Congress must fairly compensate disabled veterans

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By Marc Showers

To the Editor:

I emailed the following note to Congress this morning.

Our disabled veterans are grossly undercompensated. This travesty of justice is causing enlistments to dry up. Danger!

In FY 2023, a totally disabled veteran with no dependents is compensated at the ridiculous rate of $43,463.40 annually. The National Average Wage Index for 2021 was $60,575.07 per annum, and the median income for 2021 was $70,784. The per capita GDP in 2021 was $69,288 dollars, among the highest in the world.

Veterans have been asking various administrations and Congresses for fair compensation since the end of WWI in November 1918. That was 104 years ago.

In my opinion, the basic reason for their gross undercompensation situation is because they are only compensated for projected loss of wages due to their disabilities. They are not compensated for their low quality of life, which is the norm now in personal injury cases in court. This is done to keep taxation low for the wealthy elites. This is obvious to our young people. They are not interested in accepting the possibility of a lifetime of near poverty should they get injured in the armed forces for the sole reason of allowing our wealthy elites to evade proper and fair taxation.

Our youths are aware that the people that had their assets and overseas business interests protected the most by our now broken former troops pay essentially nothing to support them in their brokenness. Be warned!

Congress must correct this injustice now. 

Marc Showers

Savannah

Author

Except for a brief period, Albany Herald Editor Carlton Fletcher has been a newspaperman, working as Sports Writer/Columnist for the weekly Ocilla Star, as Sports Writer/Sports Editor with The Tifton Gazette, and as Sports Writer/Copy Editor/News Reporter/Features Editor and Editor of the paper. He has won numerous awards for sports, news, business and column writing, including a first-place Business Writing award in last year’s Georgia Press Association awards competition.

Read Carlton’s stories.

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