Trial balloons are used from time to time to help shape U.S. defense policy. Some balloons soar and win acceptance. Others pop soon after they are launched. Once in a while a trial balloon escapes its handler before being tied properly. It has a brief, uncontrolled flight that sounds like a Bronx cheer. And that just about captures how the Defense Department this spring decided to revisit the touchy issue of military people on food stamps.
While taking a late lunch in his third-floor Pentagon office on 18 April 2000, Secretary of Defense William Cohen decided to watch a closed-circuit television channel showing his spokesman, Ken Bacon, sparring with reporters at his regular Tuesday news briefing. When the topic turned to military people on food stamps, Cohen's casual interest in the give-and-take deepened into real concern.
Reporters had Bacon on his heels trying to defend a proposed policy shift that, in the name of "equity," would knock several thousand junior enlisted families off food stamps. The Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the program, would be asked to begin counting the value of on-base housing as part of a member's "income" and thereby tighten food stamp eligibility, Bacon explained.
The issue of military folks on food stamps long has been a political headache for Pentagon leaders. Pay officials privately grumble that the number of "poor" among military families is exaggerated because the Department of Agriculture fails to recognize the value of on-base housing in assessing their financial challenge. USDA has the policy primarily to protect food stamp eligibility for low-income civilians in subsidized housing.
But while it creates a food stamp break for on-base families, it also presents an equity issue within the military. That is, junior enlisted with large families who live off base (and therefore draw housing allowances) cannot qualify for food stamps while their peers housed on base can. And those in base housing also have easy access to base stores, lower transportation costs, and reduced exposure to local taxes.
Bernard Rostker, Under Secretary of the Army, has a penchant for tackling tough issues and decided to solve this one quickly. Following his Senate confirmation hearing on 11 April, he shared his views on limiting food stamp eligibility with Army Times. Now Bacon, armed apparently with Rostker's talking points, was defending Rostker's plan to news reporters.
Trouble was, no one had cleared the idea with Cohen, a more seasoned politician who, as Secretary of Defense, wants to leave a legacy of steady quality-of-life gains for service people.
"I had no notice that any policy change had been proposed," said Cohen in an interview. "In fact, it was news to me that this had even been suggested. But when I saw that [it] would [pull] 3,700 people currently receiving food stamps off . . . well, to me, that was just the wrong thing to do."
The day after Bacon got grilled, Cohen replaced Rostker's plan with one of his own. He would seek equity in food stamp eligibility among service families by asking Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman to exclude from the program's definition of income all housing allowances paid to members living off base. If the USDA approves Cohen's plan, the number of military families eligible for food stamps would not be halved—to less than 3,000—but instead would double to more than 12,000. That is a better way to achieve equity, Cohen said.
"Those who are living off shouldn't be denied the same benefits as those living on base," Cohen said. This also is consistent, Cohen said, with his more ambitious goal to achieve equity in overall housing benefits between on-base and off-base populations. Cohen has asked Congress to raise housing allowances steadily over the next five years to end out-of-pocket rental costs for those forced to live off base.
Cohen acknowledged that military people on food stamps is a hot-button issue. He also acknowledged that, by expanding eligibility to more families, recent gains in service pay and allowances—which have cut military food stamp rolls in half since 1996—could get buried under more political rhetoric. Rostker's approach might have done more to ease the perception that young troops are underpaid, but for Cohen that is not a priority.
"I think compensation ought to be improved in any event," he said. "I've said before we can't pay as much as they deserve, but we can pay more than we've been paying."
The way to reduce food stamp eligibility, he said, is to continue to increase the relative value of pay and allowances. Meanwhile, service families living off base should qualify for the same level of federal assistance as families on base. "But I don't want to see equity achieved by saying the quickest way to reduce those on food stamps is to take the benefit away . . . . You have members with large families who then would really have to struggle to make ends meet. That's not the way we want to treat our folks."