Ryan-Murray Budget Deal Screws Veterans, Military Retirees, Leaves Federal Workers Unscathed

UPDATE: Murray back peddles so fast on veterans cuts that images in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear:

Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) vowed Wednesday to fix a “technical error” in the bipartisan budget agreement that cuts military retirees benefits.

“A provision in this deal which mistakenly impacted retirement benefits for disabled veterans … will be fixed in short order,” Murray said. “This technical error can, will and should be addressed.”

Later Wednesday, the Senate is expected to pass a bipartisan budget agreement negotiated by Murray and her House counterpart, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

Their bill has received bipartisan criticism for cutting $6 billion in military retiree benefits — a 1 percent cost-of-living cut — in order to replace some of the sequester cuts to the Pentagon.

……The House overwhelmingly passed the deal last week. Tweaks cannot be made to the bill because the House has already left for the holiday.

Murray vowed that the Senate would later pass a technical correction ensuring that veterans with disabilities wouldn’t see a cut to their benefits.

The raw deal we tried to give veterans was due to a ‘technicality’. Uh huh.

Thanks, Paul. We expect this kind of shit from Dems, not the GOP.

UPDATE:  Ryan admits the cuts were a ‘mistake’, he knew they were included in the deal, and he did nothing to fix it:

While interviewing him on Kudlow Report on CNBC Wednesday evening, Larry Kudlow asked Ryan if he agreed with a statement Murray made on the Senate floor earlier in the day. “A provision included in this deal that mistakenly included disabled retirees and survivors for changes in the pension growth will be addressed in short order following passage of this bill,” Murray said.

When Kudlow asked Ryan if he “agreed” with Murray’s assessment that the matter was a mistake, Ryan replied that he did:

“That will be solved with the technical correction that will pass when Congress comes back into session. We wanted to make sure that we kept military pension retirement better than their civilian counterparts. Civilians who retired before 62 get no cost of living update at all. These military retirees will still get a cost of living update. Then they get the benefits recalculated when they turn 62, to make sure that they got back what they had lost. In effect, build back the base of their pension. Look, Larry, we owe so much to these men and women who fight for us. We wanted to make sure that they always have a better pension system than anybody else in government. We maintain that, and we have very modest reforms to help the Pentagon with their very big budget problems. The Pentagon has some budget problems. We stopped the bleeding, we stopped the cuts, we gave them some mild reforms and we have two years before this actual provision kicks in place to give Congress enough time to adjust it in another way if they want to.”

“Let me just be clear on this,” Kudlow responded. “So in other words, you agree that disabled military vets will not take the 1% call for reduction. You agree with that, and that was an oversight?”

“That’s correct,” Ryan answered.

However, Ryan knew what he is now calling a “mistake” and an “oversight” was in the bill two full days before the House of Representatives voted to pass it.

From The Free Beacon.

Under the budget agreement crafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D., Wash.), military retirees younger than 62.

……New federal employees who are hired after Jan. 1, 2014 will also be required to pay 1.3 percent of their pay more into their pension plans. However, federal retirees will continue to receive their generous pension benefits and current employees will not be required to pay more.

……Ryan contends lowering the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for military retirees under 62 will decrease the deficit by $7 billion over 10 years.

Just so you know, Ryan collaborated with a mealy-mouthed bitch who said this:

“bin Laden has been “out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven’t done that.”

None of which was true, and clearly demonstrated her abject hatred of the military and America.

Senate Dems blocked any attempt to prevent cuts to veterans by  closing a welfare loophole for illegal aliens.

Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions said Monday, announcing his co-sponsorship of Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker’s amendment to restore the military retirement benefits Monday. Additionally, the Alabama Republican offered his own amendment to restore the cuts by targeting a child tax credit loophole that illegal immigrants have used to unlawfully obtain welfare benefits.

In 2011, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that “individuals who are not authorized to work in the United States” and therefore did not have a valid Social Security number were still able to obtain billions in Additional Child Tax Credits by filing returns with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number.

Specifically the Internal Revenue Service watchdog found that unauthorized individuals received $4.2 billion refundable credits in Processing Year 2010.

Tuesday evening, Sessions attempted to force Majority Leader Harry Reid allow amendments the budget agreement.

Sessions hoped to attach his amendment to the deal — which would have closed the loophole by requiring a Social Security number to claim the refundable portion of the child tax credit and restore military retirement benefits.

In other words the Dem crapweasels  just voted to keep pension cuts for vets instead of cutting welfare payments to illegal aliens.

Disabled veterans got dissed,as well:

A provision cutting the pensions of military retirees in the bipartisan budget deal that the Senate will vote on this week does not exempt disabled veterans…Disabled retirees were previously thought to be exempt from the changes to military retiree pay, which could cost servicemembers up to $124,000 over a 20-year period.
The section of the U.S. code that has been altered also applies to disabled servicemembers, many of whom have been wounded in combat.

33 GOP Senators voted against this travesty.

12 RINOs sided with the Dems:

Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Rob Portman (R-OH), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Susan Collins (R-ME), John Hoeven (R-ND), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and John McCain (R-AZ).

John McCain, who has disabilities thanks to the torture he suffered at the hand’s of the VC in the Hanoi Hilton, also voted to screw his fellow disabled vets:

Babette Maxwell, founder of Military Spouse magazine, has called out Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a disabled Vietnam veteran, for voting on the budget deal, which slashes pensions for military personnel.

“Shockingly, a disabled veteran took money away from disabled veterans. He’s one of us,” Maxwell told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.
……”As to why [lawmakers] feel like this is the will of the people, I have no idea. It most certainly is not the will of the people.””I can’t imagine a nation that would support taking away earned benefits from those who have given of their life and of their limb.”

McCain is a RINO who forgot his constituents and the base of his party.

As usual, the budget deal did nothing to scale back reckless spending.

If Ryan really wants to put a dent in the deficit, he can start with crap like this:

• $13.6 billion in false claims for Earned Income Tax Credits in 2012. The IRS is projected to make improper payments for up to 28 percent of the more than $55 billion in EITC payments. (p.124)
• $1.5 billion to keep the lights on in unused and underutilized federal buildings (p.58)
• $1 million to construct a bus site in Virginia, (p.33)
• $5 million for customized crystal stemware (p.74)
• $7 billion dollars of military equipment being destroyed because troops are being pulled out of Afghanistan (p.14)
• $1 million on a website that called “True Romance that celebrated movies, books and pop-songs” (p.7)
• $450,000 to famous Alaskan Amber brewing company to help them install an environmentally friendly boiler, even though in 2012, the company’s sales increased to 140,000 barrels of beer up 11% from 2010 (p.86)
• $3 million paid to NASA employees to attend seminars on how congress works p.(43)
• 3.6 Billion dollars in unpaid income taxes from federal employees and retirees (p.84)
• $400,000,000 paid to government employees to do nothing during the recent government shutdown (p.3)

And this:

• $15,000 to collect thousands of gallons of human urine and test it as a hay field fertilizer.
• $65 million in Superstorm Sandy emergency relief money that New York and New Jersey spent on television ads promoting tourism.
• $566,000 paid by the U.S. Postal Service to “futurist” Faith Popcorn to envision a viable future for the post office.
• $124,955 to build a 3-D printer to make pizzas for NASA.
• “Pillownauts” — 20 people the NASA paid $18,000 each to “spend 70 days lying in bed” with their bodies slightly tilted.

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) puts out an annual Pig Book; a compilation of the year’s biggest porkers (spenders) in government.  Go to their site and read over some of the ways in which elected officials spend our money. Take your blood pressure pills first.

There’s a ton of obscene waste, pork, and earmarks they could cut, but instead they target military veterans.

You’ll note that none of those cuts affect their own salaries. With assholes like that, who needs Obama?

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