LA Times; hatin’ on McCain

Earlier today, I wrote about the Washington Post having only McCain’s temper to use against him. Well, the LA Times found a little nugget they thought would turn the people against McCain, too. Apparently, John McCain gets a pension because he retired from the military;

When McCain released his tax return for 2007 on Friday, he separately disclosed that he received a pension of $58,358 that was not listed as income on his return.

On Monday, McCain’s staff identified the retirement benefit as a “disability pension” and said that McCain “was retired as disabled because of his limited body movements due to injuries as a POW.”

McCain campaign strategist Mark Salter said Monday night that McCain was technically disabled. “Tortured for his country — that is how he acquired his disability,” Salter said.

Certain types of military and veterans pensions are either partially or completely tax-exempt, depending on the seriousness of the disability. In McCain’s case, the exemption is 100%.

Yeah, he got a disability retirement – that’s why it’s 100% tax free. Just like the disability insurance payment that anyone else could get if they had private disability insurance. But service members can’t legally purchase disability insurance, so we get our disability pension tax free.

So the LA Times went out to find someone to question McCain’s health;

McCain has twice developed melanoma, a potentially deadly form of skin cancer.

The fact that he is legally designated with a disability pension may raise further questions.

“It is a legitimate question to ask about the commander in chief: Is he fit to serve,” said Robert Schriebman, a senior Pentagon tax advisor and tax attorney who recently retired as a judge advocate for a unit of the California National Guard.

If McCain can hike across the Grand Canyon, then why should he be getting disability payments from the government that are tax-exempt, Schriebman asked.

Well, let me see if I can explain this so the class warriors can understand it;  if you’re a truckdriver with the good sense to buy disability insurance and you went blind and couldn’t drive your truck anymore, your disability insurance would pay you a tax exempt pension for the rest of your life, regardless of your ability to do something other than drive a truck. You could get a job working with a computer that pays more than you would have made driving a truck, and you’d still get your disability payment from the insurance company because you can’t do the job you had when bought the insurance.

Other people who retire from the military and get rated as disabled don’t get their whole pension tax exempt because of the varying degrees of their disability. I’ve got a disability rating of 10% which pays me a whopping $117/month that’s tax exempt – but that $117 is deducted from my Army pension and then paid to me by the VA, so essentially, I pay my own disability.

Now, John McCain couldn’t legally buy disability insurance when he was a military pilot, so the government makes up for that by giving him a suitable pension under the same circumstances every other American enjoys. Even though he can be a politician, he can’t be a military officer anymore.

I was just a sergeant first class who sold insurance for a few years and I understood the whole process well enough to explain it to you. I find it hard to understand why the LA Times couldn’t take the time to tell you the whole story, too.

Category: Media, Politics