[Gimpy]

Which do YOU think is more appropriate or important!


Just got through watching C-Span this afternoon as the House of Representatives voted on a couple of amendments to the Defense Authorization Bill of 2006 which includes the Department of Veterans Affairs budget for health care & disability benefits.

Representative Jim Marshall (Democrat-GA), a true patriot and outstanding advocate for Veterans rights, had once again offered an amendment to fully fund "concurrent receipt" or military retirement pay and VA disability compensation.

As I'm sure everyone is aware now, the Congress passed a "minimum" or "reduced" version of CR in 2002 that will take another 9 years to fully include all those vets who SHOULD be getting this. It helped, a little, but is a far cry from what is actually needed to reverse the injustice(s) of what is now being called "The Disabled Veterans Tax".

Well guess what?.....The House voted his amendment DOWN by a vote of 225 (Republicans) to 200 (nearly all Democrats)!


The other amendment was offered by Representative Salazar to fully fund the offset between military survivors retirement pay and the VA's survivors benefit Indemnity & compensation pay (which is a grand total of $983 a month for each "widow" or "widower" of a totally disabled vet). This was voted DOWN by the same vote.........225 to 200!


Can someone please tell me HOW in the HELL the Republicans in Congress (and the Whitehouse from where they get their "marching orders") could possibly justify this total neglect and outright slap in the face to disabled military veterans and their dependents?

I've done a little investigative analysis (that I'm SURE even those from "Rio Linda land" can comprehend....naw, forget it! On second thought, they probably have been brainwashed to the point of no return!). This analysis confirms without a DOUBT what I have been saying for the past 10 or 12 years now, ESPECIALLY the past 5 years or so!


And that is...........Republicans in Congress (and the Whitehouse) DO NOT ....repeat.......DO NOT give a RATS ASS about military veterans and their families when it comes to choosing between the Vets or their super-wealthy supporters and Corporate America . Their history speaks for itself!

See below!

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Congressional Budget Office Testimony

Statement of Sarah T. Jennings, Principal Analyst Defense, International Affairs, and Veterans' Affairs Cost Estimates Unit.

The Cost of Providing Retirement Annuities and Veterans'Disability Compensation to Certain Retirees of the Uniformed Services before the Subcommittee on Personnel Committee on Armed Services United States Senate.

March 27, 2003

What is concurrent receipt?

Under current law, veterans who are retired from the military, the Coast Guard, PHS, or NOAA cannot receive both full retirement annuities from the Department of Defense (DoD) and disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

Allowing the receipt of both benefits is often referred to as "concurrent receipt." Because of the prohibition on concurrent receipt, military retirees must choose between receiving a full, but generally taxable, retirement annuity and accepting the nontaxable veterans' benefit and, in exchange, forgoing an equal amount of their retirement annuity.

How many retirees are affected by this prohibition?

According to DoD, in fiscal year 2002, the prohibition on receiving both retirement and VA benefits affected about 545,000 retirees of the uniformed services with normal length-of-service retirements and about 147,000 retirees of the uniformed services with disability retirements; together, those retirees had about $4 billion withheld from their annuity checks in that year to offset their VA disability compensation.


How much would allowing concurrent receipt cost?

Last year, CBO estimated that providing concurrent receipt would increase direct spending by $46 billion over the 2003-2012 period. (All years referred to in this testimony are fiscal years.) In late 2002, however, lawmakers enacted legislation that authorized some retirees with combat-related disabilities to receive special compensation equivalent to concurrent receipt; that special compensation would no longer be paid if the Congress authorized concurrent receipt.

Last December, CBO estimated that the special compensation program would cost $6 billion over the 2003-2012 period. After updating last year's estimates of full concurrent receipt to reflect our latest economic assumptions and to encompass the 2004-2013 period, and after subtracting our estimate of the costs associated with the recently enacted program for CRSC (limited concurrent receipt), we estimate that the net cost of allowing concurrent receipt to be around $41 billion over the 2004-2013 period. The annual cost would start at about $3 billion in 2004 and grow to about $5 billion by 2013.

Those estimated costs may change slightly, however, once we incorporate the latest population data from DoD and the department determines how it will implement the new program of special compensation for combat-related disabilities.


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Now, Check THIS out!

The House and the Senate overwhelmingly voted on September 23, 2004 to extend three tax cuts aimed at the middle and upper class, along with an array of business tax breaks, sending President Bush a $146 billion tax cut that would be his fourth in four years.

With the approval of that legislation, virtually all of Bush's first-term tax agenda -- four tax measures worth nearly $1.9 trillion over 10 years - - would survive a potential second Bush term, unless Washington elects to change the tax code again. The total is $300 billion more in tax relief than Bush envisioned with his first tax-cut proposal in 2001.


So then............lemme see here a minute, ok????


$1.9 TRILLION in "TAX CUTS" over ten years (mostly to the wealthy and upper class folks) ......versus $41 BILLION for FULL IMPLEMENTATION of "concurrent receipt" of military retirement pay & VA compensation pay over the same ten year period (for about 692,000 deserving, disabled military retirees)------Which amounts to a MEASLY 4.6% of the OVERALL TAX CUTS!

Let's look at that again....FOUR and SIX/TENTHS PERCENT (4.6%) of the OVERALL TAX CUTS!

HUH? WHAT?...........CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT $HIT????

NOW...................Who do YOU think Bush and the Republicans support, HUH?????


Sure as hell AIN'T the VETERANS OR THEIR DEPENDENTS!


The DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE PROVES IT!