Dear “Chained-CPI”: When You’ve Lost the VFW, You’ve Lost America

[eridani]

Raising Medicare age is now off the table. The chained CPI needs to be off the table too. Not surprised at awareness among veterans, as this would hurt disabled veterans even more than SocSec beneficiaries, for the simple reason that they are on disability far longer than most people are on SocSec.

http://www.nationofchange.org/dear-chained-cpi-when-you-ve-lost-vfw-you-ve-lost-america-1355398183

The “chained CPI” is an attempt to camouflage deep cuts to Social Security and other benefits, along with tax hikes on middle class wages (but not for high incomes), in a forest of numbers and terminology.

Know who’s expert at camouflage? Veterans. And a whole lot of their organizations hate the “chained CPI.”

A wide range of organizations representing the nation’s veterans signed a joint letter to leaders in Congress which said “we are writing to express our opposition to changing the formula used to calculate the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) because of the harmful effects it will have on veterans and Social Security benefits.”

The organizations signing on to the letter (17 in all) spanned generations, with the Vietnam Veterans of America and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. It includes former enlisted personnel as well as the Military Officers Association of America. Gold Star Wives, an organization of widows and widowers whose spouses died while on active duty, was represented. And so was the VFW, or Veterans of Foreign Wars, an organization that had traditionally been staunchly conservative.

Here’s a thought for politicians who might be considering the “chained CPI”: When you’ve lost the VFW, you’ve lost America.

[BeyondGeography]

1. They still vote Republican no matter how hard the GOP tries to screw them

(sometimes successfully) but I appreciate their stand here.

[eridani]

2. All Repub voters are against cuts to veterans' benefits, SocSec and Medicare

But the persist in voting for the people who cut these programs.

[madokie]

10. I'm a Vietnam Vet and I wouldn't vote for a republiCON if my life depended on it

I just wouldn't do it. Like I said even if it meant my life because of my affinity with my brother and sister Vets

I'm a yellow dog democrat, in other words I'd vote for a yellow dog rather than a republiCON, no matter the circumstances.

[Roy Rolling]

13. perception

Your service is respected. Is it true or just my perception that Vietnam Vets are less likely to be hard-core, gung-ho Republicans than veterans of later wars? I thought the draft had a lot to do with it---if you were drafted you felt dragged into an unpopular war but if you volunteered it was viewed more as a job than a patriotic duty.

No disrespect intended, I'm asking because I think you are qualified to comment on whether this perception is valid or not.

[CaptJasHook]

18. I'm a Desert Storm Vet

And I concur with my Vietnam Vet brother.

[coldbeer]

19. I volunteered for the draft

I volunteered for Viet Nam. Was in the infantry. After two miserable years
I came home and got a job as an apprentice in a machine shop. Mad tw0-fifty
an hour with a future six-fifty in my sights. Nixon fuckin froze my wages!
I will never vote GOP. My hardest choice was Gore because that suck-ass
chose Lieberman. And I despised GW.

[madokie]

21. I don't know any of my fellow VN vets who lean republiCON

A lot of the reasons are as you say, the draft. I was drafted into the army but I joined the Navy instead so I wouldn't have to go to VN. Wound up there anyway and never set foot on a ship, spent my time on land, SERE School and then VN

[coldbeer]

23. LOL!!!

I'm laughing with you and not at you.
One of my very best friends did the
same thing. He said he did not now the
navy was the marines! I didn't either.
He spent his four years as a jar head.

[madokie]

34. The only time I wore a traditional navy uniform was during boot camp

The rest of the time I wore green fatigues

[enlightenment]

30. My father was a 32 year career AF officer

who enlisted in 1941.

Yes, he voted Republican for much of his life - but the last 20 years he was a Dem. Not all vets, regardless of their age, are conservatives.

[liberalhistorian]

29. First, thank you for your service,

My uncle was a Marine in Vietnam (two tours); he is now in a nursing home in the last stages of Alzheimer's in only his early sixties. We can't help but wonder if something he was exposed to during his service contributed to it, but I don't think we'll ever really know. He'd always wanted to get to D.C. to see the Vietnam Memorial; we feel bad now that he'll never do that.

If you don't mind, I'd like to get your opinion on something. I've been reading and hearing for a long time now that the VFW has been losing its membership (mostly to old members dying off), but it's never been welcoming to Vietnam vets, not considering them to be truly "foreign war vets" and that, consequently, Vietnam vets have stayed away from the VFW in droves at the same time that the VFW is desperately trying to increase membership. Has that been true in your experience, or does it just depend on the particular VFW branch and where it's located?

[madokie]

33. Thank you

I have no idea as I'm not a member of the VFW or the Legion
Around here the guys who belong to either in my estimating seem to be republiCONs so I stay as far away as I can. I'm not a gun owner and don't plan on ever owning one

[bluestate10]

36. One of my older brothers was in a Marine gunner crew. He told me years later, before he lost

his mind, that his crew often gunned near or in the jungle. I found out later that troops like him were often sprayed with Agent Orange. He passed away a decade ago.

[liberalhistorian]

38. I'm very sorry about your brother and I don't doubt

what he said about Agent Orange. Do you think that might have had something to do with his condition, and, perhaps, my uncle's?

[plethoro]

20. I'm also a Vietnam Vet. I won't even knowingly let

Republicans in my house.

[madokie]

22. +1

and when on occasion I do I have to air the place out upon their departure. (-:

[plethoro]

24. Likewise. I'm going to see The Hobbit at 4 bells today with my 42 year-old-daughter

and a bunch of nurses who are taking the day off. I can't wait. I wonder if my zeal at seeing this movie and my devotion to everything Tolkein is somewhat strange for someone 67. I hope to forget politics for the entire movie. I just hope some Republican doesn't do something to irritate me before showtime.

[Scuba]

4. If by "they" you mean veterans, then you're mistaken. Many of us vets vote straight blue.

[BeyondGeography]

9. 65 and over went for Romney by 12 points

So it's not just older veterans. Obama walks into any VFW meeting and he's fighting an uphill battle. Same for any Dem; based on policy, there's no reason for that other than outdated assumptions about the parties and the country and a willingness to put social/cultural factors ahead of economic self-interest, which, again, is about more than veterans.

[Scuba]

15. I don't know what precentage of vets belong to a VFW, but I'm guessing less than half.

Yes, veterans, like so many, are misinformed about the parties, but to state that all veterans vote Republican is grossly inaccurate.

[BeyondGeography]

16. Yeah, that's what I was saying

Not a single vet in the country voted for Obama.

I love the, "every veteran I know voted for Obama" responses. Amazing how he got crushed by older voters with all that support.

[proReality]

8. My 92-yr. old father is a WWII vet and member of the VFW

and he's always been a Yellow Dog dem. Most of his friends are too.

[gollygee]

14. My dad is in the VFW and votes Democratic

He was in a union.

[bluestate10]

35. Yeah, that is the fucking kicker.

Those people vote republican without thinking because all they see are the "moochers" taking advantage of the system. They would never consider voting for a democrat. Yet, it is always democrats, elected by the educated and striving in society that are always fighting to save the VFW types asses from republicans.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

3. Good for the organizations. All of them. But will Congress listen?

[jtuck004]

5. If we speak loud and long enough, and in sufficient numbers, we won't have to ask. n/t

[AnotherMcIntosh]

6. It seems to me that when we spoke up in 2006 and replaced Republicans in Congress with Democrats,

the first response from Pelosi and her Congressional supporters was "Impeachment is off the table."

It also seems to me that when we spoke up in 2008 and swept the Presidency, Congress, and local races with Democrats, we spoke up again. One of the first decisions made by the Obama Administration was to continue and expand the optional Middle-East occupations, and give de facto immunity to openly admitted war criminals.

In 2010, after Obama extended the Bush tax-cuts for the rich and super-rich, he reduced the likelihood that Democratic politicians would be held in the same high regard that they were held in 2006 and 2008. The 2010 election confirmed that.

In the recent 2012 election, a Romney-is-worse campaign was run.

"If we speak loud and long enough"? How loud? How long?

[jtuck004]

31. Sorry. I meant loud and long like they did in 1880, 1884...

back when they figured out that electing someone and then sitting back and expecting them to vote as if they cared for us just didn't work.

So they took to the streets by the tens of thousands, and they were very, very loud, when they created organizations and councils.
When the American Communist Party brought over 1 million signatures to Congress to demand unemployment, and said next time they would be back with members. (The head of the AFL union was completely against unemployment for years, even worked against other unions that tried to improve their lives, helped owners screw over workers and break the steel strike around 1919, 1920, but it was so loud that even they climbed on board a while later).

Back when unions practiced more of the old time "religion"

But that took years of organizing, (interesting to read how dangerous organizing was before the protection of Federal laws, and we have forgotten that, I think), laying the groundwork for what came later.

[RVN VET]

7. No, it won't

Maybe if a million or so of us actually went to D.C. to protest, it would listen. But i doubt it. And even if it were a million, the media would only report it as a "large gathering of veterans, some of whom oppose the proposed changes."

Vox Populi will not be loud enough to pierce the walls of Congress.

[Fumesucker]

11. It would be more like the protests at the first Dubya inaugural

Totally ignored by the M$M.

[mountain grammy]

12. Maybe if we hang teabags on our hats, the media will report the protest.

More Americans voted for Democrats than Republicons... the voters are waking up, will the Democratic party?

[sendero]

17. The existing CPI calculation.....

.... already understates experienced inflation by a lot.

We don't need more smoke and mirrors, we need something like the truth.

[burnsei sensei]

25. What amazes me is that Congress is so apoplectic

about the debt and deficit that they are willing to cut benefits for social programs, but curiously UNWILLING to take cuts in their horribly generous pay.
They are willing to strip Medicare and even gut it, and yet they are not willing to alter their own health insurance arrangements.
They are willing to make us all suffer, but unwilling to suffer any sacrifice on their part. And they talk about "shared sacrifice."
Leadership? No.

[Panasonic]

26. I'm all for lowering Medicare age. 55 years.

Yes, you heard me right. 55 years. The folks needs to know that they are secure when they pay in on their taxes, and instead of getting screwed, they are covered at 55.

The cost for Obamacare would be much lower then, me thinks. I could be wrong though.

[thatgemguy]

28. Agree with you...

Lowering the age for Medicare would help.

[Myrina]

27. How many average folks have heard this term or know what it means?

I had no clue until I read the OP.

That, dear friends, is our problem. So much shit goes on in DC that's bound up in 'covert terminology' ("right to work", "pro life", "increasing revenues", wtf?) that Joe and Jane Taxpayer couldn't follow the thread if they had to. It's like charades.

[eridani]

32. AARP is pretty infulential, and retirees who are on their lists generally get it

People in the family-raising years, unfortunately, think they don't have time to waste thinking about retirement issues.

[limpyhobbler]

37. This is one reason I'm skeptical of proposals that would separate Social Security from vets benefits

for CPI purposes, by figuring social security with a different CPI like "CPI-E" or whatever.

While Social Security is on the same CPI as vets benefits, it makes it politically much more difficult to cut by messing with the CPI.

[eridani]

40. Actually disabled people have spending patterns that are very similar to those of the elderly n/t

[Faryn Balyncd]

39. The CURRENT CPI calculation has ALREADY been rigged to underestimate inflation.