[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 24135]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TAX ON DISABLED VETERANS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN

                            of rhode island

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 2, 2003

  Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in 
condemning the gross injustice being perpetrated upon the greatest of 
American heroes, our disabled veterans.
  Due to an antiquated law, more than 700,000 disabled veterans had 
been unable to receive both their compensation from the Department of 
Veterans Affairs (VA) and their military retirement pay. We ended this 
disgraceful treatment for some of our disabled veterans with the 
passage of last year's Defense Authorization Act. Now, veterans with 
disability ratings of 60 percent and higher are eligible to receive a 
special compensation that offsets the egregious tax on disabled 
veterans. But thousands more are still waiting for relief.
  Veterans are the only group of federal retirees who face such a 
punishing offset, levied against them simply for being disabled. This 
penalty is simply wrong. The retirees that it affects have already 
sacrificed too much in service to our country to have to forfeit their 
VA compensation.
  H.R. 303, of which I am a proud cosponsor, is just the first step. 
This bipartisan legislation would allow retired members of the Armed 
Services with service-connected disabilities to collect the full 
veterans' disability compensation to which they are entitled. It 
guarantees that disabled retirees receive a fair benefit package, and 
its overwhelming support, has helped bring the issue of concurrent 
receipt to the forefront of our legislative agenda. Yet even with 370 
cosponsors, the Republican leadership refuses to bring the bill to the 
Floor. We have launched a discharge petition to force H.R. 303 to be 
considered, and still they block us. There are 203 signatures on the 
petition, but the Republican leadership has warned its members not to 
sign on, so it is going to be a fight for the last 15 signatures. I say 
to you that this is a fight we must win.
  Now, there is even talk of redefining what ``disabled veteran'' 
means. How dare anyone attempt to cheat veterans out of the benefits we 
promised and they rightly earned? It is unconscionable that Members of 
our own body are sabotaging attempts to correct an inequity. We must 
resist any move to restrict veterans' access to healthcare and 
compensation.
  It is reprehensible that a Civil War era law is still robbing our 
veterans of fair compensation that is rightly theirs, and I call upon 
my colleagues to fight this embarrassing mistake and restore to our 
heroes just a small amount of what we owe them.

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