I attended a VFW meeting at another Post when under “Good of the Order” a comrade got up and discussed the “COLA Penalty”. For those of you who not familiar with the term, Congress recently passed a bill that will be extremely detrimental to our military men and women and military retires. I have provided an excerpt from the VFW website (www,vfw,org) and what you can do to help rectify this.
Background: Congress passed a budget deal that includes a provision that penalizes working age military retirees younger than 62 by cutting a full one percent from future cost of living adjustments (COLA). VFW calculates that a Gunnery Sergeant or Sergeant First Class (E-7) with 20 years of service would lose more than $80,000 in income by age 62. This also unfairly punishes those who have been medically retired as a result of their wounds defending our nation. This is totally unacceptable and will have a devastating impact on retirement benefits for retirees and survivors and jeopardizes the future value of military career benefits, while also adversely affecting recruitment, retention and our national security.
The VFW is now working with members in both the House and Senate to find a bipartisan solution that will replace this unacceptable provision. We are urging all of our members and advocates to contact their legislators and demand they find a solution that doesn’t balance the budget on the backs of our military retirees.
Action Needed: Call, email and schedule appointments with your legislators today. Tell them this should be the first priority when they return to Washington after the New Year, and that the solution cannot penalize veterans, military retirees, or jeopardize the future value of military career benefits. Asking those who have given the most to shoulder the burden of reducing government spending is unacceptable.
So the next time you are recruiting a new member and he or she asks what do we do, just refer them to the National website. What we do as an organization is to mobilize when Congress decides to balance the budget on the backs of service personnel and veterans. Without an organization like VFW protecting our interests, who else would?