."
Dr. Perry has met regularly with the services' top enlisted advisers and credits their insights—and his own observations during visits to troops and sailors—for nurturing his commitment to personnel. Besides "embedding" pay raise money into five-year defense programs, Dr. Perry said, the "legacy" he hopes to leave for military people includes:
- Reviving family support programs. The Army showed how to do it right during deployment of 20,000 troops to Bosnia last winter, Dr. Perry said. More than 90% of families with the First Armored Division decided to stay in Germany during the deployment, in part because of the Army's robust support plan.
- Moving the military toward full implementation of Tricare Prime, the new managed health-care system. Dr. Perry said he is proud of Tricare, even though the potential shutout of Medicare-eligibles is not yet solved. "I believe [Tricare] is going to provide quality health care, better choices, while allowing us a mechanism to control costs."
- Pushing the services to reform the way military housing is bought, built, and maintained, by using limited military dollars as seed money to attract private investment capital. The program "is not moving as fast as I had hoped, but it is moving faster than I expected," he said. Over the next year, partnership deals will be struck with private investors to build 4,000 new housing units, with the services laying out as little as one-fifth of the overall cost.
The new leveraging schemes will have to be expanded dramatically in future years if the military is to ease its critical housing shortage. "How quickly it accelerates," Dr. Perry said, "probably depends on who's Secretary of Defense and how hard he's pushing it."
That sounds like a man ready to give someone else a turn.