Saturday, February 19, 2011

Congress Gives War Widows Grief

Isn't bad enough you send their loved ones away over lies?

"Lawmakers’ knot deprives war widows of benefits; Attempt to help survivors creates dilemma for many" by Kimberly Hefling, Associated Press / February 10, 2011

WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of the nation’s war widows find it perplexing and downright disrespectful to their late husbands: In order to fully collect on insurance their husbands bought for them, they must marry another man.

And to qualify, the widows must remarry when they are 57 or older. Those who remarry earlier miss out, as do widows who never remarry.

At the heart of the issue is a government policy known as the “widows’ tax.’’ It says a military spouse whose loved one dies from a service-related cause can’t collect both survivor’s benefits and the full annuity benefits from insurance the couple bought from the Defense Department at retirement. Instead, the amount of the annuity payment is reduced by the amount of the monthly survivor benefit.

Time after time, members of Congress have promised to help the 55,000 affected widows, but laws passed to help them have only created a more complicated system.  

But the checks keep getting cut for current military operations and for cost-overrunning war profiteers, as well as for well-connected corporations and Wall Street banks.

So what’s remarriage got to do with it? Very little, as it turns out....  

Then why is that the focus of the article?

--more--"   

Yeah, turns out it is this government trying to claw back more money from the American people. 

And HOW MANY MUSLIM WOMEN have we turned into WIDOWS, AmeriKans!?!