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Disabled Military Retirees... The Forgotten Americans
By Thomas D. Segel
February 7, 2002

It is well known we have more lobbyists in Washington than we have elected officials.  One could almost charge that if the lobbyists marching on Capital Hill came to a quick halt, there would be a chain reaction collision all the way to the Potomac River.  Lobbying abounds for almost every issue in this country.....except the disabled military retiree forced to pay his or her own disability payments.  Sadly, these men and women who gave so completely of themselves to defend every American are without a voice to really be heard by Congress.  This is wrong.  The disabled military retirees should have the most powerful lobby of all....every citizen of the United States of America.

Unfortunately, not many citizens follow issues which only involve other people.  This is a thing which impacts only about half a million citizens.  The public doesn't know they are individuals who gave more than twenty years of their lives and a lifetime of good health defending the remaining 279 million American people.   Not many have time to learn these former warriors,  who fought for us in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, The Persian Gulf and a dozen brush fire wars in unremembered countries risked everything for you and me.  They gave of their youth and health, only to be retired with a disability which they were forced to pay for out of their own pockets.

How can this be?  Well, there has been the law, which pertains only to military retirees, for more than 112 years.  For each dollar of disability compensation a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine receives, the same amount is deducted from his or her retirement check.  For dozens of years, veterans organizations and the retirees themselves have battled to get this discriminatory law changed.  What happened?  Well,  the retirees do not have the fancy lobbyists and those coveted campaign contributions so each year promises are made...and the same promises are broken.  This year Congress did recognize the disabled retirees had a legitimate complaint and passed legislation which was designed to correct the mistakes of our past.  There was only one thing wrong with this legislative item.  They put NO money in it, so the problem remains unresolved.

Those in Washington who figure such costs say it would take 3 billion dollars a year to cover the half million disabled retirees, plus another one billion additional dollars to the Department of Defense to make up for the retirement money they are currently not paying.  I think this is more Washington  fuzzy math.  If there is a dollar per dollar offset in disability payments vs retirement payments....it seems the cost would be one billion dollars to cover the disability payments and another one billion dollars to cover the Department of Defense offset.  Without a solid accounting we will never know, but I would strongly suspect the Washington number crunchers have added in the costs of ALL disability payments, including those who are not career military retirees.

Using these questionable figures they come up with a cost of 40 billion dollars over a ten year period to be covered by the legislation and that is just toooooooo much money for a bunch of worn old old troopers.

Now if these were important constituents like the railroad workers they could find the money.  Congress found 40 billion dollars this past year  to cover railroad pensions.  They would find the money if it were the airline industry.  They already found 15 billion to bail out this special interest group...with promises of more to come.

For the farmers, a total of 170 billion dollars in bailout money has been proposed...and most of those funds will go, not to the family farm...but major corporations.

The interesting thing here is.....none of these very special interests would even be around to send their lobbyists to Washington, if it were not for the Armed Forces of the United States of America.  These were the people on the front lines while everyone else was at home making a buck.  Guess it is still that way.