Congress is focused on extending the unemployment benefits and creating “Promise Zones”.
Via Stars & Stripes
Wounded warriors implored Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel during a town hall meeting Wednesday not to cut health care and other benefits for servicemembers and veterans.
Retired Sgt. Victor Rivera complained about the latest budget agreement reached by Congress which would cut the cost-of-living-adjustment for veterans by 1 percent, effective in December 2015.
“Please don’t take our money,” Rivera told Hagel at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.
“Let me assure you that all disabled … will be exempt from any adjustments in the budget growth to benefits,” Hagel responded. “We’ve got two years to fix that particular problem. It will be fixed.”
Sgt. Maj. Clifford Lovejoy praised Brooke and expressed concern about what would happen if the medical center lost Defense Department funding.
“We’re not going to do anything that would inhibit the continued progress of this institution,” Hagel said. “We’re going to continue to make the kind of resource commitments that are required.”
But Hagel said some benefit cuts to service members and veterans appear inevitable.