The Federal government's slim down, shut down or whatever you want to call it affects about 15 percent of federal operations deemed to be "non-essential." Guess what: if you're a disabled military veteran, you are, apparently, non-essential or expendable or something. If the millionaire politicians in Washington cannot find a way to compromise by October 17th, VA disability checks will not go out. Welfare checks will go out. Foreign aid will go out. But if you were disabled fighting for your country, you are SOL.
In Congress, the House of Representatives (with a Republican majority) sent legislation to the Senate (with a Democrat majority) that would keep the VA open and meet the government's "obligations" to military veterans - particularly, disabled veterans. The Senate will not vote on the measure. So we know who voted against veterans in the House but we will have no record of what Senators would vote against it. The President (a Democrat) has said he would veto such legislation anyway because he wants the debt ceiling raised or nothing and he will not negotiate or compromise on that.
The central argument is over the (un)Affordable Healthcare Act frequently referred to as Obamacare. It has been pointed out that the country went through similar objections to Medicare and Social Security. That should be a warning. Medicare is dying; it is replete with fraud and doctors continue to drop out of the program. (AARP, however, continues to get rich selling additional insurance that is supplemental to Medicare.) Social Security is a ponzi scheme that we older citizens are benefiting from but is going broke and will not work for our children and grandchildren because there will not be enough productive people left to pay into it. The simplest description of Obamacare is this: it gives free insurance to about 30 million poor people who previously could not afford it (and also to people with pre-existing afflictions) and raises premiums on the Middle Class to pay for it. Big corporations, big unions, politicians and government employees have mostly been given waivers and are exempt from paying high Obamacare premiums and, in some cases, are even getting government subsidies to pay for healthcare. The whole thing is being run by the IRS and if the IRS doesn't think you paid enough, they can take it out of your tax refund or even your bank account.
To quote General Patton, "... so now you sons-of-bitches, you know where you stand!"
Read more: VA Chief says Shutdown could hit millions of veterans
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