Congress goes on vacation, veterans go hungry

Congress goes on vacation, veterans go hungry
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
December 12, 2013

Congress is getting ready to head out of Washington again. Frankly few will even notice considering their total lack of delivering on doing their jobs to take care of this country. The troops and veterans however did not get excuses. They didn't get to go home on the weekends or get paid for not working most of the time. Members of congress seem to fear political opponents more than they take pride in their work on behalf of Americans. It is a shame but the dirty rotten shame is how little they notice their hatchet approach to the needy in this country include veterans.

(Huffington Post)

If I got preachy on the right thing to do for all, this would take all day. I am just going to let the numbers speak. These are the numbers they don't want you thinking about when they whine about the need to cut social services like food stamps and unemployment. We're heading into Christmas but also a harsh winter. Keep that in mind for the rest of this.

Unemployment rate for veterans who have served since 9/11 stood at 10 percent, with 246,000 out of work.

About 900,000 veterans and 5,000 active duty troops face cuts in their food stamp benefits beginning Thursday as $5 billion is automatically trimmed from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program for low-income families.

Department of Veterans Affairs claims waiting to be delivered on adds to these numbers. As of December 7, 2013 693,857 veterans have pending claims and wait for the money to live on. 395,358 are waiting in the backlog with 40% of those claims coming from veterans waiting with their original claim.. OEF and OIF veterans are 22% of the backlog and 21% of the original claims. Gulf War veterans are 21% of the backlog and 23% but Vietnam veterans are the majority of both claim groups. 37% of the total and 38% of the backlog.

Remind members of congress that while they are too afraid to do the right thing, the veterans never feared to go where congress sent them to fight the wars. If members of congress cannot do the right thing for this country they risked their lives for, which includes everyone, then these politicians need to be in the unemployment line.

UPDATE
I almost forgot that 100,000 recent war veterans have been kicked out under bad paper discharges too. They get nothing.