Buyer's remarks to Military Update are significant because he is chairing the conference committee on military personnel, tasked to reconcile differences in pay and benefits issues found in separate House and Senate versions of the year 2000 Defense Authorization Bill. We don't have a magic wand. I don't know where the Christmas Tree is.
Lawmakers are usually reluctant to discuss closed-door conference committee work.
Buyer, however, wants military people to appreciate what they will get, and to understand they can't get it all. And now hard choices must be made. The House and Senate alternate responsibility for chairing conference committees and the House has it this year. So Buyer, as full time chairman of the House military personnel subcommittee, leads the personnel conferees. He said military people know about the bigger pay raise, the revised pay table to better reward performance, the improved retirement benefits for many on active duty and the tax-deferred Thrift Savings Plan.