Yes, the current VSOs are criticizing the President. So what? What good would it possibly do to criticize past Presidents? When they were failing veterans, the hammer got dropped on them too.
It was the pressure of the veterans community that forced Clinton's VA Secretary out of office and Clinton got routinely hammered for flatlined VA health care budgets.
Yes, on a site like this it's proper to criticize your political opponents, but for an organization, there is no reason to dwell in the past.
All that matters is that there are problems that exist and that this president has not done enough to fix them--or in the case of concurrent receipt, has been an obstacle.
First, it's Disabled Veterans Tax, not concurrent pay, because any other disabled veteran working for the government gets both VA disability and federal retirement with no deduction. Only those who serve until retirement have to give up the dollar for dollar offset; thus it is clearly discriminatory to one selected group. It can only be made equal or right by passing the repeal of the Disabled Veterans Tax or making a law to decrease the other government pensions dollar for dollar too.
Most veterans don't vote? Bull. Most veterans are also teachers, lawyers, laborers, politiians, men, women, all ethnic groups, and all other divisions or classifications in the USA. They vote--it's just that no one has ever taken the time to single them out as veterans and really see how many vote. Get rid of the stereotype that those veterans leaning on the bar in vets clubs, drinking, telling stories, and do not generally do anything are typical of the veteran. That's as accurate as saying all cats have 3 legs after seeing a 3 legged cat.
Finally, most of this article is true but downplays all the problems vets go through. Retired disabled vets almost always live at the edge of or below poverty because of this law. Promised free medical care was a major enticement to keep people in the service until 1995, even being printed in brochures and supported up to & including the President & Congress. Funny, though they embraced and encouraged it, Congress never passed a law to give it. The vets lost on a technicality (see the Supreme Court ruling where they agree that we were promised and encouraged at all levels and deserve it, but can't have it because Congress failed to pass the law.) Other problems not mentioned are the lack of funds for VA medical & other care. VA Sec Principi sent his 100% disabled, wheelchair bound aid to 7 VA facilites in different locations. He found the same thing that an 83 year old vet with cancer and many thousands like him already know. Even though he had top priority, he could not get into 5 of the 7 facilities and was put on a minimum 6-month waiting list. (With veterans dying at 1200-1700 a day, I guess that's how the are able to fit those waiting in.) In one case, an elderly vet with 80-99% occlusion in the heart had to wait in the waiting room over 8 hours because there was no room in the ER. VA programs are mandatory. VA funding is left to Congress & the President who always give less than the cost of living, and often take away what they have just given. They agree the VA is in terrible shape but refuse to either appropriate enough funds to alleviate the crisis or make the funding mandatory so the VA can plan and meet its mission. That does not even touch the problems of SBP, DIC, Ageng Orange, and Sec. Rumfeld's proposed rollback of the death gratuity benefit, hazardous duty pay, separation pay, and denial of Tricare to families of the guard who are getting wounded or killed daily in Irag and other places. The author, ironically, left out one of the main reasons Sec. Rumsfeld gives for this. In addition to the "bust the budget" argument, he argues with the same fervor that the monies saved from this need to go to pay raises for those on active duty and to improve the living standards of their families.
Bush has done a masterful job in Iraq and the war on terror, but he is not perfect. To really hear what veterans think and will do you need to go to the
Vets-Voting-Bloc@yahoogroups.com, MRGRG, and many new groups of veterans and their families. These groups are ad hoc groups with no dues, officers, or any purpose but to see that the veterans finally get what has been promised and denied for many years, and voting out those who do not actively support us and voting in those who will. (E.g. the bill to allow retired disabled veterans has been introduced by Republicans for 10-12 years now, been co-sponsored by both parties to the point that any veto could have been overridden, the Senate has passed it several times, but the House Republicans always do something to keep it in committee, kill it, or come up with some wierd substitute that has little or no meaning & is a monster to administer. Last year we were promised a compromise of those with 60% disability up being allowed to have both with the program phased in over 5 years--a compromise we were willing to live with until the others could be addressed. Two days after they got our vote, the met in a late-night session, subsituted CRSC which helps less than 35,000 and is a nightmare to prove, to get accepted, and to administer; obviously a ploy to delay payment while claiming to do something. Again, go to VVB, MRGRG, FireFire, and the multitude of new groups being formed daily, working together, and representing several hundred thousand vets and active duty (one of VVB's first members was an active duty soldier who emailed from Afghanistan during a break inthe fighting to include him). Yes, some are for Bush & will always be die-hard Republicans, but that wall is crumbling fast due to the failure of the current administration and House to follow up on their promises, provide what we were promised and earned, and make us equal to all others.
ljmar