In defense of Senator Tom Coburn his only problem is that he doesn't go far enough
I shall preface this commentary by making the note that I am myself a disabled veteran. So please do not accuse me of being a self-hater.
The big veterans' organizations are not truly advocates for veterans. They are advocates for increases in VA spending - i.e., the amen corner for federal unions. Whatever you do, don't conflate throwing more money at the VA with supporting veterans.
Senator Tom Coburn is now being attacked by "veterans'" groups for holding up a veterans [read: VA bureaucrats and employees] benefits bill. One of the bills has to do with caregivers of veterans.
This attack on Senator Coburn compels my response. Let me start with a few economic axioms.
To the extent that the federal government spends money, this makes us all (veterans included) that much less self-sufficient. That our economic problems are the result of insufficient government spending is the wrong interpretation. The bipartisan spending orgy is killing the economy, and this then begets the erroneous conclusion that the Congress must spend even more to make up for its own recklessness. Misfeasance begets more misfeasance. Instead of advocating for a return to a free market and a sound economy, various special interest groups (e.g., "veterans'" groups and VA employees) fight with eachother over pieces of a shrinking economic pie.
What is good for the economy as a whole is good for everybody (including veterans). This idea that there is one set of economic laws that pertain to veterans, and then another set of economic laws that pertain to everybody else, is rubbish.
The federal government is bankrupt and hasn't the money to spend on one person or group without inflicting economic injury upon another person or group. Increasing federal funding for, say, caregivers of veterans, only engenders the economic deprivation of others, including disabled veterans such as myself. Remember: politicians are not philanthropists. The government is not a philanthropic institution. It isn't their money being spent.
If, for example, the Congress passed a law saying that every veteran with hearing loss should receive a bigger disability check, in no way has the Congress magically created more wealth to support this increase in expenditures. By increasing the disability compensation for veterans with hearing loss via statutory law, this only diminishes resources available for, say, veterans whom are amputees.
The government does not sustain itself by satisfying consumer demands. The government is sustained by compulsory taxation, and thus it does not have to meet the profit and loss test. The government has no incentive to behave, nor control costs and allocate resources efficiently. To the contrary, the government exacts more power by finding more excuses to increase spending. There is no logic or reason behind anything the government does, and this includes the VA. As an example, I will give you two illustrations.
Since Senator Coburn is being attacked for holding up a bill related to caregivers of veterans, I'll share with you a story related to a caregiver of a veteran. My father, who has a well-paying job with a utilities company, receives a monthly check from a VA program that exceeds the disability compensation I receive for having twelve screws in my shoulder as the result of an injury I sustained while in the Marine Corps. My shoulder
Why does my father receive this check? My father is not a veteran. After my parents had been divorced and sometime while I was in the Marine Corps, my father ended up in the homosexual lifestyle. His boyfriend is a 60's era military veteran (albeit, he never left the continental United States) who had a stroke last year. My father receives a check that comes just short of my total disability compensation from the VA (I have a 30% rating for my shoulder, and a 40% combined rating), and he receives this for taking care of his homosexual lover for a certain number of hours (I believe at least 12 per week). Should somebody have to be paid by the federal government to take care of a lover? Not that I endorse the homosexual lifestyle, but shouldn't lovers be willing to take care of eachother without getting paid $10 per hour by the taxpayers for doing so? This is sick and the thought that Congress wants to throw more money at the VA for programs like this, after which politicians would grandstand and claim accolades for "supporting" veterans, is an insult to my intelligence.
Let me give you another example of wasteful - but totally-sanctioned - spending by the VA. As you can tell, I had a dozen screws inserted into my shoulder. It was in 2007 when I had my shoulder fused. Even before the surgery, my shoulder was service-connected. I was in the hospital for several days afterwards, and I had to wear a brace for several months after that.
Needless to say, my surgeon - and this was even my VA surgeon, mind you - explicitly wrote that I would require at least a few months of convalescence. Since my shoulder had already been service-connected, getting a temporary 100% rating from the VA should have been a slam dunk. Right? Wrong.
The VA Regional Office had two different people call me - something that had been unprecedented, since the VA normally communicates through letters (I guess that is unless somebody doesn't wish to codify what they say into writing) - while I was laid up in bed, could barely move, and was under the influence of pain-relieving narcotics, to tell me that I should be "out working," and that they had no intention of getting around to adjudicating my claim for a long time. I'm not certain what employer would have wanted anything to do with me like that, but the VA didn't care.
It took the VA over one year to finally adjudicate that claim, and it was adjudicated only because my Congresswoman's office intervened on my behalf. It took the VA over one year to award me six months of temporary 100% from the date of my surgery. Thus, all throughout my period of convalescence - i.e., the time I was most in need - my shoulder was rated at 30%. And guess what having a 30% rating meant? I had to pay for my prescriptions. In fact, the first thing I got in the mail from the VA after my shoulder fusion surgery was a bill for medication.
I bring this up because, due to a convergence of events, I was able to witness first-hand a paradox in the VA's treatment of people. As far as I know, I am the only one who has noticed this, and this is a "Mark original" suggestion. If somebody else has noticed this already, then I am sorry.
There I was, as a disabled veteran, recovering from a service-connected surgery, and since the VA sat on my 30% rating, the VA was billing me for medication. My mother, on the other hand, never served a single day in the military. After she divorced my biological father, she re-married my step-dad, who has had a 100% rating from the VA - albeit, I was, and I still am, far more incapacitated than he is. Since my mother - who never spent a single day in the military - was married to my step-dad, she didn't have to pay anything for her medication! It was all covered through the VA, under ChampVA. In addition to that, she had her healthcare covered under the same. And as a dependent of a disabled veteran, rather than an actual veteran, she could see practitioners outside of the VA.
I call this the disparity in the way the VA treats veterans and their dependents. As a disabled veteran, you are sentenced to having to use the VA for so-called healthcare. But the non-veteran, dependent of that same disabled veteran can go to a private practitioner. As a disabled veteran, you might have to pay for your medication, depending upon your rating. But a non-veteran, dependent of a disabled veteran who has a high enough rating, gets free medication through the VA. Only can politicians erect such paradoxical schemes and not even blink.
So, please, don't try to tell me that every time the Congress comes up with an appropriation with the word veteran in it that this is helping disabled veterans. In fact, what I really want is a federal government that operates within the confines of the Constitution, a free market, and sound money (i.e., a gold standard) again. And if you really care about disabled veterans, then tell your Congressman and Senators to stop adding to our numbers by bringing the troops home.
Mark served honorably for four years on active duty in the Marine Corps infantry, and was a Libertarian endorsed candidate for a municipal office in 2002. He has held the NFA Series 3 license (commodity futures and futures options broker) which he did a voluntary withdrawal on so that he can trade futures for his personal account. Since the year 2000, he has spent much of his free time reading the great minds of the Austrian School of economics, such as Murray Rothbard, Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, et al.
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Mark served honorably for four years on active duty in the Marine Corps infantry, and was a Libertarian endorsed candidate for a municipal office in 2002. He has held the NFA Series 3 license (commodity futures and futures options broker) which he did a voluntary withdrawal on so that he can trade futures for his personal account. Since the year 2000, he has spent much of his free time reading the great minds of the Austrian School of economics, such as Murray Rothbard, Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, et al.