{"id":39050,"date":"2013-12-27T08:23:44","date_gmt":"2013-12-27T13:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=39050"},"modified":"2013-12-27T08:23:44","modified_gmt":"2013-12-27T13:23:44","slug":"vsos-and-congress-try-to-retract-veterans-cola-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=39050","title":{"rendered":"VSOs and Congress try to retract veterans’ COLA cut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fox News<\/a> reports that before the ink is dry on the President’s signature on the budget bill he signed into law yesterday, Congress is stepping back from their legislation in regards to the cuts to the cost of living cuts to veterans’ pensions.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Calif., introduced a bill that would repeal the provision that curtails annual cost of living increases in benefits that go to military retirees under age 62.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, I believe our service members, veterans, and their families must receive the benefits they have earned and deserve,\u201d Brownley said in a statement. \u201cThese benefits are owed to them without equivocation. That is why I have introduced legislation to repeal the military retiree COLA reduction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, introduced a similar bill on Monday, according to The Hill. It was unclear whether either proposal included provisions to offset the costs of eliminating the cuts. <\/p>\n

Several Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Rep. Martha Roby, R-Ala., have proposed closing a tax loophole that has allowed illegal immigrants to claim fraudulent cash payments in order to replace the cuts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to Fox’ math, an E-7 who retires at the age of 42 would lose $72,000 in income over his lifetime from the reduction in COLA. I’d say that’s significant. The Veterans’ Services Organizations have lined up against the bill;<\/p>\n

“Keep your promise” was the theme of a lobbying effort by the Military Officers Association of America.<\/p>\n

American Legion National Commander Daniel M. Dellinger said the group was “horrified” that the Senate could pass a bill “so unfair to those Americans who have served honorably in uniform.”<\/p>\n

The Veterans of Foreign Wars predicted the change would prompt an exodus of those at midcareer once the U.S. economy rebounds, and that it will hurt efforts to recruit new people into the all-volunteer force.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, well, I’m not sure that this administration is committed to the all-volunteer force given the way that they relish the thought of screwing veterans and the troops who are still serving. I’m convinced that their underlying goal is to resurrect conscription. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fox News reports that before the ink is dry on the President’s signature on the budget … VSOs and Congress try to retract veterans’ COLA cut<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198,89,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-army","category-congress-sucks","category-veterans-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}