Don't Just Sit There

The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy
United States Senate
317 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-2101
Re: Military Groups Deserving a "Bailout"
Senator Kennedy:

As the government considers a trillion dollars in bailouts for banks, insurance companies and automakers whose own mismanagement helped cause the current financial crisis, please don't forget multiple military groups in grievous circumstances imposed on them by the government through no fault of their own, including:

1. Caregivers for wounded warriors - mothers, fathers, spouses, and other loved ones have had to quit their jobs, sell homes, and cash in retirement funds to provide full-time care to severely wounded servicemembers. The government owes training, respite, and compensation to those who never dreamed that a loved one's wounding could put their own livelihood at such risk.

2. Separated wounded warriors - Thousands of wounded or potential PTSD/TBI victims were separated with low-balled disability determinations, "personality disorder" or disciplinary discharges that limited or denied benefits.

3. Military widows whose sponsors died of service-related causes - thousands of whom must live on an annuity of $13,000 a year because their VA survivor benefits are deducted from their Survivor Benefit Plan annuities. Congress' "first-step" relief provided them only $50 per month.

4. Severely disabled retirees with less than 20 years of service - who forfeit most or all of their military retired pay to fund their own VA disability compensation. Congress passed legislation to assist the combat-disabled, but a glitch in the law stymied that for many. And a 100% non-combat disabled retiree has no relief.

5. Current military families - who've suffered terrible family separations because of past government resistance to manpower increases, despite the long war. Now, some propose cutting back on manpower increases, when the only possibility for relief is to accelerate them.

6. Guard-Reserve members deployed since 9/11 - whom the government has acknowledged deserve a reduced retirement age for active duty callups, but denies credit for those called up (for multiple combat tours in hundreds of thousands of cases) between 2001 and 2008.

7. Employers of Guard/Reserve personnel -- who deserve permanent tax breaks to help ease the burden of hiring temporary replacements for ever-more-frequently deployed staff members.

8. Currently serving uniformed services families (again) - the only large group of employees denied use of Flexible Spending Accounts to deduct out-of-pocket health and dependent costs from income and payroll taxes. Who needs a child care tax break more than a family whose sponsor has been deployed?

Sincerely,
William F. Tobin
LTC USA RET