Under the "with friends like this" heading comes Senator Tommy Coburn (R-Chevron), who gets mad that some retired military are "triple dipping"! The Senator who never met a corporation he did not take money from to build weapons the military does not want, is complaining that almost 60,000 retired military members are drawing their hard earned pension, receiving their hard earned social security, AND getting VA disability!
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-General Dynamics) claims this is "breaking the bank" and could cause SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) to become bankrupt in two years.
According to Military.com "The average payment was about $59,000, but about 2,300 veterans, or 4 percent of the total, received concurrent payments of $100,000 or more, the Government Accountability Office said.
"The highest payment was to a veteran who received $208,757 in combined payments in 2013.
"We should fulfill our promises to the men and women who serve, but we need to streamline these duplicative programs," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who requested the study.
"Veterans groups disagree. They say the retirement money was earned for years of service in the military, while disability payments are compensation for service-related injuries and wounds.
"In most cases, veterans who receive a combination of benefits are severely disabled. About 4 in 5 veterans who got triple payments had a disability rating of at least 50 percent, the GAO said. Nearly half of those receiving triple payments were at least 60 percent.
"Louis Celli Jr., a Washington representative for the American Legion, said critics of the multiple benefits are "misguided and uninformed." He said the report "should simply be filed in the category of one of Sen. Coburn's parting shots to loyal upstanding American patriots who have sacrificed so much for this country."
My suggestion: Slap him with a semi-frozen tuna till he understands that the pension retired draw is what they earned from hard work, Social Security is something all americans earn even if they are CEO's, and VA disability is earned from the injuries resulting from military service.
But then this is the same person who complains that veterans with only 20 years of military service are drawing a pension AND still working in the civilian world at the age of 39.