"Harry Reid screwed this up all year long and President Obama and now Republicans are going along with the screwing of the military. I do not know why we bother to win elections when we turn around and screw the people we campaign on," conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt said on his show last night after an interview with Republican Senator Jim Inhofe.
Yesterday the lame-duck Senate released its detailed plan for the National Defense Authorization Act. The legislation cuts the pay raise for the military, imposes caps on basic housing allowance and imposes co-pays on prescription drugs totaling $5 billion in overall cuts.
When asked to explain the reasoning behind the cuts, especially when the federal government funds so much nonsense, the best Inhofe could come up with in the interview was, "We need a bill." Inhofe sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
As Hewitt points out during the interview, these cuts directly affect the men and women coming home from overseas who are experiencing PTSD and dealing with severe injuries. These cuts also directly impact their families right before Christmas time. It should be noted that the rate of severe injuries like lost limbs have skyrocketed under President Obama, and since 2009 the extreme injury rate for our troops in Afghanistan has gone up by 500 percent according to iCasulaties.org. Further, 22 military veterans and active duty soldiers commit suicide every day.
"I have to give voice to the people who have been writing me all day. They are pissed. And they are so upset that Republicans have agreed to this in order just to keep the record going. They really, I hope some Republican stands up and filibusters it. Maybe it will be you [Inhofe], because these men and women...they’re struggling with PTSD, they’re struggling with multiple deployments. They’ve got no money, no disposable income, and basically, what the lame duck Congress is doing is paying for the war in Iraq and Syria by cutting active duty servicemen’s benefits," Hewitt argued. "I think you guys should dig in…I think you guys should dig in and say damn, no, we’re not going to do this, we are not going to balance the Pentagon’s cuts on the backs of the military. And if you have to shut down the government, do it for the military."
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Listen to the whole interview, it's worth your time.
What a disgrace. If Republicans can't even stand up to Democrats in the Senate on an issue like keeping military benefits intact then what will they stand up for?
Meanwhile over at Veterans Affairs, the same system responsible for the deaths of veterans thanks to the manipulation of medical wait times, employees are raking in millions of dollars in bonuses.
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