Eliminate Concurrent Receipt Of Retirement Pay And Disability Compensation For Disabled Veterans

[htforjc]

Does anyone on here have knowledge or information on the likelihood of concurrent receipt being eliminated? I read an article about the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) considering eliminating concurrent receipt being paid to veterans who have retired with 20 or more years; and receives disability pay will no longer receive disability pay if approved. I find this to be very disturbing considering how hard most veterans had to fight to get this earned benefit. I posted the article link below. Any insight would be helpful.

http://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/2013/44744

[Buck52]

I agree with ya pete 53,

I think this is Ridiculous!!!

[Chuck75]

This sort of thing has gone on for decades!

"Saving money" is more important to many factions than honoring obligations to veterans.

It's not uncommon to also find that such things are part of a smoke screen, designed to hide

or ignore other changes that are at veteran's or ordinary citizen's expense.

I'd suggest a totally different type of limit be applied.

The combination of SSA, "Concurrent receipt", and any other government pensions

shall not be greater than the highest income year, or 100K, whichever is greater. The dollar amounts

shall be calculated using the same adjustment factors that the government uses

in multi year military contracts. Basically, this involves factoring in things like true inflation/cost factors,

unlike the artificial government "cost of living" or "inflation" numbers, which often understate the real numbers.

I'd also favor making medically related expenses totally deductible up front for pensioners.

Having said that, and considering that VA payments are supposedly for "lost income", or loss of income ----

the payments do not compensate for things like loss of "quality of life" and so forth. When you factor this in,

the VA payment amounts are totally inadequate, and considerably less than what might be considered proper in a civil

settlement. With this in mind, the VA payment amount should not be factored in the calculation limit previously

mentioned.

When you look into things, it's not uncommon to find that calculations used by the government

usually favor the government, unless there is a statute that specifically prevents this from occurring.

[Vync]

I agree with Chuck. It is practically political suicide if the media catches wind of cutting veterans benefits. The CBO's job is to report budget forecasts based on current and "what if" trends. They look at practically every budgeted program and have to apply trend forecasting to them. Of course, the VA is looked at very heavily and gets that extra magnifying glass by certain media outlets who either want or do not want the program cut. When you look at reality, when was the last time the government actually cut anything? A reduction is future budgeted grown is reported as "a cut" by the news media. The only way to get the truth is to look at what they were budgeted this year and compare it to the next. If the future number is higher than the current number, it's an increase, not a cut. Many media outlets purposefully report news like this in order to scare up concern or support. I remember a couple of years ago we did not get COLA. That was not a cut, it was simply a continuation of current funding levels.

[63SIERRA]

Before 2004 there was no concurrent recieipt. It has nt always been in effect. hopefully they leave it the way it is.

[jbasser]

OK folks. Send me some links and I will get to the bottom of it. I will get some folks involved and we will openly discuss it on the air.

I believe these rascals who dream this crap need to be dealt with once and for all.

Basser

[Chuck75]

Another thing to consider. The VA has underserved veterans for as long as I can remember, which goes back quite a few decades.

Obviously, regardless of the whys, any attempts to correct this is going to cost a lot of money, perhaps somewhere in the neighborhood

of twice the current VA budget. At the same time, there is an effort to reduce costs, forgetting that whatever was spent did not "get the job done".

How in the world can the VA "reform" take place?

In a way, the VA started the ball rolling to justify more funding over a decade ago. Remember that the VA was to provide services that they were not funded to provide,

(ignoring the fact that less than wise use of funding was occurring) How? By enrolling more veterans, that's how.

This initially reduced per veteran expenditure, and made the VA "look good" at the time, and later increased the cost, due to a higher number of veterans with serious health problems.

I'd also get into the "true costs of war", since thats closely related, but it would take a book or two.

One result of the wars after WWII is that the dollar is arguably worth about 1/4 of what it was before.

The lesson still to be learned is that when you get into a war, one of the important outcomes/objectives is to get someone else to pay for it.

Edited January 29, 2015 by Chuck75