The Tea Party as well as extremist conservatives have me very concerned of late especially in who they’ve been looking to for their leaders. Politicians like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann in particular and Bachmann got my intense interest when, in proposed legislation to rein in federal spending, she proposed to slash disabled veterans disability compensation by 4.5 billion dollars:
Veterans: $4.5 Billion
Cap increases in Department of Veterans Affairs health care spending, and reduce disability compensation to account for SS disability payments. Reduce Veterans’ Disability Compensation to account for Social Security Disability Insurance payments.
The entire original proposed legislation can be found here in .pdf format.
The VA has always been underfunded and has consistently suffered from budget shortfalls until President Obama, in an historic piece of legislation (at least for the VA it is), actually increased it’s funding for 2010 and further increased it for 2011. Now this woman wants to start taking it away? And as far as reducing payments by what a disabled vet receives in Social Security disability is just plain stupid. Only a small percentage of disabled vets actually receive both VA disability compensation and SS disability payments (between 150,000 to 160,000 out of a current 2.9 million disabled veterans) which gives you an idea how difficult it is to pry any disability payments out of Social Security at all.
This idiotic piece of proposed legislation of course received a huge backlash and she quickly back peddled saying:
“One point on my discussion list was a $4.5 billion proposal that would affect payments made to our veterans. That discussion point has received a lot of attention and I have decided to remove it from consideration. The problem of government spending must be solved, but not on the backs of our nation’s war heroes. I have always been a proud supporter of the United States military and I continue to stand with our veterans. In the months ahead I look forward to working with our Veterans Service Organizations to ensure that we fulfill our commitments to those who sacrificed so much in their brave service for our country.”
Yeah, right. And I’ve got some ocean front property in Vermont I’ll sell you for the right price.
The really scary thing about all this is that a person like Michele Bachmann can actually attain a position of power where she can propose legislation like this in the first place. Like her Cohort in Chief, Sarah Palin, she clearly has little understanding of how things work especially when reading her proposed legislation which basically amounts to repeal, reform, eliminate, reduce, cap, halve, slash, abolish and scale back without any explanation as to why, how, repercussions thereof or what, if anything, is supposed to take their place (the items to be cut, slashed and eliminated that is). Hell, you might as well have Joe Bombheaver in Backwater, SomeState write up some sort of “Cutting Government Spending” type legislation instead. It would probably make as much if not more sense.
Not only is it a dangerous time for disabled vets like myself but for all the folks in this country of ours when those like Bachmann and Palin who are viewed as leaders and perhaps future leaders of this country, haven’t a single clue.
I was here,just so you know. Not only worried about ya’ll but the neediest among us whom these “leaders” seem to think will not be direly harmed by their actions and actually don’t really care. Voters had their heads up their asses and the ass of the Fox.Then they sat back with a nice cup of tea or perhaps Koch. Ahh, it’s killing me watching this, wonder if anyone are kicking themselves in the ass for the terrible thing they have done. That’s all.
Oh, I shared on Facebook, thanks for adding that option.
Sandi – Well, welcome back! Long time no hear from you. I shouldn’t wonder that the Senate will stop these resolutions form the House cold. Still, the fact that these people who are in places of power would actually believe that these ludicrous ideas of theirs are worth while is plenty scary. That plus the fact that most of them indicate a mass subjectiveness on the part of the members of the House when objectiveness is so badly needed during these times. I swear high school students could do a better job of things.