alchemike
Veteran Member
attention...all bush supporters...please get over your denial and wake up to the fact that you have been had...
how can anyone support this idiot and his idiots???
honestly...i mean it...all of you staunch bushyites...how can you support these clowns???
anyone on the board who knows me knows that i am against war with iraq...but if we do go, i certainly want our military men and women to be well protected and covered both during and after the conflict...
this administration doesn't even want to do that...they want these men and women to fight for their banker handlers...for their precious oil and opium...their precious power and control...and they want to give nothing to them in return...except an empty stocking...
absolutely reprehensible...and if i were in the mil i'd be screaming foul...
so take some time out from your worthless, partisan, democrat ripping and rip these scumbags too for a while...
rip them all!!! they are scum...repubs and dems alike...and they have collectively sold out our nation...and it is not helping any of us to try to determine which evil is worse than the other...
o)<
mike
ps...i look forward to all the responses explaining to me that this is actually a great deal for the vets...
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/10.09B.bush.veto.p.htm
(*Editors Note | Perhaps the soldiers being deployed to fight in Iraq should reconsider. We have a President that doesn't believe
they should be compensated for disabilities. Every other government employee upon retirement can recieve their retirement pay and
disibility if they qualify. Only the military has to choose one or the other. George w. Bush can find billions for new weapons programs
but cant find money to compensate disabled veterans. Yet another case of misguided priorities. -- sg)
Bush Threatens Veto of Defense Bill
President Wants Costly New Disabled Military Pension Benefits Eliminated
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 7, 2002; Page A02
Alarmed by the cost of expanding military entitlement programs, President Bush has threatened to veto the $355 billion defense
authorization bill for the new fiscal year if House and Senate conferees do not eliminate new pension benefits for disabled military
retirees that could cost from $18.5 billion to $58 billion over the next decade.
"We simply cannot continue to add ever-expansive obligations to the defense budget," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
said in a letter to the conferees, who could decide the issue this week. "This would divert critical resources away from the war on
terrorism, the transformation of our military capabilities and important personnel programs such as pay raises and facilities
improvements."
The Pentagon spends in excess of $35 billion a year -- approximately the military budget of France -- on military pension and
health care entitlements that are among the most generous in the country for public- or private-sector employees. With the new
pension program, the defense budget would become one of the federal government's fastest-growing entitlements.
The pension provision would for the first time allow military retirees to collect retirement benefits from the Pentagon and disability
benefits from the Veterans Administration at the same time. Proponents call this "concurrent receipt." Some critics use another
term -- "double dipping." Under the law, a military retiree's pension benefits must be reduced, dollar for dollar, by the amount of
disability benefits received from the VA.
The House-passed version applies only to military retirees who are considered 60 percent disabled or more by the VA, and it
would cost $18.5 billion over the next 10 years. The Senate version applied to virtually all military retirees receiving VA disability
compensation and would cost $58 billion over the same period.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of the conferees, said Friday that overwhelming majorities in both houses passed a version of the
"concurrent receipt" provision out of basic fairness. Disabled veterans should be able to receive military retirement benefits and
VA disability benefits without an offset, he said, because retirement pay is for length of service and disability compensation is for
pain and suffering incurred in uniform.
Although McCain supports the Senate's expansive version, one compromise discussed by conferees to get around a presidential
veto, he said, would be to limit "concurrent receipt" only to combat-injured military retirees, greatly reducing the cost of either
House or Senate version.
"No other category of federal employee," said Bob Manhan, assistant director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars legislative office,
"is required to relinquish a portion of their earned retirement pay simply because they are also receiving VA disability
compensation."
But David S.C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said VA disability compensation is intended, not to
supplement military pensions, but to compensate disabled veterans who leave the military after a few years' service and do not
qualify for full military pensions.
Military retirees with disabilities who qualify for pensions, Chu said, are more than adequately compensated without VA benefits.
Their pension benefits are already among the most generous in the United States and fully indexed annually for inflation. Military
retirees also receive lifetime health care and other benefits, he said.
"The bottom line is, we don't see the problem for which $58 billion of the taxpayers' money over the next 10 years is required to
solve," Chu said.
There is no question, he added, that allowing disabled veterans to concurrently receive retirement and disability pay will take
money from weapons procurement and other accounts intended to benefit active-duty personnel.
"We're going to rob Peter to pay Paul," he said, "and the question is, should Peter really lose here?"
Enactment of a "concurrent receipt" provision would come on top of legislation Congress passed in 2000 extending lifetime health
and prescription benefits under the military's Tricare health insurance system to 1.4 million uniformed service retirees age 65 and
older and family members and survivors.
The new benefits, which set military retirees well apart from other senior citizens, cost $3.9 billion last fiscal year. This year, the
cost jumps to $8 billion in Pentagon contributions to a fund designed to pay for the added health benefits on an accrual basis.
In testimony in May before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Rumsfeld said the total cost of military health care, including
the new lifetime health and prescription benefits for the elderly, would be a "breathtaking" $22.8 billion this year, more than Italy's
defense budget.
"The hard truth is that this line item promises to grow and put pressure on all other categories of the budget -- research and
development, modernization, transformation, pay and the like," Rumsfeld said. "We need to face up to it."
A year before passing lifetime health care and prescription benefits for military retirees, Congress repealed a pension reform act
passed in 1986 that reduced pension benefits for those entering military service after Aug. 1, 1986, from 50 percent to 40 percent
of final pay after 20 years. The cost of that repeal adds an additional $1.1 billion to this year's defense budget.
Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization that advocates fiscal responsibility and
lobbies for Social Security, said Congress's willingness to increase benefits for disabled veterans is "part of a pattern" that began
with the pension reform repeal and continued with passage of lifetime health care and prescription benefits.
"When the budget surpluses started happening, politicians stopped thinking in terms of hard choices and started expanding
entitlements," Bixby said. "Now we're back into deficits, but nobody has scaled back their desire to expand entitlements they
developed in the days of surpluses."
This is particularly true when it comes to the military, he said. "The military is in a favored environment right now because we're in
a war setting," he said. "Anything in the military gets a pass, whether it's related to the war or not."
In a report last month, the General Accounting Office concluded in a study on Pentagon benefits that military personnel get all the
retirement, health and employment benefits as private-sector employees -- and more, particularly after a series of recent
enhancements designed to improve retention rates.
"These include free health care for members, free housing or housing allowances and discount shopping at commissaries and
exchanges," the GAO said. "Major enhancements to benefits included the restoration of retirement benefits that had been cut for
military service members who entered military service on or after August 1, 1986, and increases in the basic housing allowance to
reduce out-of-pocket housing expenses for service members not living in military housing."
Pay has also been substantially improved. "Congress approved across-the-board pay raises of 4.8 percent for fiscal year 2000 and
3.7 percent for fiscal year 2001, along with targeted pay raises to mid-level officers and enlisted personnel," the GAO said. "For
fiscal year 2002, Congress approved pay raises ranging between 5 and 10 percent, depending on pay grade and years of service."
original article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51794-2002Oct6?language=printer
how can anyone support this idiot and his idiots???
honestly...i mean it...all of you staunch bushyites...how can you support these clowns???
anyone on the board who knows me knows that i am against war with iraq...but if we do go, i certainly want our military men and women to be well protected and covered both during and after the conflict...
this administration doesn't even want to do that...they want these men and women to fight for their banker handlers...for their precious oil and opium...their precious power and control...and they want to give nothing to them in return...except an empty stocking...
absolutely reprehensible...and if i were in the mil i'd be screaming foul...
so take some time out from your worthless, partisan, democrat ripping and rip these scumbags too for a while...
rip them all!!! they are scum...repubs and dems alike...and they have collectively sold out our nation...and it is not helping any of us to try to determine which evil is worse than the other...
o)<
mike
ps...i look forward to all the responses explaining to me that this is actually a great deal for the vets...
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/10.09B.bush.veto.p.htm
(*Editors Note | Perhaps the soldiers being deployed to fight in Iraq should reconsider. We have a President that doesn't believe
they should be compensated for disabilities. Every other government employee upon retirement can recieve their retirement pay and
disibility if they qualify. Only the military has to choose one or the other. George w. Bush can find billions for new weapons programs
but cant find money to compensate disabled veterans. Yet another case of misguided priorities. -- sg)
Bush Threatens Veto of Defense Bill
President Wants Costly New Disabled Military Pension Benefits Eliminated
By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 7, 2002; Page A02
Alarmed by the cost of expanding military entitlement programs, President Bush has threatened to veto the $355 billion defense
authorization bill for the new fiscal year if House and Senate conferees do not eliminate new pension benefits for disabled military
retirees that could cost from $18.5 billion to $58 billion over the next decade.
"We simply cannot continue to add ever-expansive obligations to the defense budget," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
said in a letter to the conferees, who could decide the issue this week. "This would divert critical resources away from the war on
terrorism, the transformation of our military capabilities and important personnel programs such as pay raises and facilities
improvements."
The Pentagon spends in excess of $35 billion a year -- approximately the military budget of France -- on military pension and
health care entitlements that are among the most generous in the country for public- or private-sector employees. With the new
pension program, the defense budget would become one of the federal government's fastest-growing entitlements.
The pension provision would for the first time allow military retirees to collect retirement benefits from the Pentagon and disability
benefits from the Veterans Administration at the same time. Proponents call this "concurrent receipt." Some critics use another
term -- "double dipping." Under the law, a military retiree's pension benefits must be reduced, dollar for dollar, by the amount of
disability benefits received from the VA.
The House-passed version applies only to military retirees who are considered 60 percent disabled or more by the VA, and it
would cost $18.5 billion over the next 10 years. The Senate version applied to virtually all military retirees receiving VA disability
compensation and would cost $58 billion over the same period.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of the conferees, said Friday that overwhelming majorities in both houses passed a version of the
"concurrent receipt" provision out of basic fairness. Disabled veterans should be able to receive military retirement benefits and
VA disability benefits without an offset, he said, because retirement pay is for length of service and disability compensation is for
pain and suffering incurred in uniform.
Although McCain supports the Senate's expansive version, one compromise discussed by conferees to get around a presidential
veto, he said, would be to limit "concurrent receipt" only to combat-injured military retirees, greatly reducing the cost of either
House or Senate version.
"No other category of federal employee," said Bob Manhan, assistant director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars legislative office,
"is required to relinquish a portion of their earned retirement pay simply because they are also receiving VA disability
compensation."
But David S.C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said VA disability compensation is intended, not to
supplement military pensions, but to compensate disabled veterans who leave the military after a few years' service and do not
qualify for full military pensions.
Military retirees with disabilities who qualify for pensions, Chu said, are more than adequately compensated without VA benefits.
Their pension benefits are already among the most generous in the United States and fully indexed annually for inflation. Military
retirees also receive lifetime health care and other benefits, he said.
"The bottom line is, we don't see the problem for which $58 billion of the taxpayers' money over the next 10 years is required to
solve," Chu said.
There is no question, he added, that allowing disabled veterans to concurrently receive retirement and disability pay will take
money from weapons procurement and other accounts intended to benefit active-duty personnel.
"We're going to rob Peter to pay Paul," he said, "and the question is, should Peter really lose here?"
Enactment of a "concurrent receipt" provision would come on top of legislation Congress passed in 2000 extending lifetime health
and prescription benefits under the military's Tricare health insurance system to 1.4 million uniformed service retirees age 65 and
older and family members and survivors.
The new benefits, which set military retirees well apart from other senior citizens, cost $3.9 billion last fiscal year. This year, the
cost jumps to $8 billion in Pentagon contributions to a fund designed to pay for the added health benefits on an accrual basis.
In testimony in May before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Rumsfeld said the total cost of military health care, including
the new lifetime health and prescription benefits for the elderly, would be a "breathtaking" $22.8 billion this year, more than Italy's
defense budget.
"The hard truth is that this line item promises to grow and put pressure on all other categories of the budget -- research and
development, modernization, transformation, pay and the like," Rumsfeld said. "We need to face up to it."
A year before passing lifetime health care and prescription benefits for military retirees, Congress repealed a pension reform act
passed in 1986 that reduced pension benefits for those entering military service after Aug. 1, 1986, from 50 percent to 40 percent
of final pay after 20 years. The cost of that repeal adds an additional $1.1 billion to this year's defense budget.
Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization that advocates fiscal responsibility and
lobbies for Social Security, said Congress's willingness to increase benefits for disabled veterans is "part of a pattern" that began
with the pension reform repeal and continued with passage of lifetime health care and prescription benefits.
"When the budget surpluses started happening, politicians stopped thinking in terms of hard choices and started expanding
entitlements," Bixby said. "Now we're back into deficits, but nobody has scaled back their desire to expand entitlements they
developed in the days of surpluses."
This is particularly true when it comes to the military, he said. "The military is in a favored environment right now because we're in
a war setting," he said. "Anything in the military gets a pass, whether it's related to the war or not."
In a report last month, the General Accounting Office concluded in a study on Pentagon benefits that military personnel get all the
retirement, health and employment benefits as private-sector employees -- and more, particularly after a series of recent
enhancements designed to improve retention rates.
"These include free health care for members, free housing or housing allowances and discount shopping at commissaries and
exchanges," the GAO said. "Major enhancements to benefits included the restoration of retirement benefits that had been cut for
military service members who entered military service on or after August 1, 1986, and increases in the basic housing allowance to
reduce out-of-pocket housing expenses for service members not living in military housing."
Pay has also been substantially improved. "Congress approved across-the-board pay raises of 4.8 percent for fiscal year 2000 and
3.7 percent for fiscal year 2001, along with targeted pay raises to mid-level officers and enlisted personnel," the GAO said. "For
fiscal year 2002, Congress approved pay raises ranging between 5 and 10 percent, depending on pay grade and years of service."
original article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51794-2002Oct6?language=printer
