Veterans should keep military retirement pay and VA disability compensation
Representative Gus Bilirakis, Republican from Florida, provided an opinion article for The Hill. He addressed the pay offset that many veterans face when receiving both military retirement pay and VA disability compensation. Currently, veterans with 20 years of service and who are rated at least 50% for VA disability compensation, can collect both without offset. However, others face a dollar for dollar offset. Bilirakis argued the concept that all veterans receiving both should not have to be subject to the dollar for dollar offset.
From The Hill:
When service members retire from the military, they are entitled to both retired pay from the Department of Defense and disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) if they were injured while in the service. Unfortunately, only military retirees with at least 20 years of service and a disability rating of at least 50 percent are able to collect both benefits at the same time. Current law requires a dollar-for-dollar offset of these two benefits for all other retired veterans. This means they have to forfeit a portion of the benefits they earned in service.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that fixing this terrible injustice would cost less than $10 billion over the next 10 years. That sounds like a substantial amount of money, but when it is put into perspective, the United States spent more than $2 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, $75 billion on the war in Ukraine, and $12.5 billion on funding the United Nations last year alone. Honoring our commitment to fully fund the benefits promised to our nation’s heroes who were medically retired during combat would cost a fraction of these other costs of war.
National defense is such a vital federal function, it appears in the preamble of the Constitution. In addition, Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution mentions defense related powers at least seven times. If the federal government sends a citizen to war, we are honor bound and bound by our founding charter to care for the war fighter.
The trillions of dollars spent outside of the four corners of the Constitution are where we should look to make cuts. But to wring our hands over providing for those who personified the “common defense” and were wounded in that service, is something that should not sit right with any American.
I am a strong fiscal conservative who believes we must address the serious national security threat posed by our growing federal debt and rising debt service obligations; however, it is unconscionable to abrogate a contractual AND moral obligation that the U.S. government has with injured veterans who have already sacrificed so much to keep our nation safe.
The Hill provides the balance of the story here.
Category: Op-Ed, Retired Issues, Veterans Issues
Yeah.
This has been in the mix for years but no dice.
Not holding my breath this time around either. Best thing about being a pessimist is that you’re either right or pleasantly surprised.
Meanwhile, this apparently is more important
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/woke_white_air_force_colonel_who_declared_other_white_colonels_racists_gets_promoted_to_brigadier_general.html
What a fucking clown.
I’m sure he won’t mind racist white colonel making him his black coffee.
Before the good Col. is promoted I think they should ask him why he has failed to prevent or fix all that racism in his command(s) and who else is doing all that racist stuff.
I am waiting for it, with my VA rating and 23 years half active , half guard we deployments on each. I can collect both at 60.
Could get frustrating.
You don’t have to wait until you’re 60 to get your VA disability pay.
Who even thought the offset was a good idea to begin-with? Were they drunk?
Politicians that were looking out for Us Sarc/off. Funny, they make sure that they get everything.
In my opinion, there should be no offset. A retiree earned the retirement by completing the required time in service and the VA competition is compensation for something that happened to you that altered your life. Didn’t mean to “mansplain”, just don’t understand why there would be an offset.
Agreed; do your 20 years, or get a medical or early retirement, and you’ve earned that retirement check. VA disability is another creature…your rating shows that you aren’t the same physically and/or mentally as you were when you enlisted, so why should your compensation be offset?
In 2010, if you’d have asked SSG fm2176 where he’d be in 2023, he’d have likely said SGM fm2176, looking at a Brigade CSM position. Didn’t work like that. Life (and me) got in the way, and here I am SFC(R) fm2176 with a non-offset disability rating. Like it or not, military service messes us up in multiple ways. I’m reminded every time I wake up in the middle of the night with cramps or extreme pain. If I were under 50%, the thought of just having a tax offset, while passable, would be almost a slap in the face.
Look, no one cares if you got a hangnail in Iraqistan.
Gotta save those stolen dällars (read: taxes) for 0bama phones and public relations majors’ get-out-of-debt programs.
Also, ‘Tuh ScIeNcE™‘ is too busy putting uteruses in men to worry about understanding how experimental ‘vaccines’ harm ‘government equipment’.
With the COLA adjustments its all worth-less anywho.
It’ll get worse before it gets worse.
“Prepare.” –Commander of Operational Detachment South Central Peachlandia
Outstanding. (Golf clap)
Testify, Good Sir. Take a chain saw to the feddotgov budget. Starting with the Kongress Kritters salaries and their offices. Then start working on the overall bloat. I’m curry combing the inherwebz a’huntin’ for a country that taxes its citizen to send money to us. No joy on that hunt. We owe 32+- TRILLION $.
Prepare…indeed. Spent most of today clearing fields of fire at the CRC COP. MPS and SGA fixin’ to get some more of my specie.
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/4b/4b59915ecce0dee4bfa3f60680308695e4491ea42d23781bb3f10bd043621643.jpg
Our beloved politicians DO NOT want to see us Veterans getting too much, that could interfere with their hallowed overseas junkets where they enjoy every luxury possible as well as getting lavish kickbacks from lobbyists.
Easy solution:
Do 20 years!
Not that simple. If you do 20 and have a disability less than 50, your retirement is reduced by the amount the VA pays you. Only advantage is that VA disability pay is tax exempt. Your net gain is very small.
I am still puzzled how someone can be fit for duty and pass the fitness tests and then suddenly become significantly disabled the next day.
Wanting to stay in!,,so you never tell “them” anything, until it’s went too far and you’re now jacked up for life. I know many, many top notch Soldiers that lied about pain, problems and injuries just to stay in. I still consider them honorable, even though they weren’t totally honest about their health.
As far as the Army was concerned, I NEVER, EVER, used tobacco products, drank alcohol, drove too fast, or did anything that would increase my junk food diet. To admit otherwise would result in 30 more pages to fill out and conversations with “experts” that would tell me how bad it was for me.
35+ years- I can tell you that most (nearly all)of my physical problems are are 100% service connected, but I didn’t go to the TMC for every twisted ankle, knee or back, and I never went to get out of PT. Now in my fifties, I feel every one of those twisted ankles, Knees and Back
I had a P2 profile part of my last 5 years of service, deteriorated discs. Limited my APFT to push-ups and 2.5 mile walk. Still able to deploy and do my job one last time. My last two years my profile went to P3 (same deteriorated discs plus some wonderful lung problems). Still capable of doing my job, but now non-deployable. Still passed the APFT, put off retirement to serve as rear D 1SG (dumbest fookin thing I’ve ever done). 60% disabled according to the VA, three days after retirement. It’s how the system works. Don’t try and understand it.