Bill Summary – FastDemocracy

SECOND REGULAR SESSION
                     HOUSE CONCURRENT
                      RESOLUTION NO. 34
                            103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY
                           INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVE HARBISON.
    6592H.01I                                                             JOSEPH ENGLER, Chief Clerk



            WHEREAS, Major Richard Star was an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran who, after
 2 exposure to burn pits during his service, received a diagnosis of lung cancer; and
 3
 4          WHEREAS, due to his diagnosis, Major Richard Star was forced to retire before
 5 completing twenty years of service and was therefore unable to collect his retirement and
 6 disability benefits; and
 7
 8          WHEREAS, for every dollar of disability pay they receive, veterans with less than
 9 twenty years of service and a disability rating of less than fifty percent will have their
10 retirement pay reduced by a dollar; and
11
12          WHEREAS, an estimated fifty thousand retired service members are ineligible for
13 concurrent benefits under the current rules; and
14
15          WHEREAS, according to the Congressional Budget Office, in 2022, the average
16 offset was approximately one thousand nine hundred dollars a month; and
17
18          WHEREAS, the Major Richard Star Act would remove these restrictions and ensure
19 that all service members who have medically retired can receive full access to retirement pay
20 and Department of Veterans Affairs disability benefits; and
21
22          WHEREAS, after dying from his battle with lung cancer in 2021, Major Richard
23 Star's widow claimed that his greatest goal was to get legislation passed providing for the
24 removal of these restrictions; and
25
26          WHEREAS, the United States owes these benefits to its veterans regardless of the
27 cost associated with their allocation:
HCR 34                                             2

28
29          NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the members of the House of
30   Representatives of the One Hundred Third General Assembly, Second Regular Session, the
31   Senate concurring therein, hereby urge the Congress of the United States to support the Major
32   Richard Star Act to allow all medically retired service members to receive full access to their
33   much-deserved retirement pay and benefits; and
34
35          BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Chief Clerk of the Missouri House of
36   Representatives be instructed to prepare a properly inscribed copy of this resolution for each
37   member of the Missouri congressional delegation.
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