SOME people think they are supporting our troops by passing on sappy e mails that make them feel good or by thanking an active duty service person or military vet for their service. Well, neither does anything to put food in their and their family's mouth or provides the health care, education, job training and other benefits they deserve for their service to our country. Yet the same people who feign gratitude and concern for our troops and vets can't be bothered to challenge, to demand their Representative and Senators pass legislation and provide the funding for the support and programs our troops need. The cuts to food stamps / SNAP and subsidies to military commissaries coupled with the filibuster in the Senate of S1982 (Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014
),
reflect the hypocrisy of the gop and democrats and president regarding the support and welfare of our troops and vets. Failure of everyone who claims to support our troops to contact their Representative http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and Senators http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm and Pres Obama http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact and demand better for our active duty military and our vets and less for the brass and military-industrial complex will expose their hypocrisy too. More at #HelpVets VETS BILL DIES IN SENATE,
HOW YOUR SENATOR VOTED & With just 41 votes, Republican senators
block veterans benefits bill 27FEB14
( http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/vets-bill-dies-in-senate-how-your.html )
Mark E Andersen for Daily Kos Labor
Military food stamp use
When you think of someone who receives food stamps you generally do not
think of someone serving our nation in uniform as being a recipient of
food stamps. Surely we pay our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines
enough money each month to support a family. Well, the sad truth is that
no, junior enlisted do not make enough money to support a family. Which
is why so many military families qualify for food stamps and is also
why food stamp use in Commissaries (a grocery store on post) have gone
from
$26.2 million in fiscal year 2006 to $103.6 million in 2013.
Some of the growth in soldiers' redemption of food stamps
reflects the weak economic recovery, especially for spouses looking for
jobs. In 2012, there was a 30% unemployment rate among spouses off
active-duty military who were 18 to 24 years old, according to the
Military Officers Association of America, which released the survey last
week.
Cuts in the food stamp programs will only make things worse for many military families. But, that is not the worst part.
Coupled with cuts in food stamp programs...
...the Defense Department subsidy [for commissaries] would
drop from $1.4 billion annually to $400 million under a defense budget
proposal the Obama administration plans to deliver to Congress next
week, Pentagon officials announced Monday. The commissary cut will be
accomplished not by eliminating any commissary locations, but by
reducing the amount of savings over civilian markets that service
members enjoy.
Talk about a double whammy. Congress makes cuts to benefits that junior
enlisted troops need in order to feed their families and at the same
time the DOD is cutting one billion dollars from the commissaries
budget. Which puts many young military families at risk.
It never ceases to amaze me; our government blows billions of dollars
on weapons systems that don’t work and that we don’t need – yet we
expect these young men and women to put their lives on the line day in
and day out and we pay them so little that they have to use food stamps
to make ends meet and to top it all off we whittle away at the benefits
they receive costing them even more money that they do not have.
Instead of the Pentagon pissing away more money on an aircraft
carrier, fighter jet, or some other weapons system we don’t need, how
about making sure the young men and women who put their lives on the
line every day are adequately cared for.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/27/1280110/-Troops-face-devastating-one-two-punch?detail=email
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