Thread: Retired General Lobs Bomb at Military Benefits

September 8, 2010, 12:39 PM ET

Retired General Lobs Bomb at Military Benefits

Comments 29
By Nathan Hodge

Earlier this year, retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro chaired a panel that helped pave the way for a series of cost-cutting measures at the Pentagon, including efforts to cut overhead and dependence on outside contractors. Now he’s taking aim at something more sacrosanct: Compensation for service members, military retirees and their families.

In a speech this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Punaro said the Department of Defense had become wedded to “GM-style fringe benefitsâ€

The Outlaw Congress illegally steals from we the people to send BILLIONS in foreign aid to countries around the globe where our military have fought and come home injured and broken. They illegally steal from we the people to spend hundreds of billions to bail out Wall Street and auto makers, the unconstitutional Freddie and Fannie and BILLIONS in borrowed "money" given to the communist UN, IMF and World Bank. Now, it's time to screw our veterans. Again. The Outlaw Congress steals from we the people to spend BILLIONS defending a pedophile culture in Afghanistan, protect their opium fields and illegal nation building in Iraq. Now it's time to shaft our veterans because they cost too much money by coming home alive.

Bring our troops home now from those illegal invasions, including Pakistan, as well as Kosovo, Africa and dozens of countries where we have no business stationing troops.

Nightmare Budget Scenario at the Pentagon http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2871

"Today, the Pentagon’s comprehension of its own material resources is a deep, dark void. It can't track its own money; it cooks its own books to make them appear in balance, and then it makes new spending decisions based on the phony data. Nor can it accurately track its own property, even supplies to the troops fighting in Afghanistan. There are three decades of GAO and DOD Inspector General reports on this mess."

I'll say it again .. Our Nations Finest Young Men and Women / Veterans are treated like TRASH

While

ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE TREATED LIKE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

If you ain't pissed you are too screwed in the head to understand

Let's see Obamacare allows children to stay on their parents insurance until they are 26 - that is except for the Military Dependents, that has to be approved under the Defense Bill that was held up because of DTDA and the Dream Act.

Go ahead take away the retirement benefits for the military and see how many voluntary or career military you will have.

Another point to consider in an evaluation of what to get into. GWB should have listened to his Daddy, IMO.


New Study: Iraq / Afghanistan Wars May Cost VA $934 Billion
Written by AP
Wednesday, 29 September 2010 17:39

September 29, 2010, Washington (Associated Press) -- A new study estimates that health costs for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans could top $900 billion, and a lawmaker wants to set up a trust fund to make sure the bill will be paid.

Representative Bob Filner (D-CA) warned that the U.S. faces a huge bill for veteran's health care, and his concerns were buttressed by a recent study by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Linda Bilmes of Harvard University.

The two academics say the number of veterans, their injury rates and the cost of treating them have increased far more than expected in the last couple of years.

"If Americans want to vote for war, the Congress wants to vote for war, that's fine - but include the real costs" and budget for them, Filner told reporters by phone Wednesday. Filner is chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, which has scheduled a hearing on the issue Thursday.

Stiglitz and Bilmes, also speaking by phone, on Wednesday estimated the cost of providing vets with lifetime medical costs and disability payments from the Veteran's Administration, as well as Social Security payments for the severely disabled, at between $589 billion and $934 billion, depending on the length and intensity of the Iraq and Afghan wars.

That is more than 30 percent higher than the Stiglitz and Bilmes estimated in the 2008 book "The Three Trillion Dollar War."

They said that about 600,000 of the more than 2.1 million service members who've been deployed since 2001 have already received treatment by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The 600,000 figure is far higher than the numbers most often given publicly by defense officials.

The Veteran's Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Filner said he thinks there should be a 15 percent surcharge on the defense budget to make sure money will be there in the future for vet health costs.