Veterans
If we as a nation can ask our men and women in uniform to risk their lives serving at home and abroad, we must also be willing to fulfill the promises that were made to them when they enlisted. We cannot provide adequate care with a Veterans Administration that is run like the IRS.
One area of concern is the concurrent receipt benefits. The government forces veterans to give up their military retirement pay in order to receive disability benefits. And all money paid to a veteran under disability is deducted from his retirement pay. This creates an extra tax that the veteran must pay. It's disgraceful. We can best serve our men and women in our armed forces by changing our foreign policy so that we have far fewer people put in jeopardy defending rich nations like Japan, Germany, Korea and other nations when they can afford to defend their own soil with the lives of their citizens.
I would support any law which would give veterans more affordable health care, restore health care coverage to retired, career military personnel, investigate the causes of Gulf War illnesses and other treatments for illnesses contracted while on duty. I would work to end the requirement that disabled veterans give up their military retirement pay in order to receive VA disability benefits. And I would support tax incentives for those employers that employ veterans.