Free Republic

WASHINGTON - President Bush will propose a dramatic increase to $100,000 in government payments to families of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and in future combat zones. The plan to increase the tax-free "death gratuity," now $12,420, will be part the 2006 budget proposal submitted to Congress next week, the Pentagon's personnel chief said in an Associated Press interview. Veterans groups and many in Congress have been pushing for such an increase. "We think the nation ought to make a larger one-time payment, quite apart from insurance, should you be killed in a combat area of...