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I wrote, in a previous memo, before the saga of the government shut down and the debt increase played out Obama and his administration would overplay their hand because of arrogance and incompetence.
I did not know what it would be but making if financially difficult for families of military killed in action to attend to their loved one's burial seems to validate my thinking.
How pathetic, petty, contemptible and sadistic can you get? Well, we just found out! (See 1 below.)
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Ryan points the way. The question remains whether Obama wants to be a Rhett Butler president and frankly gives a damn? (See 2 below.)
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Dick
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1)Rumsfeld: Denial of Benefits to Fallen Soldiers' Families 'Inexcusable'
By Lisa Furgison, Cathy Burke and Todd Beamon
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday said it was "inexcusable" for the Obama administration to refuse to pay death benefits to families of the five soldiers who died in Afghanistan over the weekend.
"I just can't imagine a decision-making process that would produce those outcomes," Rumsfeld, who served as Secretary of Defense under Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush, told Fox News' "On the Record."
"It's so unfair — to the families, to the veterans, to the soldiers."
He told host Greta Van Susteren that the White House was "clearly picking and choosing what they want to do. They're making decisions that clearly fit their political agenda."
The government shutdown has stopped families of fallen soldiers from receiving a $100,000 death benefit.
Shannon Collins lost her 19-year-old son to the war over the weekend. Marine Lance Cpl. Jeremiah Collins Jr. died Saturday while supporting combat missions in Afghanistan.
In total, the loved ones of five military members slain over the weekend will be denied the benefit because of the shutdown, The Washington Times reported.
After her son's death, Collins got a letter from the government saying the $100,000 death benefit typically issued within 36 hours of a soldier's death wasn't coming.
"The government is hurting the wrong people," she told NBC's Today Show.
"Families shouldn’t have to worry about how they’re going to bury their child," she said. "Families shouldn’t have to worry about how they're going to feed their family if they don't go to work this week."
The one-time lump sum of money is meant to help families with funeral expenses and offer financial support to the family until survivor benefits begin.
Across conservative circles, Rumsfeld and others voiced disgust with the refusal to the families.
Lt. Col. Oliver North called it "unconscionable."
"This isn't about the government shutdown," he told Fox News Channel's "The Kelly File" on Tuesday. "It's about whether the commander-in-chief gives a damn about the morale of our troops."
An act of Congress is not required to authorize payments to families of the dead and wounded, North said.
"All it takes is a commander-in-chief with a conscience, because the chief executive of the United States can do it with the stroke of a pen on a presidential emergency action document."
Others agreed.
"Impacting grieving families when they are at their absolute weakest point is just disgusting," said Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the largest organization of combat veterans in the United States.
"Veterans, military personnel, and now their families are not to be used as leverage in this political game of blame," he said.
The Department of Defense says it is aware of the problem.
"The department does not currently have the authority to pay death gratuities for the survivors of service members killed in action – typically a cash payment of $100,000 paid within three days of the death of a service member," a Pentagon news release said.
"Secretary [of Defense Chuck] Hagel assured the service leaders that he would work closely with them to address these challenges and support the service members and families impacted by these disruptions," the release said.
But one foreign relations official was shocked by the lapse.
"On the anniversary of America’s longest war, in Afghanistan, a battle that barely brushes against most Americans' lives, soldiers heading into the fight face greater uncertainty than ever before," Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on the website Defense One on Monday.
"That includes the central question of what happens to their families if they don’t make it home."
The death benefit is considered only transition aid until the military's survivor benefits begin, but Lemmon said the shutdown is even threatening that obligation.
"[If] the shutdown continues into November, monthly survivor benefits are in jeopardy because the Department of Veterans Affairs has warned it will be out of cash to pay them," she wrote.
"Never before has America faced a government at war and a government shutdown at the same time. Even if much of America forgets the former while enduring the latter, the grim truth of these dueling realities is that they should not coexist given Washington's central role in prosecuting America’s conflicts."
Pentagon Comptroller Bob Hale was distraught over the situation, The Hill reported.
"We have some heart-rending situations that we are not allowed, by law, to pay death gratuities," Hale told reporters last week, adding the "Pay Our Military Act" did not change the situation.
"We've had a number of people die recently and we will be able to pay them, but not until the lapse of appropriation ends," Hale said.
Besides the Marine's death Saturday, four other military members were killed Sunday by an IED in southern Afghanistan, Lemmon said.
Republican lawmakers such as Rep. Duncan Hunter of California say a bill passed right before the shutdown to keep military pay intact should include death benefits.
"The Department of Defense, through a careless legal interpretation, is now mistakenly denying payments of death gratuity and other benefits to the families of those who make the ultimate sacrifice," Hunter told The Hill.
"Since DoD has determined that it cannot provide this benefit, I am at a loss about why DoD did not take a more active role in notifying Congress and insisting that changes in law occur immediately," Hunter said.
House GOP aides said new legislation is now being drafted to specifically fund the death benefits during the shutdown, and one aide said it could be on the House floor as soon as Wednesday, The Hill reported.
Meanwhile, the shutdown also was affecting veterans' services.
The Department of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday furloughed 7,000 workers who process compensation claims, USA Today reported.
As a result, the VA cut off public access to all 56 regional offices where veterans routinely walk in to file claims for compensation of combat- or other service-related wounds, injuries or illnesses.
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2)Here's How We Can End This Stalemate
Both Reagan and Clinton negotiated debt-ceiling deals with their opponents. We're ready to negotiate.
By Paul Ryan
The president is giving Congress the silent treatment. He's refusing to talk, even though the federal government is about to hit the debt ceiling. That's a shame—because this doesn't have to be another crisis. It could be a breakthrough. We have an opportunity here to pay down the national debt and jump-start the economy, if we start talking, and talking specifics, now. To break the deadlock, both sides should agree to common-sense reforms of the country's entitlement programs and tax code
First, let's clear something up. The president says he "will not negotiate" on the debt ceiling. He claims that such negotiations would be unprecedented. But many presidents have negotiated on the debt ceiling—including him. In 1985, Ronald Reagan signed a debt-ceiling deal with congressional Democrats that set deficit caps. In 1997, Bill Clinton hammered out an agreement with congressional Republicans to raise the debt ceiling, reform Medicare and cut capital-gains taxes. Two years ago, Mr. Obama signed the Budget Control Act, which swapped spending cuts for a debt-ceiling hike.
So the president has negotiated before, and he can do so now. In 2011, Oregon's Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and I offered ideas to reform Medicare. We had different perspectives, but we also had mutual trust. Neither of us had to betray his principles; all we had to do was put prudence ahead of pride.
If Mr. Obama decides to talk, he'll find that we actually agree on some things. For example, most of us agree that gradual, structural reforms are better than sudden, arbitrary cuts. For my Democratic colleagues, the discretionary spending levels in the Budget Control Act are a major concern. And the truth is, there's a better way to cut spending. We could provide relief from the discretionary spending levels in the Budget Control Act in exchange for structural reforms to entitlement programs.
These reforms are vital. Over the next 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office predicts discretionary spending—that is, everything except entitlement programs and debt payments—will grow by $202 billion, or roughly 17%. Meanwhile, mandatory spending—which mostly consists of funding for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—will grow by $1.6 trillion, or roughly 79%. The 2011 Budget Control Act largely ignored entitlement spending. But that is the nation's biggest challenge.
The two political parties have worked together on entitlements before. In 1982, Social Security's trustees warned Congress that the program would go bankrupt within a year. If it had, seniors would have seen an immediate cut in their benefits. Instead, Congress passed a package of reforms—the most important of which was an increase in the retirement age. Because Congress phased in this reform over time, there were no budget savings in the first five years. But through 2012, the savings were $100 billion. In the next 75 years, Social Security's actuaries expect that these reforms will save $4.6 trillion.
Just as a good investment gets higher returns through compound interest, structural reforms produce greater savings over time. Most important, they make the programs more secure. They protect them for current seniors and preserve them for the next generation. That's what the president and Congress should talk about.
Here are just a few ideas to get the conversation started. We could ask the better off to pay higher premiums for Medicare. We could reform Medigap plans to encourage efficiency and reduce costs. And we could ask federal employees to contribute more to their own retirement.
The president has embraced these ideas in budget proposals he has submitted to Congress. And in earlier talks with congressional Republicans, he has discussed combining Medicare's Part A and Part B, so the program will be less confusing for seniors. These ideas have the support of nonpartisan groups like the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and they would strengthen these critical programs. And all of them would help pay down the debt.
We should also enact pro-growth reforms that put people back to work—like opening up America's vast energy reserves to development. There is even some agreement on taxes across the aisle.
Rep. Dave Camp (R., Mich.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.) have been working for more than a year now on a bipartisan plan to reform the tax code. They agree on the fundamental principles: Broaden the base, lower the rates and simplify the code. The president himself has argued for just such an approach to corporate taxes. So we should discuss how Congress can take up the Camp–Baucus plan when it's ready.
Reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code will spur economic growth—another goal that both parties share. The CBO says stable or declining levels of federal debt would help the economy. In addition, "federal interest payments would be smaller, policy makers would have greater leeway . . . to respond to any economic downturns . . . and the risk of a sudden fiscal crisis would be much smaller."
This isn't a grand bargain. For that, we need a complete rethinking of government's approach to helping the most vulnerable, and a complete rethinking of government's approach to health care. But right now, we need to find common ground. We need to open the federal government. We need to pay our bills today—and make sure we can pay our bills tomorrow. So let's negotiate an agreement to make modest reforms to entitlement programs and the tax code.
This is our moment to get a down payment on the debt and boost the economy. But we have to act now.
The Federal Reserve won't keep interest rates low forever. The demographic crunch will only get worse. So once interest rates rise, borrowing costs will spike. If we miss this moment, the debt will spiral out of control.
That's why I want a budget agreement—because if we don't make the tough decisions now, we'll face only tougher decisions later. We can work together. We can do some good. All it takes is leadership—and for the president to come to the table
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