Hey Vets, This One's For You

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Top Republican Invokes Detroit To Call For Cuts To Veterans’ Benefits

At least one top Republican is invoking the bankruptcy of Detroit and the rescue of the auto industry to call for cuts to the benefits of military veterans.


“Forty-four cents of every dollar we spend goes to military personnel,” House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) told Politico.

“You look at Detroit, you look at General Motors, you look at what happens when you build up these costs, but we aren’t doing anything about it in our [defense] bill this year.”

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Department of Defense received $155 billion — about a quarter of its budget — for personnel costs.

As the Baby Boomer generation begins to retire and the passion for cutting taxes has underfunded many obligations to retirees, cuts to public retirement benefits have become a passion for many Republicans.

The first budget written by Paul Ryan privatized both Social Security and Medicare while slashing Medicaid, the program that pays for nursing home coverage for Americans who cannot afford it otherwise. Subsequent versions of the Ryan Budget maintained the cuts to Medicaid while revising his Medicare proposal to include a “public option” for retirees.

The mania to revise or eliminate pension benefits will likely heighten after a judge ruled that pension obligations can be erased in Detroit’s ongoing bankruptcy.

“This is nothing short of theft, as pensions are simply deferred wages, that is, money that workers could have taken as cash in their regular paychecks had they not opted to set it aside,” writes David Cay Johnston.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/top-repu...rans-benefits/

You elect these Repug assholes, now reap the benefits!

[mouse]

I don't get all the spending cuts , not only is it just a temporary band aid fix at best, after all the cutting is done you end up with nothing left to cut.

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I don't get all the spending cuts , not only is it just a temporary band aid fix at best, after all the cutting is done you end up with nothing left to cut.

It's so ez.

The 1%/UCA pushes so hard to cut the safety net because they know that since their taxes have been cut, avoided, evaded, so severely while the their revenues increase insanely, the country has high deficits that will sooner or later have enough people wanting to raise taxes on the 1%/UCA. So cutting govt expenditures, aka austerity, lessens the pressure on the deficit, which lessens pressure on raising taxes on the wealthy.

There is simply no other benefit to the 1%/UCA in ing over the 47%.

The false panic used to justify privatizing SS is different. Wall St wants SS $Ts so it can charge 1-2%/year, sucking $100Bs/year out of retirement savings, just like Wall St does now with 401Ks.