On “breaking faith”

Remember when I reported to you on the President’s speech to the American Legion Convention in Minneapolis a few weeks back and I mentioned one particular line from the speech;

Promises to keep promises to returning veterans. Promises to “not balance the budget on the backs of our veterans”. That will remain to be seen.

Here he is at about 19:56 minutes into the speech making that pledge;

Well, according to the Washington Post, he broke that promise yesterday (obviously, I’m not surprised);

The deficit reduction plan put forth by President Obama on Monday would increase pharmacy co-payments for military beneficiaries and establish a first-ever annual fee in the military’s Tricare for Life health benefits for Medicare-eligible retirees.

So, that promise of free healthcare for exchange for our faithful service is just so much empty promises.

But while describing the military retirement system as “out of line” with most other government or private retirement plans, the White House balked at making any immediate major changes. Instead, it announced plans to establish a board similar to the base realignment commission (BRAC) to make long-term reforms to the military retirement system.

Wary of the political fallout from cutting benefits for troops serving in two wars, the White House plan said “any major military retirement reforms should include grandfathering provisions that ensure that the country does not break faith with military personnel now serving, including those serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Yeah, they’re going to pass off the tough decisions to an appointed board so that the administration can deflect blame for the impending changes to an unaccountable bunch of idiot civilians. Nice leadership.

if you’re jacking up our healthcare premiums and co-pays, that already counts as “break faith”, numbnuts. You made us promises, we did our part and now you’re changing the rules. How is that not breaking faith?

The VSOs are getting their hackles up;

“When you look at military retirement and health-care plans and try to make them more like civilian plans, it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison to us,” said Mike Hayden, deputy director of government relations for the Military Officers Association of America.

[…]

Richard L. DeNoyer, the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, called the proposals “an extreme breach of faith” with members of the military.

Peter Gaytan, executive director of the American Legion, said that while the veterans organization “fully understands” the fiscal crisis, “we don’t feel targeting the small percentage of Americans who have chose to serve our country is the way to solve it.”

We need another Dave Rehbein (I know he reads this blog) who’ll stand up and tell this administration what’s what as far as veterans are concerned. I warned three years ago that this administration would arrive at the conclusion that they needed to screw veterans to accomplish their agenda. And it was less than a month ago that the President promised the American Legion that he wouldn’t balance the budget on the backs of veterans – and yet here we are already feeling the pain.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Veterans Issues