Joseph Thorndike writing for the Tax Analysts Blog reports the we still are paying benefits to
children of Civil War Soldiers; 2 of them a $876 a year. There are 10 children
benefits for their father’s service in the Spanish American War at $50,000. WWI
– that’s 20 million a year. WWII - $5 billion. Korea - $2.8 billion and then
there is Vietnam which has two disability income benefits for those who served
active duty. One supplements income to disabled or older vets with low income.
The second is called “compensation” awarding a veteran a monthly income to
compensate for potential loss of income in the private sector based upon the
degree of disability. Many veterans who qualify may never ask for the
compensation. In 2006 they went looking and added 8,000 more to the roles. And,
of course, there are changes in conditions, which means reapplying.
The compensation benefit pay out 10 times more to all vets and 6
times more than Pension. In 2007 3,116,728 beneficiaries received
$34,750,690,000 and the Pension pay 523,824 beneficiaries $3,671,997,000. This
amounts to 45% of the VA budget. You can find out more here.
War is expensive and continues to be expensive but we are loath to
pay for them or even talk about them. In the past wars were paid for with new
taxes and least in part. But a lot just gets borrowed burdening the future
generations for those wars.
This is a discussion we tend not to hear much about. Hmmm, I wonder
how much Reagan’s invasion of Grenada 20 years ago put us back?
If you want to know casualties of wars check here. The number of wars/conflicts should give us
pause. I think it is over 70.
If we really want to be concerned about the debt for our children
to pay perhaps we should rethink our willingness to act as the world policemen
and our willingness to engage in all these wars.
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