[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 27482]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        MAKE VETERANS A PRIORITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to join several of 
my colleagues who have already spoken tonight, including the gentleman 
from the great State of Ohio (Mr. Strickland), and join him in talking 
about the plight of veterans in our country.
  As Veterans Day is coming up next week, I thought it would be an 
opportune time to talk for a few minutes about what is going on in this 
country with our veterans.
  We have Veterans Day, but really every day should be Veterans Day, 
but we designate a specific day as we do Christmas and birthdays to 
remind us as we go throughout the year that we have to continue the 
fight for our veterans. Unfortunately, the servicemen and women and 
veterans today are fighting on two fronts. They are fighting on the 
front in the Middle East and, unfortunately, they are fighting on the 
front back at home.
  Back at home the veterans are not having too much success, and I 
would like to use one example of concurrent receipt. And for those 
people watching tonight who do not know what concurrent receipt is, it 
is basically a disabled veterans tax. If a disabled veteran gets a 
retirement from the military, not the disability benefits but a 
retirement pay check, the Federal Government will deduct from your 
disability benefits and you will only receive your military retirement. 
Some vets are losing 18, 20, $25,000. You steal the benefits from their 
retirement, and you supposedly substitute that from what they should be 
receiving for their disability. So these are people who got hurt, who 
have earned in many ways the benefits that they are getting, but now 
they are not receiving them.
  So someone came up with a plan. And what they are going to do is they 
are going to phase out this disabled veterans tax over the next 10 
years. So someone who fought in World War II, in the 1940s and may be 
80, 81 years old today, this plan says that you will not get your full 
disability for 10 years. So we are asking veterans who are 81 years 
old, actually, we are telling them, that they will not be able to 
receive their benefits until they are 91 years old. Talk about an 
outrage. Talk about an outrage.
  The American Legion National Commander said, It is a matter of 
priorities in Washington, D.C. Four hundred thirty five thousand 
military retirees altogether, 135,000 disabled retirees will not 
qualify for full relief until 2014. Good luck.
  In Ohio, my home State, full concurrent receipt would benefit if they 
did it right. If we paid the bill, if we paid these disabled veterans 
what we owe them, it would benefit 9,617 disabled vets.
  Under the Republican plan, only 2,249 will be receiving the benefits, 
which leaves 7,368 disabled vets in the great State of Ohio left out in 
the cold.
  Now, as the American Legion Commander said, Washington, D.C. is about 
priorities. There is a lot of money down here to do different things, 
and it is about priorities. So I think it is all together appropriate 
to talk about what the priorities of this administration and the 
priorities of this Congress are.
  Corporate tax rates are the lowest they have been since the 1930s. If 
you are a corporation today in America, you are getting just about 
everything you want. We have enough money down here for a tax cut for 
the top 1 percent. The top 400 families in this country get an average 
tax return of $8,500,000.
  We have passed free trade agreements that have eroded our 
manufacturing base. We have a farm bill that has more pork in it than a 
Christmas ham. We threaten vetoes of Buy American provisions, Buy 
American provisions in the Defense appropriations bill. This 
administration has threatened to veto the bill if it has Buy American 
provisions in it. We have enough money to rebuild Iraq's schools and 
hospitals and universal health care; and then what takes the cake is 
they have enough time and energy to remove the anti-profiteering 
provision of the Iraq supplemental. It is time for people in this 
country to be outraged. If we cannot take care of our veterans, who can 
we take care of?

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