'Thank you bill' OK'd for military personnel

Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

WASHINGTON -- Setting aside differences over the war in Iraq, the House voted unanimously Tuesday to provide financial and tax relief to military personnel.

The action came as the Senate debated a major expansion in college education benefits for veterans.

In the run-up to Memorial Day, the House was taking up more than a dozen bills either to help or honor veterans and those on active duty, highlighted by the $2 billion tax package.

The bill, passed 403-0, allows active-duty reservists to make penalty-free withdrawals from retirement plans, and makes permanent a law including combat pay as earned income for purposes of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

It provides a tax credit of up to $4,000 for small businesses that continue to pay their National Guard and Reserve employees while they are on active duty and makes thousands of veterans eligible for low-interest homeowner loans.

Read more: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/363898_congress21.html

---

Would it be too much to ask for a meaningful thank-you, such as, oh, I don't know, maybe a pay increase to something comensurate with the extreme risk of being part of the Junta's war crime activities? Or actual medical care to deal with the physical and mental injuries caused by those activities? Nope; we are going to let the soldiers borrow their own money interest free because, the way we are going, not many will make it to retirement age anyway.

Because we are paying them too little to live on?????

Gosh, we really support the troops, except for the support part.

Cheap motherfuckers! The goddam corporations are making a bundle... the mercs make three times what the troops make... and the Iraqi "government" is raking it in.

The troops get to tap their fucking retirement plans ???

When they "Thank you for your service." ... I hear "Sucker!"

I'm all for paying military personnel a good wage, providing them with health care and a decent retirement, but asserting that the Iraqi government is "raking it in" is absolutely ludicrous. The whole purpose of the invasion was to plunder the Iraqi treasury and resources, and privatize the economy for the benefit of U.S. corporations.

<http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0318-11.htm>

<http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/47/2/177>

Edited to add: Pillaging the U.S. treasury on behalf of the multinationals was also a primary motive.

Do the name Chalabi mean anything to ya? Like that.

It was uncalled for.

The invasion, rapine and destruction of Iraq has left me somewhat bitter. I can be rather touchy about this subject when it seems that someone might be suggesting that the U.S. is the real victim of this tragedy. I understand that you were not, but at first it seemed as though you might be.

This mess just goes on and on.

Half the time wonder why we're not all in the streets with torches and pitchforks.

I have seen shit like this for over 40 years, nothing changes

Like dim bulb Gerald Ford vetoing the Viet-Nam veterans education extension bill because it was "Inflationary". (Remember Whip Inflation Now) the WIN Buttons

The cites and links are out there---- I am too disgusted to look them up

How about paying them better, or giving them the medical and mental health care they need when they get back so they can hold down jobs and not have to pull money out of retirement plans? Huh? How about those simple things instead?

The small business tax credit is the only thing here that seems like a directly positive thing rather than saying "oh sorry you're messed up, you can have a loan, bwahahahahaha". They missed again.

the chickenhawk conservatives -- who stayed home sitting on their puffy yellow asses -- will sniff "Oh, but it was their choice not to save enough money."

After all, Congress is giving military personnel a financial benefit that not every American is allowed, not even the very rich. You should be weeping for gratitude. :sarcasm:

"I'll see what I can do."

I usually say the other