Tony Zirkle for Congress

Visitor #46522

Press Release - Tony Zirkle for Congress - 3-18-2008

I will be holding a press conference on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 12:00 p.m. in my South Bend law office at 110 N. Main St., South Bend, IN 46607 to discuss two pending bills that would seriously affect military veterans.

Where is Congressman Donnelly when veterans need him? When Chris Chocola was here for our Congressman to kick around, it seemed like we heard Mr. Donnelly constantly crying out for veterans. Now, we can’t be too critical because he’s only been in office just over a year, but we veterans deserve to know how Mr. Donnelly stands on the issues in S 2674 and HR 5509. We’re still waiting on that South Bend/Mishawaka VA center so that local vets don’t have to travel to Ft. Wayne. Perhaps the best source of funding to get these centers going could be from the issues I previously raised earlier this year in my Abortion Reform Press Release that is located on www.tonyzirkle.com/campaign.

One of the district’s disabled veterans has recently send me an e-mail which is pasted below:

"I am most concerned with the provisions of Senator Burr's America's Wounded Warrior Act (S 2674) and Representative Buyer's Nobel Warrior Act (HR 5509), which would drastically change the disability compensation system for America's veterans. These bills are loosely based on the recommendations of the President's Commission on Care for America's Wounded Warriors (Dole/Shalala Commission), but the specifics of these bills would do great harm to these veterans in the following ways: * Offset VA Disability Compensation by Social Security when the veteran ages 65. * Apply to all currently discharging veterans AND any veteran under VA's current compensation system who files a subsequent claim for additional benefits. * Once under the new system the veteran cannot return to the current system. * Protection for ratings in effect for 10 or more years would no longer apply. * Would require the VA Secretary to examine or consider: (a) "the extent to which disability compensation may be used as an incentive to undergo treatment" (b) "the appropriate injuries to be covered under the new disability rating system" (c) "age" as a determining factor when considering average loss of earnings capacity. * Amends the law to provide the Secretary with authority to adopt and apply a rating schedule for "specific injuries." This provision would expressly limit VA authority over the Rating Schedule and places the authority in the hands of Congress. If the Congress can not correct the Sustained Growth Rate formula of Medicare Law how can we expect the Congress to do any better with the much more complex Disability Rating Schedule? * Provides for a quality of life payment, but only for those enrolled in the "new" compensation system. * Allows or suggests: That VA "may take into account the effect on potential future earnings caused by the age of the veteran at the time a disability rating is assigned." This provision would allow VA to compensate an older veteran at a lower percentage of disability than a younger veteran for the exact same disease or injury. Is this not age discrimination? * Provides that (a) "as frequently as [the VA] considers it appropriate, [the VA] must reevaluate and ... adjust the disability rating for any veteran receiving compensation;" (b) the VA "must ... take into account any adjustments in the rating schedule that occurred since the last assignment of a rating;" (c) The frequency of reevaluations would be determined by an examining physician. This places physicians back in the rating business, allows for frequent "adjustments" to a veteran's rating based on perceived improvement, and further allows reductions based on a change in the rating criteria even when no improvement in the disability is shown. For these reasons, among others, I strongly urge you to oppose S2674/HR5509 and any other legislation which is detrimental to and/or discriminatory against this nation's veterans."

Some of these provisions, if they become law, will send the wrong message to our veterans and potential recruits in a time when our military is not having an easy time recruiting enough volunteers.

As the only veteran in this race, I take particular issue with offsetting VA benefits with social security benefits. If a person skipped the military and spent time earning a pension from Microsoft or some other company, we would not cut their pension check by the amount of the social security benefits they received. If a private worker can earn two retirement checks, why not a veteran? Why should veterans have to offset two benefits? Did they not both pay into social security and also risk their lives for our nation?

Additionally, many vets have relied on the 10 year lock in rule for disability income. They may have bought property, set up their kids in particular schools or set a family budget based in substantial part on their reliance on their disability rating that they have received for 10 or 20 years, for example. What will happen to the family budgets of these veterans who suddenly get $500, $1000 or more a month taken away? In many service-connected disability cases, the military has stuck a disability label on a vet which after a background check would prohibit them from obtaining certain high sensitive job opportunities. In these particularly cases, the gov’t has limited employment options, so removing a long held disability payment would only add salt to a government created wound.