"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." - John F. Kennedy
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Just in time for Memorial Day, we're once again being treated to a generous serving of praise and grandstanding by politicians and corporations eager to go on record as being supportive of our veterans.
Patriotic platitudes aside, however, America has done a deplorable job of caring for her veterans. We erect monuments for those who die while serving in the military, yet for those who return home, there's little honor to be found.Despite the fact that the U.S. boasts more than 23 million veterans who have served in World War II through Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan, the plight of veterans today is deplorable, with large numbers of them impoverished, unemployed, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression, thoughts of suicide, and marital stress, homeless (a third of all homeless Americans are veterans), subjected to sub-par treatment at clinics and hospitals, and left to molder while their paperwork piles up within Veterans Administration (VA) offices.
According to the National Veterans Foundation, the VA has had a backlog of as many as 1.2 million unprocessed claims in recent years, in addition to the fraud and mismanagement within the VA and its network of offices across the country, and secret lists containing thousands of names of veterans who were forced to wait months just to see a doctor.
While President Obama has now declared that he "will not stand" for the mistreatment of veterans under his watch, the time for words is long past. As
Slate political correspondent John Dickerson observed, these inexcusable delays represent "a failure of one of the most basic transactions government is supposed to perform: keeping a promise to those who were asked to protect our very form of government."
Comment: FATCA, spawn of a clueless congress, demands ALL foreign financial institutions comply with unreasonable IRS requirements at their own expense and in violation of local privacy laws. The cost for this massive bureaucracy overreach is estimated in the billions of dollars and poses a direct financial and legal threat to both U.S. and foreign financial institutions, banking markets, international transactions, the U.S. financial industry, and U.S. companies abroad. Due to the complicated and tedious requirements, U.S. citizens living in other countries are losing jobs, banking accounts, pension funds, insurance contracts, and are being turned away as clients and business associates. In addition, FATCA will financially impact citizens at home since it doesn't pay for itself. This boondoggle is creating serious backlash for the U.S. economy and goodwill abroad.