A move by the Bush administration to greatly enhance cash payouts to those lost in the campaign against Islamic terror has led to a counter-proposal asking for even more.
Democrats argued today that President George W. Bush’s proposal to boost government payments to families of U.S. troops killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and future war zones should extend to all military personnel who die on active duty.
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said that while he agreed with Bush’s plan to give those families an extra $250,000, the money also should “apply to all service members on active duty” who die and not just those who die in Pentagon-designated combat zones.
Officials with the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines told the committee that the Department of Defense should not give benefits to surviving spouses and children simply based on the geography of where a death occurs.
“They can’t make a distinction. I don’t think we should either,” said Adm. John Nathman, vice chief of naval operations for the Navy. Added Gen. Michael Moseley, the Air Force’s vice chief of staff: “I believe a death is a death, and I believe this should be treated that way.”
Under questioning from Levin, David Chu, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said the administration would work with Congress to determine the exact objective of the increased benefits.
Look, folks, the objective is simple — reduce the possibilities or strength of a virtual parade of embittered widows, widowers and orphans on our TV sets, being used as a knife in the back against our efforts to conduct the needed war for our children’s sake. Sound melodramatic? The media and the left have turned victory into defeat before (see the Tet offensive) and emotionalism is a powerful tool.
The proposal, the subject of the panel’s hearing, includes retroactive payments to the spouses or surviving relatives of the more than 1,500 who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since October 2001. It will be in the fiscal 2006 budget proposal that Bush submits to Congress next week, a Pentagon official said.
A tax-free “death gratuity,” now $12,420, would grow to $100,000. The government also would pay for $150,000 in life insurance for troops. Veterans groups and many in Congress have been pushing for such increases.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who is sponsoring a bill with the same provisions, said yesterday that the first-year cost of the increased benefits would be $459 million, including more than $280 million in retroactive payments of the higher gratuity and the extra life insurance payouts. “The American people want to be generous to the families of service people who give their lives for their country,” he said.
I actually back Sen. Levin’s proposed increase here, though I would go it one further. Why limit it to only deaths on active-duty service? Is a death on a National Guardman’s weekend duty less important? Put it at any deaths occurring while serving a duty period (i.e. reservist has an accident in his private vehicle during the week = no benefit beyond insurance; reservist dies in Humvee wreck on weekend drill = benefit).
That’s just my view. Those in a combat theater deserve supplemental pay, a death is a death, the families suffer equally and the sacrifices of all should be recognized.