This is more informational than a personal complaint, but retired military pay dipped in real dollars this year for the first time my memory – just like it did for Social Security recipients. How’d it happen? <\/p>\n
Well, the Obama Administration and Congress didn’t give SS folks and retired military a cost of living allowance, even though the cost of living has gone up this year. However, because Medicare went up for SS recipients, and we lost our “tax cut”, which wasn’t really a tax cut anyway, Our payments went down. Sure it was just a little bit, but it happened despite all of this talk about taking care of the needy and the little guys.<\/p>\n
It was just a coupla bucks for me, probably so small that it would have got eaten up in taxes anyway, but that’s not my point. There are people out there who depend on every penny they get from their SS and retired paychecks, despite the fact that the six-figure crowd in DC think it’s a tiny amount. How many times have we been bombarded with ads that tell us that seniors have to choose between food and medicine – yet that’s exactly who gets stiffed by this administration.<\/p>\n
Now the Bush Administration made sure we got our COLA increases even when inflation was minuscule, but that didn’t stop the AARP crowd from complaining that it wasn’t enough (it’s not a merit increase, for Pete’s sake).<\/p>\n
Regardless of what you think about retired military pay or Social Security, you still have to admit that those folks were promised those checks and fulfilled their end of the bargain, but the government doesn’t feel that it has to meet it’s obligations and that’s just not right.<\/p>\n
Sure it probably helps with the national budget, but it seems that the people who’ve always sacrificed (since the Depression) are always expected to suffer in silence. I just thought they needed someone to speak up for them today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"