Posted on 11/08/2009 12:38:34 AM PST by Former Military Chick
More than a month after a new fiscal year began Oct. 1, the House and Senate are still pressing to pass a group of bills to improve veterans’ benefits and health programs, rolling them together in “omnibus” legislative packets.
The omnibus bills can then be shaped by final compromises between the two chambers and passed relatively quickly, often by voice vote, so lawmakers can move on to other business.
Standing athwart those plans this month, however, is Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a family physician whose top goal as a lawmaker has been to slow the rising tide of debt caused, he says, by colleagues who are willing to pass or spend whatever is necessary to assure their re-election.
Coburn frequently uses his prerogative as a senator to put a hold on bills. In this case, it is a $3.7 billion packet of health care initiatives called the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2009.
The bill’s centerpiece is unprecedented support for family caregivers of severely wounded veterans, those injured since 9/11. They would be paid a stipend based on hours and level of care. VA also would pay for replacement caregivers when family members seek respite from their care obligations.
The idea is to give more very severely wounded veterans an option other than institutional care.
But Coburn has refused to allow it to come to a floor vote. His spokesman, John Hart, said the senator’s biggest concern is that the Senate doesn’t intend to pay for the bill with an offset of current spending or higher taxes, so its passage will add to annual budget deficits and the national debt.
Coburn “believes strongly if we don’t start paying for things we’re not going to have a country left to defend,” Hart said. “He says we are waterboarding the next generation with debt and somebody has to stand up and say, ‘Let’s cut it out.’ ”
The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee acknowledges that money hasn’t been found to cover at least $2.8 billion of the bill’s $3.7 billion projected cost over the next five years.
Sen. Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawaii, chairman of the committee, argues that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars also haven’t been “paid for” and proper care of wounded veterans is just another very necessary cost of war.
Another reason Coburn blocks the bill, Hart said, is that it isn’t fair to extend caregiver benefits to wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan but not to those severely injured in the Persian Gulf War, Vietnam or earlier conflicts.
Finally, Coburn believes VA isn’t “making smart use of existing benefits and therefore avoiding duplication,” Hart said. “This is legislation very popular for politicians to put forward for Veterans Day. But we need to produce a higher quality of care rather than press releases.”
He said Coburn will introduce alternative legislation because he supports the goals of the bill.
Correction Last week’s column on the Survivor Benefit Plan used analysis from the think-tank CNA as presented in a September memo to the deputy commandant of the Marine Corps. After several readers questioned those figures on SBP costs and benefits, CNA analyst Anita Hattiangadi reviewed the material and found two significant errors.
First, in the example of a typical 40-year-old military retiree who dies at age 65, he will have paid a total of $47,703 in SBP premiums, not $62,000. What the $62,000 actually represents is the most premiums the retiree would have to pay regardless of when he dies, said Hattiangadi.
Also, the $401,897 figure given for total payments that a retiree’s widow would receive if she were to live just seven years past his death, until age 70, was wrong. The correct amount is $241,000. The larger figure should have been labeled by CNA as total SBP paid to the 63-year-old surviving spouse if she lived to age 85, her normal life expectancy.
Hattiangadi said her “main point still holds: SBP is a great deal for servicemembers and their families.” She referred to a more thorough cost-benefit analysis of SBP and its relative value prepared by the Defense Department’s Office of the Actuary. The link to that online is: http://actuary.defense.gov/program/sbpsubsidy09.xls
To comment, e-mail milupdate@aol.com, write to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111 or visit: www.militaryupdate.com
I will be curious to see what fellow freeper's think about this.
I certainly do not want folks from other conflicts to feel less important but many of them might agree assisting caregivers would be helpful and taking the wounded out of a hosptial setting can improve their recovery. Part of me is a bit frustrated but part of me wants our vets to get all they are entitled to and more.
The more I think about it the more I think I am going to call the senators office, allow it to go to the floor, it seems the right thing to do. imho
Love to read your thoughts on this article.
Having said that, it's comic how they're spending so much time on four billion, while the Dems toss hundreds of billions around in this insane healthcare package and the bailouts.
These kinds of things have to be addressed logically and carefully, and the time factor isn't really alarming, to me. That's how government works, so I see no problem with addressing budgetary issues straight across the board.
I trust you don't think that means I want military families like your own to suffer. If we had the attitude and leadership necessary, this kind of thing wouldn't go down to the wire each time.
Maybe if some pissed off Christian military would snap and take out a few or more muzzie/commie/politicians ... a true re-revolution could accur with leadership.
Your thoughts are greatly appreciated and this is what FR is known for the ability to debate with reasoned minds. As I said I have mixed feelings.
I am not sure holding up a bill is the right answer, clarify the bill, do we need to spend more NO, but than look at balancing it from the Veterans Affairs needs and adjust accordingly.
This country has been amazing to step up and help our wounded warriors but and I say this with all kindness to those suffering with other diseases if we can assit with home care provider’s and return folks to their home’s I think recovery would improve.
As for time, I agree, some bills take years, but I will say the tricare system isn’t what some would like folks to believe I pay out of my husbands monthly LES 1000.00 for my medication’s that isn’t covered and we have been fighting it for some time, for some that is a house payment that we have saved for.
So, I do think there is much improvement that can be made for our returning wounded warriors.
Which is why I think before you pass a new health care legislation, you should address the problems of the current programs at hand.
Excellent observations Darkwolf377, thank you for your thoughts.
I am a big supporter of the ideas in the bill in terms of financial assistance for at-home care. I don't need to elaborate on the reasons, we agree on them, I'm sure.
My only consideration here is that he is making an effort to be sure these things are paid for.
And of course, he wouldn't have to worry about such things if Washington had its priorities straight. But it doesn't, and this is one of the awful side-effects.
And again, I strongly support his idea that this benefit should extend to all families of all vets from all wars.
As the son of a career military officer who was wounded and disabled in Vietnam, I’d like to weight in.
I believe citizens of this nation have an obligation to those who serve. I also agree with Coburn that fiscal sanity must prevail. If we are going to add Veterans programs we need to find ways to pay for them. If it is in our national interest to send troops into harms way in Iraq and Afghanistan, we should also be paying for those wars out of current revenues, not borrowing for our children to pay in the future.
The problem we have today is our Congress and President are not making choices. While we conservatives may cherish our Constitution, the system as it is employed today is broken. Congress is incapable of weighing competing demands for revenue from the treasury. For some reason they can’t make the decision to fund a new veterans benefit at the expense of the park service, education, health care, public housing, highways, etc. They also won’t vote taxes to fund extraordinary expenses such as the Iraq War.
Unless something is done to bring fiscal responsibility to our government soon, it won’t matter. When the entire economic system collapses, the dollar becomes worthless, and foreign nations will no longer fund our borrowing, the veterans will not be cared for, the poor will not receive food stamps, the military will not be funded, the roads will not be built. We will descend into anarchy and then into the type of totalitarian third world state ruling most of the world’s citizens today.
We are at a point of economic crisis. The government must say no to new spending and cut existing programs. This includes the war itself. If we do not have the stomach and will to fight to win, we should pull out the troops today.
It isn’t a question of funding a new government program for veterans, it is a question of economic survival. Until we get our house in order, we cannot afford additional spending on anything. Coburn is correct — don’t fund this new program unless we have a way to pay for it.
I agree with the Senator totally. The bill is an excellent one and needs to be passed and as such is a great opportunity for him to make use the Dems hypocritical tendencies against them. My guess is most of them don't give a rat's ass about the vets and their families. They see a way to use OPM to buy votes. Call ‘em on it. Force them to pay for it by cutting some other program or expenditure.
They've been using this tactic for over 40 years now. Children, pregnant ladies, the disabled, the handicapped, the list goes on an on. They've come to depend on the fact that most voters would skewer anyone who dared be against a measure designed to help these people.
I think the Senator has chosen a great bill with which to hold their feet to the fire. Handled properly his approach can get these funds that are so very deserved by the vets AND he can expose the Dems for the lying, conniving bastards they are.
And as an aside, this bill is so patently obviously needed that you full well there will be all sorts of earmarks attached since it's one that anyone who votes against, just to stop the earmarks, will be fodder for their class warfare, disingenuous canons.
I have come to hate them with every fiber of my being. I would hope that Sen. Coburn has picked his battle carefully and can use the sacrifice of these men and women and their long suffering families to do one more good good deed to the country they fought for, and that's to start the long arduous task of holding liberals feet to the fire, making them put their money, or actually OUR money, where their fat, lying mouths are.
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I absolutely agree that we should be paying for these things out of current revenues -- I just can't figure out how, especially wars. Wars are always expensive and uncertain. How could we have funded the Iraq War out of current revenues? At some point, I'm guessing, there would have had to have been tax increases. And I guess the government could have sold war bonds, like in WWII, but bonds are debt, not current revenue. Historically, war=debt.
Haven't we all learned by now that whenever a Dem appears to be doing something for the vets, it's just a variation on that old tune, "It's for THE CHIIIILDREN"?
Wrong. Governmet spending = debt. Our military is not going to bankrupt the country.
Let’s fund medicare out of current revenues,hmmm? How about
social insecurity?
Oh, no can’t be done. Medicare is $30 trillion in debt and will not be sustainable in another 9 years. Social Security
broke with unfunded mandates which will plunge us into
another $40 trillion in debt.
However cutting the military budget and execising fiscal
restaint makes sense.
It’s like claiming you fixed a dam break by putting putty around the doors.
Hey, I didn't say anything about cutting the military budget. I just agreed with another commenter that we should pay for things as we go along, and that would include Medicare, Social Security, bureaucrats' paychecks, the toilet paper in congressional bathrooms, etc, etc.
I do wonder, because wars are very expensive, how it would be possible to pay for a war only out of current revenues. I'm not sure it's ever been done in modern times.
Do you know of any modern wars -- say from the 18th century on -- that haven't been waged with borrowed money?
Amen, brother.
The proof is in looking not at the words that came before the act, but the outcome of the act. I can't think of a single program liberals have ever proposed, and then shamed through Congress, that did what it was supposed to do, AT THE PRICE they promised. Big ideas, grandiose schemes, lots of press and brouhaha, then on to the next opportunity to solidify their power and their hold on sucking at the public teat. As my Mom used to call it, “Slopping at the public trough!”
What a fitting tribute to these brave men and women who literally gave a part of their life to defend America than to have their sacrifice serve again, this time to call the Democrats and liberals on their time-honored tradition of living off the troubles of others.
Anyone who has actually "worked" for the government knows that the government does not take care of anyone...it uses you and then forgets about you. The Country as a whole is about to learn this painful lesson.
Long line of military all the way back to the first revolution. Those who stepped up to the plate in the civil war had their widows and children starved to death. The VA is the biggest rat hole there ever was. If you join up with the "government" to get something for yourself, rather than to give something, you are in for a very rude awakening.
...the government does not care about anyone....
Find the money on this one Senator; you took a pass on military service yourself so this puts you in a tough position. Jesse Helms would have handled this by proposing cuts in a myriad of waste (Food Stamps, The National Endowment for the Arts, Ditto the Humanities, the Legal Services Administration, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, etc. As an aside, as a budget hawk, I’m puzzled that he is not championing the Line Item Veto for this president and every one who follows.
we have to face the fact that even our beloved military is out of control budget wise....just like our federal employees and infact, all govt employees......
you want to pay them more?....take away the very generous pensions or at least make them wait till age 55 or 60 for them....
if we believe in fiscal conservatism, then it has to start even with the military...
They fought the Viet Nam War with draftees paid a little bit more than that ~ although they were subject to a 10% surcharge on top of regular income taxes (Oh, my goodness, they paid income taxes on the little pay they got? Oh, my goodness yes).
A GS 7 government employee at the time was paid, at entry level, just over $7,000 per year. They also paid income taxes.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, using every tax break in the law, paid less income tax than a GS-7, or an Army draftee for that matter.
I'm still very angry with the elected members of Congress who have served over the last 50 years ~
The ol’ rumor about “Big Army Pay” is still circulating I see.
Could it possibly be because the USSC, by a 6-3 vote, struck down the line item veto in 1998? And because what is referred to as a line item veto today isn't technically a line item veto, and only requires a simple majority in both houses to overcome? How effective would that be against the majorities the Dims have today?
Get real.
You rewrite the law to accomodate the USSC’s concerns. Even forcing the congress to vote on pork line by line would be worthwhile.
During Bush43, a law doing just that was drafted. It didn’t pass, but the way to get around the USSC ruling is to allow the “veto” to be overcome with simple majority votes in both houses.
That’s not a veto; it’s a delaying tactic.
Please do some research before you offer such uninformed opinions. Thirty seconds of searching and reading would have shown you that your opinion was wrong.
I know all about it, I’ve been following it for years since President Reagan pursued then gave up on the goal. It’s not a delaying tactic, to be able to selectively vetoe pork would force a vote to confirm the waste which in many/most cases wouldn’t be sustaine. Of course, another tactic which would accomplish the same thing would be to resume the impoundment authority taken away from President Nixon. It’s interesting Coburn chose to hold this bill, instead of things that are abosolutely wasteful (CPB, LSA, NEA, etc.).
Think of all of the money that could go to our military if we were not paying for 100% of illegals medical bills.
It is a travesty that Maria can cross the border in labor, receive have a baby and then we will pay for the cost of delivery, medicaid, wic, etc. for her and her child. The billions of dollars being paid out for them should be going to our military.
That is not only from Mexico. You’ll find when we have exchange officers from other countries, they typically add a family member while they are here if they can. I’ve seen Turkish officers add one each for their basic and advanced officer training and then one at the Command and General Staff College.
The military should be taken care of first and foremost. We give SSI to alcoholics and druggies, welfare to people who refuse to work, the NEA, please, if you are a good artist people will buy your work, if your not, find something else to do. All of the waste! Sen. Coburn should stand up and say, it would should be our responsibility however, look at what we are spending our money. This just might be the time to call the Dems out for the stupid spending and social engineering experiments.
A good friend of mine was hit with an IED in July, he received excellent care from the field hospital in Afghanistan to Bethesda. From there he went to a hospital in Tampa that works with those effected by TBI. They do the best they can with what they have but it is still not enough. The treatment at the VA here in Atlanta basically consisted of giving him meds, and since he has been back at LeJune, the wait for therapy is so long he has only seen the physical therapist sporadically. Between the TBI and PTSD he needs more than meds to help him.
Well, if you know all about it, your postings so far don’t give any indication of that at all. Nor do you give any indication that you know what Dr. Sen. Coburn does, and the many bills he puts a hold on, and why.
I'm glad Coburn is stalling this. It's something folks are truly hot to trot to crow about at home, but he's right, they SHOULD start thinking about how they're going to pay for this. It makes no sense to pretend to be generous, when you don't have the money to follow though on the promises you make.
I didn’t know they were underpaid. The studies I have seen that purport to show this do wage comparisons with somebody working a forty hour week. If you’re going to do a study like that, you need to compare like conditions. Now what civilian occupation is similar to a nuclear engineer deployed for four months underwater, or an serviceman in an infantry regiment on his fourteenth month of continuous deployment? As for keeping them on until they are 55 or 60, the service remains a young man’s game for the most part, in my opinon. That’s not to say we cannot occasionally deploy older service people but from my experience there comes a time when most men, especially at the lower level units, just can’t keep up.
Your logic is infinitely assailable. Are you seriously saying that he would have to have a military background in order to have credibility in putting a hold on this bill?
That’s just silly.
Here is a link to the letter Senator Coburn sends to his Senate colleagues at the beginning of a new session, explaining the criteria he uses in determining whether or not to place a hold on a bill:
As you can see, the bill in question falls into one of his categories. The bill might be doing some good things, but if it violates his principles as spelled out in that letter, it gets a hold.
Perhaps you can explain why he should revise his principles for bills having to do with the military - something more than just smarmily questioning his lack of a military background.
Maybe you think your NH senators and your NH rep are better for the Republic than Senator Coburn, huh? Sheesh, there’s no serious comparison there.
Second of all, a military member is considered on duty 24 hours a day, let me repeat that he/she is on duty 24 hours a day and when we get these break down of pay every few years it is part of how they show the compensation. So, it is comparing apples to oranges to equate to the private sector as you have pointed out in your reply.
As for vacation benefits, it is called "earned leave", each month a service member earns 2 1/2 days and can keep them up 2 years, than it is "use them or lose them." To be able to take leave it must not compromise unit strength. My husband has trained soldier's all over the world. He cannot use up all his leave and also doesn't always just work Monday thru Friday. Leave is important to help with military member's ability to spend time with family and equally important to give them time away from what can be considered a high stress job.
Pension is not part of the military system, it is called retirement that is earned, fought for and deserved. Depending on the contract, at retirement you receive half of what you earned and if you continue to give more years it is increases by percentage's.
Medical care, it is a huge selling point to a prospective recruit, along with the other benefits I have outlined, but again it does come at a cost, families are separated for months to years at a time. The military health care system is designed for our Active Duty member's as it should be and family member's as part of the service member's contract are entitled to it but there are costs. I can speak from experience when I say much work needs to be done, when the military hospital cannot provide the care, you are sent out to the local economy and many physicians do not take Tricare and those that do are unaware of how it works, making referrals, prescribing medicines that are not covered. They send us, but then do not cover it. Currently my medications not covered by tricare cost over a $1000.00 a month. Furthermore, family member's nor service member's can sue the government when the physician does wrong doing. A law that is currently being addressed.
Lets discuss housing. Rank and location goes into BAQ or basic allowance quarters and the amount received along with earnings. Families usually after a year of being assigned to a base/post, who have put their names on a waiting list for on base/post housing will choose to live on post/base because they simply struggle to make ends meet living off of an installation. The Army has improved their housing but they have a long way to go. The PX and commissary which is much like Wal-Mart and Kroger offer items without tax but there is a surcharge on certain items and frankly it is more competitive to get your item's off the installation.
I also find something fundamentally wrong that military families are on WIC and food stamps. Watching them have to take these to ensure their families can eat while their loved one's are serving abroad is disheartening but it happens.
I would disagree that the military is out of control budget wise, because that is a broad brush. Our military budget is at our lowest as a percentage of GDP, than it has been since WW II or before and this is at a time when we are fighting 2 wars. Yes, they spend on items that are to keep our country secure, new war planes, new combat vehicles to save troops lives, the list goes on and congress should listen to the leader's when THEY say NO they do not need certain items but alas in the last bill they chose to approve item's the PENTAGON said they DID NOT NEED.
Generous pension plans. Again it is "earned retirement." Let me see, half the pay of what you earned when you retire, going to combat, perhaps wounded, being away from family months, years at a time, OK, if you think that is generous after 30 years of service, I would respectfully disagree.
I think many would continue to serve beyond the age of 60 if given the chance we don't look at as duty but an honor to serve.
As I said I have mixed feelings on this bill, I do believe we must be fiscally responsible. But, not on the backs of our wounded warriors. We must make responsible decisions. That means cutting in areas and perhaps moving monies to assist the wounded warriors. If care can be provided at home, it would reduce money spent as an inpatient. I do not want to increase the debt, and our wounded warriors would hate that it would happen on their back but we did make contract's with our military, that we care for them and we must step up and do that.
This bill should be discussed in the light of day, the senators should look at responsible ways to address the needs, it does not have to be all or nothing, but tabling it just seems to avoid the discussion.
I have done my best to explain, from the perspective of a military spouse, former service member and daughter of a service member, yes I am biased in my thoughts but I also gave a fair overview and I hope it helps for you and other Freeper's to understand when I say they are underpaid, but they are the proudest underpaid American's there are but the disparity remains.
It is much like using the comment "jobs saved" is part of the stimulus success. Benefits are guaranteed but it is difficult to put a dollar sign on it but there is NO doubt when you look at the LES (Leave and Earnings Statement) that if all things were equal, many could use their education in the private sector and make much more, perhaps live in the same area for 10 plus years, have a choice of their health care BUT we have made the choice and most of us wouldn't trade it for the world.
Thanks to all who remarked on this thread.
~~FMC
Please check out POST #35.
Great, informative post!
I’m saying it is interesting that he has chosen to put a hold on a bill that basically provides direct services to seriously wounded veterans. I’ve noticed he has done nothing as regards funding for the NEA or CPB. As regards the military service or lack of it, that’s something he is going to have to live with. Finally, yes, credibility with military issues is enhanced when you’ve worn the uniform yourself.
That was a fairly decent rundown, except that the pension is actually considered a retainer for future service because you can be recalled, unless you’ve left on a Chapter 61. Typically, those who start comparing a mechanic in the 82d Airborne or 1st Marines with a mechanic working at Sears simply is ignorant of the military; I don’t believe there is any malice. They typically just don’t know better.
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