Posted on 01/15/2014 7:21:15 PM PST by SkyPilot
The feedback continues, with a bunch of military veterans and family members asking me how I could defend the callous COLA cuts to military pensions by way of explaining why Congress is trying to undo them. Another reader email:
I strenuously object to being asked to sacrifice any more! I risked my life in two deployments to war zones, sacrificed my health (I'm also a disabled veteran), and jeopardized my relationship with my family for my country. I find Congress' latest demand a kick in the gut. We veterans and retirees have sacrificed enough without having to endure the pain of COLA cuts. Congress must first reduce the COLA for all current federal retirees (including members of Congress) and Social Security recipients and demand additional sacrifices from non-military Americans. Or better yet, I'm sure there are $6 billion that could be saved by closing corporate tax loopholes, cutting farm subsidies to wealthy corporations, etc. There are at least $6 billion in waste in the defense budget alone. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will cost at least $400 billion, and it doesn't even work! But military veterans and retirees should be the last group Congress asks for more sacrifice.
If I've heard this much, I can only imagine what Republicans have been getting in their voicemails and inboxes. On The Hugh Hewitt Show yesterday, Paul Ryan was handed the hideous job of defending the cuts against a host who found them morally outrageous.
"Had Mitt and I won that election, this would not be required," said Ryan. "This would not be necessary."
Hewitt wouldn't have it. "This will destroy retention," he said. "It will destroy morale, and it is deeply unfair to the American military which has sacrificed more than anyone else."
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Team Romney unopposed, it should read
“But Flaggy, there are those in this thread who made choices based on their concrete Conservative stand...
do you understand the difference these days ???”
Ah yes, Nanny, I do understand the difference. The difference was Republicans or Obama. No thanks to those that didn’t vote for Republicans or didn’t vote at all, we got Obama. Thank you very much for that, as that IS the difference, isn’t it.
No Dearie the difference is people of principles stuck to them...
Apparently, Paul Ryan thinks retirees should be punished because he and Mitt lost the election. That type of retribution is what is killing the supposed "other" party. It says that republicans like Ryan want one of their OWN, BEST segments of their base, career military, to suffer.
It tells me they completely disrespect those who've been in the heat of battle paying the price for the nation's wars.
They have no idea that it's the career military who make the military function, who keep the young ones from getting stupidly killed or injured, who provide wise, experienced leadership, who have deployed time and time again to buttress the policies of Congress and the President, whether adventurist, foolhardy, or necessary.
Ryan needs to lose his position. He's a traitor to his own supporters....by his own words.
Well, Mr. Ryan, sir.
If you and Mr. Romney had half the courage of your convictions that your opponents have, maybe people might have been inspired to show up and vote for you.
Minority? OK.
wouldn’t hurt me at all to see them both retire or be beaten in a primary
Wimpy ryan should just enjoy his CON-gressional bennies and stfu, as the whole three card monte routine is a joke...
unless of course, he cant make my bank accept the same terms for my mortgage...if so, then i might as well get on that gravy train and enjoy *todays* free* lunch...
sadly, i dont think that the bank will agree to let me have more money on a simple *promise* to start paying them in 10 yrs...
oh and mitt was and still is a NE liberal douchebag...
The irony here is that thread theme is ranting about Ryan because of specific budget cuts in the budget, in this case some cuts in military fixed pay pensions. At the same time it restored funding to military operations like flight training.
Cant raise taxes, must cut spending, OH but cant cut that. Cut that other guys pork.
Fun to see the 2012 FR Romney debates repeated on this thread.
Lots of finger pointing repeats from 2012.
The "fix" in the omnibus does not cover any disabled veteran who served 20 years or more. Only those who were retired before 20 years.
The news media is completely misreporting this story.
As the wounded warrior advocate stated in his letter to a staffer at the beginning of this thread, a military member can be 0% disabled and retired early (Chapter 61), and their pensions are not cut. But, someone who served 20 years and was severely wounded in combat, and is now 100% disabled has their pension cut.
Congress needs to repeal this for every military retiree. But they won't. It is now obvious they will refuse to even address this injustice further unless there is a public outcry.
The GOP leadership has no idea how much moral authority they have thrown away on this issue. If they lose big this fall, I have little doubt it will be in part because this issue has highlighted that they cannot be trusted.
That's the same take away I got out of it.
“No Dearie the difference is people of principles stuck to them...”
Well, Sweetie, they sure did stick us with something. We’re stuck with Obama.
Meanwhile, the King and Queen spend billions on their vacations and members of Congress act like royalty as well. November 2014 can’t get here soon enough.
Vote RATs and RINOs out.
I doubt they want to win. It doesn’t seem that they want to be in the majority.
Well great! You voted. I won’t ask for whom you voted but again your previous statements advocate that there would have been no difference if the kenyan had lost; a concept shared by way too many who did sit it out or maybe wrote in a vote as a protest. Every vote that is held back or that went to a write-in is a vote for the kenyan. Saying that there would have been no difference between the two candidates is an empty rationalization.
And yes, I do care about this because every twit who didn’t vote or threw away their vote made it possible for the kenyan to stay in place. That is unacceptable and every person who did that bears a responsibility for the evil this POS does to our Constitution and country.
If you don’t want to collect flak then don’t make public statements that imply that withholding a vote or throwing away a vote, enabling a greater evil is ok.
Now run along yourself.
“Congress needs to repeal this for every military retiree. But they won’t. It is now obvious they will refuse to even address this injustice further unless there is a public outcry.”
Congress will do nothing. There will be no public outcry. Even on FreeRepublic, there are many who argue we retirees are raking in generous benefits we do not deserve, even though those benefits were prepaid DURING our time on active duty.
Military retirement may be the only retirement plan in the country that has been fully funded on a pay-as-you-go basis, with no sign of ever falling short - and Congress and the public look at that as reason to raid the pension so they can give benefits to illegals.
Politics has become nothing more than a struggle between interest groups for who can take the most money. Military retirees are a very small percentage of the population, and “our guys” - the Republicans - are weak pretenders instead of fighters.
So Congress will raid military pensions to fund 15% of the money needed to give tax refunds to illegals...because democrats care about the votes of illegal aliens, and will fight for them. Our guys only pretend to care about the military, when what they really care about is defense contractors who buy them with contributions.
In a couple of years, you will see a push to eliminate retirement benefits to anyone under 62 “because they don’t deserve it”. That money will be used to fund perhaps 5% of the SS shortfall...or to extend unemployment benefits to 156 weeks!
You seriously need to get a grip.
Ryan is showing his true colors, some of us knew that before the election.
Tell me how Romney would have been better?
abortion - no
homosexuality - no
fighting islamics - no
fighting common core - no
lowering taxes - no
fighting against regulations - no
ending obamacare - no
Listen the election is over, now work on getting conservatives elected.
Before you say it, Christie is not a conservative and no I will not vote for him.
Just so you understand, there is no such thing as a wasted vote, unless it is not cast.
So stop blaming me for not supporting a liberal just because he had a R after his name, I have standards.
No it didn’t. Keep up with the game. The “compromise” was to take money from the retired Veterans and give it to HEADSTART. Why would the Democrats care about moving money around within the Defense budget? The Democrats wanted some money from the Defense budget to buy votes from their base. Ryan gave them money from the retired Veterans.
They didn’t restore any of the sequester military cuts funding?
They are still being furloughed?
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