To the Editor:
Our disabled veterans are grossly under compensated and have been for generations. This is most especially true for our totally and permanently disabled veterans. Our disabled veterans have been asking Congress for fair and adequate compensation since the end of WWI (1918). This is outright wrong! And it is adversely affecting enlistments into the armed forces.
In 2022 a totally disabled veteran with no dependents is compensated at the ridiculous rate of $39,984.72 dollars annually. The National Average Wage Index (NAWI) for 2020 was $55,628.60 dollars per annum and the median income for 2020 was $67,521.00. The per capita GDP in 2020 was $63,416.00 dollars, among the highest in the world.
Disabled veterans realize that they are being manipulated and given short shrift by the wealthy and politically connected top 5 percent of the wealth pyramid in order to keep their compensation low in order to ensure a low tax rate for the Elites. The Elites use the national debt as a constant scare tactic to garner support from the working class and poor.
We can tax investments at one penny per every dollar traded on the 13 stock markets operating in the USA to pay for this. This would go far beyond the one percent tax on corporate buy backs and be levied on ALL stocks bought or sold on the stock market. It is long past time for the Investor Class to carry its’ share of the tax burden.
Compensate them at least at the level of the NAWI for ALL types of totally and permanently disabled veterans. And/or give federal income tax exclusion to ALL types of totally and permanently disabled veterans for all income regardless of source up to $125K per annum.
There is also a national security aspect to this. Once our youth clearly understand that serving in the armed forces and getting injured or sickened seriously enough to require disability retirement as a disabled veteran that will condemn them to a life of near poverty, then at that point the armed forces will collapse. As I previously mentioned, this is already happening. Enlistments are dropping rapidly
Orville Pea
Windmere Villas
