Congress Declarations of War

There used to be a feeling in America, that a few groups would never have to fear having their earned benefits threatened.  These groups included but were not limited to veterans, the poor and women.  History now shows that this is no longer the case.

You would have had to be blind, deaf or dead not to hear the rhetoric about congress’s assault on women.  The small government people pushing legislation which may not put government in your business but does place government in your bedroom, home and now in a woman’s womb.  You see congress, not only federal but state as well, voting to allow males to decide what kind of health care women should be allowed to get while hoping no one notices how quickly and smoothly they passed Viagra coverage for themselves.  How some religious communities are all up in arms over contraception but completely quite about the choices men are free to make about preventing unwanted pregnancies, not to mention the avalanche of advertisement about testosterone treatment coverage.

The same can be said about the War on the Poor, where cuts are being held as the conservative thing to do while getting rid of tax loopholes for the rich is off the table.  It appears to be good business to cut funds designated to help feed the poor, seniors and kids.  Good business not to help families feed their children or make a decent living, good business to cut areas where many cannot yet fathom the impact it will have on this nation’s economy and ultimately those who have been silenced and struggling for so long.  It appears to be bad business to make millionaires and billionaires pay every dime of their fair share, pension fund managers to give back to a country that has given them so much and not providing an unobstructed path to getting more while choking out those trying to get a leg up.  I guess the really sad part is that with all of the money millionaires and billionaires have, paying every dime of their fair share would only be temporary because they can afford the best accountants to make sure they got those dimes back during tax time each year, but then I guess that’s just me.

Now come a more apparent assault of veterans.  It all started in 1989 with the base closings.  Never did it occur to those sitting in those soft chairs that the base closures will affect a group of Americans who had already committed to sacrificing their lives for them and this country.  The Base Realignment and Closure Commission betrayed those veterans long before they even picked up a pencil.  To go after the bases when the huge amount of contracts was being paid were there to reduce first.  Paying $50 for a toilet seat made more sense than keeping a town or community viable and working.  Paying for “cold war” killing equipment was more important than allowing that veteran who just returned from defending their freedoms a place to come back to, a place to call home.

The assault continued when congress decided to require the United States Postal Service to overpay into their pension fund, a fund, I might add, that they belonged to as well.  An agency that does not take any taxpayer’s money to fund but for some reason is still controlled by congress.  Maybe it was because they were so concerned about the postal service retirees that they wanted to make sure the money they had earned was there or maybe it was to make sure Wall Street had more money to gamble with and they could contribute less to their own pension fund?  What was not considered was the postal service was the only place a veteran knew he/she could get hired.  It was a benefit looked forward to by many of those who were being discharged.   Now that the postal service has been bleeding red since that act, the number of veterans being even considered for employment has dwindled and they now see another benefit, promised but not delivered upon from those still sitting in those soft chairs.

But all of this pales in comparison to this “sequestration” crap.  An across-the-board cutting stick which was used mainly to get congress to fix another self-imposed crisis.   This self-imposed idea will now do what congress has set out to do in the first place which is to keep our people divided between the “haves” and the “have-nots”.  No unity for this nation that has shown far too many times just how resourceful we are when we band together as one.  With this sequestration, those veterans who may have just recently learned that they were poisoned by their government, will now have to continue to suffer in silence.  Without making those responsible for contaminating the drinking waters on hundreds of stateside military bases, we can expect nothing.  Some have mentioned how long it take for veterans to be determined disable and start receiving financial help from their government, will think about how difficult it is to pay your bills without money, now consider cuts that keep veterans from getting another benefit earned but not delivered.  The pain of being a veteran does not begin nor end with those in congress.  It is expected that those who know nothing would always pretend to know everything, but what does provides me with a pain that I though only family members were capable of inflicting, is the fact that the government knew about the contaminated drinking waters on and allowed it to continue.  To be betrayed by a stranger is expected and often times welcomed than for that betrayal to come from a family member.  The pain may be the same whether it comes from a family member or a stranger but when it comes from family the wound it leaves behind is very much deeper and may never heal.