Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

There are 82 members of the House of Representatives that are veterans, and of those 61 are Republican. Out of 435 members less than 20 percent served in the military and even if they stood up for veterans and their disability pay being left alone, they are outnumbered 5 to 1. 

There are 24 members of the Senate and 2 members of the Supreme Court that are veterans and yet this group of people is willing to, yet again, screw veterans on money issues so that our wealthiest citizens can avoid paying taxes. 

This is another example of the never-ending line of crap that those that serve our nation and are willing to pay the ultimate price are given. Once it was health care for life, now we are paying for health care. Now the idea is to cut benefits for getting injured while serving this nation. What next, we get to do it for free. The house bill wants to start taxing disability pay for veterans. The very wealthy live on money borrowed from their stock purchases so that they do not pay taxes at all. This means that they have a way out of paying taxes on any earnings and can write off any expenses and have it both ways. 

The people at the federal level of service are generally awarded at a much higher rate than those that are in uniform. It takes a great deal more to get someone removed or punished for doing anything wrong when they are a civilian employee or elected official than when you are a member of the armed forces.

An elected official can write a check for thousands of dollars over what they have in the bank and get nothing more than a slap on the hand, a military member only has to write a check that does not clear and he or she is fined, perhaps reduced in rank, and almost certainly barred from further service.  See the fairness in this type of deal, good luck on that.

For all the people and their legal advisors that are still out there claiming that they have been harmed because of their participation in the J6 crap, Fox lost the fight on that. No election was stolen and if you are stupid enough to believe that you really are a very sorry person. Do not try to overthrow the government because a whiny old man that craps his pants every time someone doesn’t give him his way tells you to. Reasonable thought and common sense have taken a long break in this country and it started in 2015 when the combover Don decided that he was fit to be president and proceeded in blowing smoke up your asses to get you to buy off on it. If the House wants to cut spending, put Mr. MAGA in prison, stop the secret service watch, and remove his pension and you can put that money back in the drawer.

Now let’s go to the idea of budget cuts to the VA and we have more bs from all sorts of sources it seems. Many of the costs of things that active service members use and need and much of the services that are available to veterans are out of bounds because the supplier feels they can charge whatever they wish and the services will pay the bill. We have all heard of the $89 toilet seat and the high-priced hammer so it is not surprising that we have budget costs through the roof.

Cutting services and programs, laying people off and closing health care facilities all seem a bit one sided as to where the money needs to come from to balance the budget. Let’s try to look at making more efficient efforts to balance the budget. 

In the active military go back to running dining facilities as cafeterias not fast-food joints. Keep track of the amount purchased and the amount thrown away and get the waste under control. In facilities like cemeteries stop having 60 people on staff to do the work of 20. If you are not sure what that looks like visit the National Cemetery in Washington State and get some ideas. Yes, that would mean some people might lose their jobs, but then it also might mean that the 5 new facilities proposed could be staffed without having to depend on one of the slowest HR’s in the system.

Do we need to make the plight of those suffering from PTSD worse so that a former Senator or Representative has a full paycheck when no one else in the country gets that kind of federal retirement. Former Presidents don’t need a lot of the perks they are getting and if they were the true examples, they claimed to be to get elected they would be giving back.

We seem to always find a way to hit the bottom tier of society, the old, the homeless, the sick, the ones that can furnish the least push back to attack when it comes to balancing the budget. Why not hit the pockets of the ones most capable of paying the bill without even noticing the fact that it was paid. If donors are so available then get the money from them, the million a weekend for a sick crooked former president. 

Since we have a Supreme Court that feels it is okay for the public coffers to put money into the religious school system, let’s tax the Churches and all their riches from various write off businesses. 

There are other ways to balance the books and the biggest one is to elect officials in both parties that may not always agree with one another, but they can always find common ground to work out the problems from, that in itself would be a blessing.

We are lucky that as the country opened there were individuals that saw we have areas that need to be set aside because of the esthetic value not the dollar value of what we can take from this land and leave a waste land. National Parks are the heritage that we are leaving for our children and hopefully they will do the same. Our former president wanted to open the land to exploration and dig, drill and destroy for mineral wealth. He took mercury off the dangerous chemicals list because it is a fast method to separate gold from base material, science lesson for today.

The campaigning has already started and the promise of putting more judges on the bench that can hardly walk because their shorts are too tight. More lies about what the Democrats are trying to do and how wonderful I am and how corrupt my opponent is, it is enough to make you sick. We cannot afford to put that back in office, put him in jail, but not in office. Take most of the lead Republican members of Congress out and shoot them as they cannot focus on the national good only on the dear leader. 

What is he doing, causing problems by making public information that need not be public about people, trying to make trouble. His tactic is and has been to be very obnoxious about everything. Lie and then tell a bigger lie to cover the one just told, point figures at people and see what kind of crap you can heap on someone else’s back. We do not need the person that gets along only with those individuals that dictate over their nations. We need a person that can talk to anyone, perhaps even the most belligerent of current rulers.

Day after day we hear the same thing coming from DC another hearing, another day spent blasting the people on the other side of the room and at the end of the day nothing has been done and we are no closer to resolving issues than when we started. Every day that is spent in a pissing contest should be a day the members of Congress do not get paid and a day they have to make up out of their recess.

Keep track of who is present and who took part in at least voting on issues. If your score card has little to nothing on it at the end of the session you should be sent home and a replacement should be sent in. All this would happen without further compensation to those that did not participate and if your part is to cause problems and point fingers, call names and accomplish nothing else you will also suffer the same fate.  The point has to be that if you are going to ask people to put their hopes in your hands you are not going to sit on them in the back of the theater in the dark.