Rep. Michele Bachmann tells veterans you are not worth the money

UPDATE 7:03 est
The more I think about this the more angry I get.
Let Bachmann tell him that he doesn't deserve the funds from Social Security he paid into while he recovers along with losing both his legs in service to this country.

Or tell Carmelo Rodriquez who died of cancer after exposures in combat that he didn't earn the funds.

Or to Joshua Cope

Tell that to the men and women in this video that while the rest of us pay into the system with our money and expect to get help when we need it, they don't have the same right. Tell them that while we do a lot of talking about how much we love this country, these men and women loved it so much they were willing to die for it.

Wounded and Waiting

Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 14, 2009

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This is from Social Security

How Workers’ Compensation And Other Disability Payments May Affect Your Benefits
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10018.html
SSA Publication No. 05-10018, March 2010, ICN 454500 (En Español) [View .pdf] [Audio.mp3]
Disability payments from private sources, such as private pension or insurance benefits, do not affect your Social Security disability benefits.
However, workers’ compensation and other public disability benefits may reduce your Social Security benefits. Workers’ compensation benefits are paid to a worker because of a job-related injury or illness. They may be paid by federal or state workers’ compensation agencies, employers or by insurance companies on behalf of employers.
Other public disability payments that may affect your Social Security benefit are those paid by a federal, state or local government and are for disabling medical conditions that are not job-related. Examples are civil service disability benefits, state temporary disability benefits and state or local government retirement benefits that are based on disability.
If you receive workers’ compensation or other public disability benefits and Social Security disability benefits, the total amount of these benefits cannot exceed 80 percent of your average current earnings before you became disabled.

Some public benefits do not affect your Social Security disability benefits
If you receive Social Security disability benefits and one of the following types of public benefits,
your Social Security benefit will not be reduced:
Veterans Administration benefits;
State and local government benefits, if Social Security taxes were deducted from your earnings; or
Supplemental Security Income (SSI).


Thank you Veterans For Common Sense!
An email from them came with news from Michele Bachmann's site saying the plan is to cut off veterans and turn them over to Social Security. This at the same time the Republican folks are talking about wanting to make Social Security cuts and privatize it.

Bachmann

Cap increases in Department of Veterans Affairs health care spending, and reduce disability compensation to account for SS disability payments. Reduce Veterans’ Disability Compensation to account for Social Security Disability Insurance payments. $4.5 Billion

What Bachmann doesn't seem to understand is that troops are sent to war by politicians and act on behalf of the nation. THEY ARE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THIS NATION no matter if she likes it or not. If she doesn't think they are worth taking care of, then this woman shouldn't be where she is. How do the people of Minnesota feel about having her in congress when they have had so many serving in Iraq and Afghanistan while she wants to deny them care?

From the Disabled American Veterans
News Release - Disabled Veterans Decry Wrongheaded, 'Heartless' Budget Cuts

From Army Times

Bachmann plan would cut veterans benefits
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jan 28, 2011 5:30:31 EST
Tea party favorite Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., has unveiled a plan for cutting $400 billion in federal spending that includes freezing Veterans Affairs Department health care spending and cutting veterans’ disability benefits.

Her proposed VA budget cuts would account for $4.5 billion of the savings included in the plan, posted on her official House of Representatives website.

Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, said cutting veterans’ health care spending is an ill-advised move at a time when the number of veterans continues to grow as troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan. Sullivan said he finds it difficult to see how VA could freeze health care costs without hurting veterans.

“It is really astonishing to see this,” he said.

In a statement, Bachmann said her plan is intended for discussion purposes as an example of ways to cut federal spending to make it unnecessary to increase the current $14.3 trillion limit on the amount the U.S. government can borrow.


The debt ceiling will be reached sometime in March, according to economic forecasts, but many lawmakers — especially members of the tea party movement — have been talking about cutting federal spending either instead of, or as part of, a move to increase the debt limit.

Her list of cuts doesn’t explain the impact of freezing veterans’ health care funding, but the Congressional Budget Office said in a report issued in October that health care costs have been quickly increasing. VA’s health care budget was $44 billion in 2009, $48 billion in 2010 and is at $52 billion this year. The report forecasts a health care budget of $69 billion or higher by 2020 if trends continue, the report estimates.

Bachmann’s idea of cutting costs by reducing veterans’ disability compensation by the amount received in Social Security Disability Income is not new. The proposal, which would affect more than 150,000 veterans, has long been on a list of possible budget options prepared by the Congressional Budget Office, which describes the option as a way to “eliminate duplicate payment of public compensation for a single disability.”