Posted on 12/19/2013 4:30:20 AM PST by SkyPilot
Sen. Patty Murray is distancing herself from a cut in military pensions in the budget deal she brokered with Rep. Paul Ryan.
Her unease about a key element of her own deal, which passed the Senate on Wednesday and is now headed to President Barack Obama, comes amid a backlash from veterans groups and Senate defense hawks that has put her and her colleagues in a tough spot going into an election year.
Murray’s response: The pension cut isn’t final.
“We wrote this bill in a way that will allow two years before this change is implemented so that Democrats and Republicans can keep working to either improve this provision or find smarter savings elsewhere,” she said on the Senate floor this week.
“In other words,” she added, “we can and we will look at other, hopefully better ways to change this policy going forward.”
Her stance provides a major opening for opponents of the cut to work to get it tossed out or replaced with alternate savings — an effort that could weaken the budget deal and force vulnerable senators to continue defending their support for an agreement that would provide sequester relief for federal agencies at the expense of veterans.
“We’re probably going to lose this fight, but we will win the war,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, who voted against the budget deal, declared to a group of veterans on Tuesday — vowing to take this fight into the next year. G
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Murray is blaming Paul Ryan:
"She’s also promising a “fix” next year that would exempt all disabled veterans. And at least one person close to the issue is pointing a finger at Murray’s Republican counterpart, the chairman of the House Budget Committee. “This was something that Ryan pushed for,” said a source close to the negotiations, discussing the issue on the condition of not being identified. Ryan’s backing of the provision would make sense, given that he’s long called for major reforms to federal pensions. But an aide to the Wisconsin Republican sidestepped the question on Wednesday, noting the two budget committee leaders both agreed to the terms of the deal.
Lindsey Graham is vowing to find out who did this to our veterans by putting this injustice into the bill:
“It’s funny that nobody will step up and own this,” said Graham, who faces several conservative primary challengers back home and has much to gain from his opposition to the budget agreement, which met fierce resistance from tea party groups because it increases the spending caps set by the Budget Control Act of 2011.
“Patty Murray said ‘Ask Paul Ryan,’” Graham said of his search for person responsible. “I talked to Paul Ryan; he said it came from the Pentagon. I talked to [Defense Secretary] Chuck Hagel, who had nothing to do with it.” But, Graham added: “We’re going to find the culprit here.”
They are "vowing" to change the disabled military clause, but it does not matter because it is in the bill the Senate passed, and now goes to Obama. As Graham said last week, once something is a Federal statute, it is almost impossible to change.
I believe Hagel is lying when he said he didn't suggest this cut to retired military - he has been dropping bombs since last Spring in speeches, vowing to cut pensions, Commissaries, healthcare, compensation, and more.
Paul Ryan is the biggest loser - he is now being exposed as the author of the provision, and we know he was the only one taking to the airwaves to brag to everyone that it was HE that jammed that provision through.
BO tried to take vets medical away first wk he was in 2009.
It got rejected soundly and quickly. Maybe this is his doing
They do not understand the nature of reneging on a a solid deal with a volunteer military
Politicians, these ones in particular, are so stupid
Every democrat and RINO who voted for this POS budget "owns it"
"...she looks like she back off a cliff"
“In other words,” she added, “we can and we will look at other, hopefully better ways to change this policy going forward.”
Just like sequestration was NEVER supposed to go into effect. It was a doomsday scenario put in place to prompt cooperation, right? It would never, ever actually happen!
The military comes first. All this other cr** belongs at the local level.
Seems she’s trying desperately to get the barn door closed after the horses have run off.
Paul Ryan is a fast talking RINO who thinks we’re stupid just as much as Boehner does. It still shocked me, however, to see him shiv disabled vets.
Boy, he sure fooled me. When he was vice pres candidate he seemed someone that had a handle on the Country's fiscal woes.
What a disappointment.
Oh brother
Yes, we screwed it up today, but we promise we'll fix it tomorrow, when the heat blows over.
Linda must really be worries about her re-election this year. I'm surprised, cause she actually voted against cloture too (unlike Blunt who's playing both sides).
And not a single one of these rat bastards would even suggest that they cut back on one, just one of their own perks of office, or take a minuscule cut in their own pay or pension, or eliminate the annual stipend paid their wives to host Washington dinner parties, or close the House post office (a public post office is just one block away), or the close the House cafeteria (the place is surrounded by a sea of D.C. restaurants and sandwich shops). Oh no. Everybody else must “share the sacrifice,” but not them.
The vets in Ryan’s district should find someone to run against him in the primary next year. Certainly, there is a vet much smarter than this loser, who let the dumbest woman in the Senate roll him in this Democrat deal.
Recall it was Patty Murry who credited Osama Bin Ladin’s popularity in Arabia for his development of world class child care.
Maybe the NSA has something juicy on Ryan. It’s the Chicago Democrat way of doing politics.
Otherwise, why would a Republican fall for the same old line by the Dems to wait till the 8th or 10th year of a budget to start minor cutting, which never happens? This would be stupid.
Why would the ruling aristocracy violate rule number one of dictators and autocracies: First, pay the military. Bad things happen to those who don't follow that rule.
So am I to understand Ryan’s $23 billion in savings isn’t even going to last long enough for the president to sign the bill?
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