Murray disowns pension cut
Yesterday we read Paul Ryan while he justified his bill to cut the growth of military pensions. Today, Politico reports that his partner in stupidity, Patty Murray, is backing away from the pension cut;
Murray’s response: The pension cut isn’t final.
“We wrote this bill in a way that will allow two years before this change is implemented so that Democrats and Republicans can keep working to either improve this provision or find smarter savings elsewhere,” she said on the Senate floor this week.
“In other words,” she added, “we can and we will look at other, hopefully better ways to change this policy going forward.”
Her stance provides a major opening for opponents of the cut to work to get it tossed out or replaced with alternate savings — an effort that could weaken the budget deal and force vulnerable senators to continue defending their support for an agreement that would provide sequester relief for federal agencies at the expense of veterans.
So I guess she’s leaving Ryan hanging by himself. Murray has always been good when it comes to veterans’ issues, considering her party affiliation, so, it’s no surprise that she’d be one of the first to cave from the pressure of VSOs in recent days.
Thanks to Chock Block for the link.
Category: Congress sucks
If you wrote the bill in a way that you could make improvements down the road, why put in a cut to veteran pensions in the first place?
Just knowing that congress thinks less of veterans than illegal aliens says it all for me.
And people wonder why she is called the most stupid person in the senate.
When the D is running from a deal the R fell for, you just know that this is trouble for the politicians. Ryan must be wretching about now, the fool.
@3 Try the words ‘pliable’ or ‘agreeable’, instead.
I’m sure Murray is perfectly nice, but so is peppermint candy. You just don’t want it all the time. I’m sure she ‘means well’. I’m also sure that she never once thought about the consequences of this bill down the road, just ‘oh, this seems like a good idea for a ‘compromise’.’
# 4. I hope you’re right. Ryan goes on the offense supporting the pension cut in his OpEd, next thing you know Murray backs off. Ryan should be looking for a way out of his foolish mistake…if he has any sense.
They said the same thing about sequestration .
When a democrat flees a bill that increases spending, you should take notice and treat it the same as an EOD tech sprinting as fast as he can. Don’t ask questions, just flee…
It’s all kabuki. They do one thing and say another so often that I’m amazed that none of them have had a full breakdown on camera, complete with mad cackling, on live TV. And we should know. I remember coming home in 2010 and the congressional aide who came to talk to us and assured us that we “would be taken care of”. I had every reason to doubt it then and I thought that she was either horribly mendacious or pitiably naive (who can tell with the denizens of D.C.). Here’s why I doubted her: for years reservists complained that we deserved to draw retirement before age 60 but we were told that it was too expensive. Then, during the height of the war, finally a reduction in retirement age that gave credit for time activated during the war was passed. But it was loaded with qualifiers, loopholes that essentially allowed the military bureaucracy to minimize the financial impact of those reductions in retirement age. When we pointed out that, for instance, we weren’t getting credit for time back to the start of the war or that provisions in the law didn’t give us credit for time accrued between two fiscal years both members of congress and the VSOs expressed surprise. They shouldn’t have been surprised-congress wrote the law and the VSOs certainly were allowed to review the law before it was passed. The VSOs have attorneys and experts who should have been able to see that the proposed law wasn’t as good a deal as it seemed (they claim to be trying to eliminate the loopholes and qualifiers now), but they were either not doing their due diligence by reading through the proposal and pointing out the flaws when the law was passed or they were told essentially “this is the best deal you are going to get, take it or leave it”. I think they took it, but they wouldn’t come right out an tell us that they did. Congress knows that they have to cut spending-they’ve known it for at least as long as I’ve followed… Read more »
I wrote my Congresshouseplant (Carol Shea-Porter, aka Che-Pelosi) asking her to justify this, after all the times she’s claimed she’s been “for our veterans.”
“They would desperately like to keep doing it, but if they can’t we really shouldn’t be surprised who gets screwed.” The can is being kicked. The can has been kicked. These cuts to military retirees and future service folks are not about reduced spending. Spending is actually increased under this scheme. It’s all gamesmanship without any leadership whatsoever.
Shea-Porter. What a laugh.
Fellow Granite Stater- graduated from Alvirne High in Hudson back in the day. Love my state, but weep at what it’s becoming with all the Mass Holes who moved there to disingenuously escape the tax burdens in the Bay State, but have insidiously instituted the very same policies and ideology that is leading to N.H. becoming a mini-Mass commonwealth.
Patty Murray is my state senator. I did not vote for her. I am glad she is saying something positive for the vets and retirees. She ran on a campaign in the left side of the state as “a soccer mom in tennis shoes”. No shit. No previous experience but the liberal, left side loved her and here she is still.
#9 Don’t you know that nobody deployed before 2008? 🙂