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Some Teaparty Terrorists


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I mean, your reasoning is that the house only wants to pay a couple bills. Such as pay for the water bill, but won't the electric bill, the mortgage payment the grocery bill, the gas bill etc etc.

 

Just paying for the water bill is silly and a grandstanding stunt to make themselves not look so pitiful for what they are doing.

 

 

This what happens when people who are incapable of governing are voted into government.

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I am a veteran and benefits are still being paid. The VA got advanced funding for most of its activities earlier in the year in anticipation of this shutdown.

 

These are relevant in case you have any vets that need info.

 

http://www.va.gov/opa/docs/Field_Guide_20130927.pdf

 

http://www.va.gov/opa/docs/VA_Contingency_Plan_Document_20130927.pdf

 

 

WASHINGTON — Veterans regional offices are closed and nobody is answering phones Tuesday as the government shutdown forces furloughs of 7,000 employees of the Veterans Benefits Administration.

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Another shoe could drop soon as VA officials warn that a government shutdown ending in the last two weeks of October could result in delays in Nov. 1 benefits payments, including disability compensation, GI Bill living stipends and dependency and indemnity compensation for survivors. No firm date has been given for when the VA would run out of money.

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I mean, your reasoning is that the house only wants to pay a couple bills. Such as pay for the water bill, but won't the electric bill, the mortgage payment the grocery bill, the gas bill etc etc.

 

Just paying for the water bill is silly and a grandstanding stunt to make themselves not look so pitiful for what they are doing.

 

 

This what happens when people who are incapable of governing are voted into government.

 

Entirely different concept mal. A bill is for service rendered. Funding a budget is setting aside money for future bills. If someone is broke then guess what? The utilities get shut off.

 

Also please look at those two documents I linked to. It is directly from the VA and will answer many questions you have about what is going on with them.

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Why don't your quote the rest of the article instead of cherry picking?

 

Veterans regional offices will be closed and nobody will answer their phones beginning Tuesday morning as the government shutdown forces furloughs of 7,000 employees of the Veterans Benefits Administration.

“All public access to VBA regional offices and facilities will be suspended,” said Veterans Affairs Department spokeswoman Victoria Dillon.

Walk-ins and phone calls to regional offices are common to get status reports on benefits and to seek help. The voluntary officers from veterans organizations who help file claims are located in many regional offices, so access to them could be restricted.

While phones won’t be answered at regional offices, most toll-free numbers where veterans can get help with benefits remain open. One exception is the GI Bill call center, which is closed and won’t reopen until the VA receives funding.

The Veterans Benefits Administration has more than 21,000 employees, most of who will remain on the job. Of the 332,000 total VA employees, fewer than 15,000 are subject to furloughs during lapses in appropriations, according to VA’s contingency planning. The bulk of the furlough-exempt employees are involved in medical care.

Additionally, 2,754 employees of the VA’s Office of Information Technology were furloughed on Monday. Veterans might not see an immediate impact, but all development of VA software will stop, including work on the Veterans Benefits Management System that is a key part of plans for eliminating the claims backlog by the end of 2015.

Another shoe could drop soon as VA officials warn that a government shutdown ending in the last two weeks of October could result in delays in Nov. 1 benefits payments, including disability compensation, GI Bill living stipends and dependency and indemnity compensation for survivors. No firm date has been given for when the VA would run out of money

Veterans hospitals and clinics remain open, as do counseling and rehabilitation programs. An updated list of what is open and closed is available here: www.va.gov/opa/appropriations_lapse_plan.asp.

Benefits claims continue to be processed and new claims are being accepted. However, Dillon warned the pace of processing is slowing.

“VA’s ability to make significant progress reducing the disability claims backlog is hampered without the increased productivity gained from overtime for claims processors,”she said. Mandatory overtime “has helped VA significantly reduce the disability claims backlog by more than 190,000 claims over the last six months,” she said.

As of Monday, there were 725,165 pending benefits claims, including 418,711 that are considered by the VA to be part of the so-called “backlog” because they have been pending longer than the 125-day processing goal.

There was a very modest drop of 304 claims in the total, but the VA did hit one landmark as the number of pending disability compensation claims fell just below 400,000.

Claims processors have been working a minimum of 20 hours a month of overtime since mid-May in an effort to process claims. Before the government shut down on Oct. 1, the VA had intended to keep mandatory overtime until Nov.16, then switch to voluntary overtime through the end of the calendar year. However, mandatory overtime as stopped during the shutdown, she said.

Working extra hours, along with several initiatives to improve claims procedures, resulted in a 30 percent drop in the claims backlog since March, Dillon said, as the VA was processing about 100,000 claims a month.

The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee wants to question VA Secretary Eric Shinseki on Wednesday about how the VA is operating under a shutdown but it is unclear whether Shinseki will appear.

In a letter requesting Shinseki’s testimony, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., committee chairman, complains that Congress feels like it has been left in the dark.

“As you should know, I and others have sought greater clarity regarding shutdown-related efforts on VA over the last week, yet we have received no answers from your department,” Miller said in an Oct. 4 letter.

Miller said he expects Shinseki to address the timing and scope of any interruptions in veterans’ benefits, the impact on claims processing of the loss of funding for overtime and why the VA has stopped providing briefings for Congress if the people who would provide the briefings are still working.

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I will post what I said that I would. Be back later.

 

The whole point of this is you claiming the Senate(Reid) has no responsibility in this. They are just as at fault, probably more due to the fact that there is clean funding bills for some programs including the VA waiting for them to act, as the House(Boehner). You're fear mongering as usual by the way. Read what the VA has stated. Not what some unknown VA official said could happen. Also please know there is a big difference between the VA and the VBA regional offices.

 

Edit: Spelling

Edited by OG Fire Beaster
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Claims processing and payments in the compensation, pension, education, and vocational rehabilitation programs are anticipated to continue through late October. However, in the event of a prolonged shutdown, claims processing and payments in these programs would be suspended when available funding is exhausted

 

 

 VA website as I said.

 

 What happens when those checks don't go out? And without the foresight of Republican intransigence, those checks would not have gone out October 1st.

 

 

Nov. 1 benefits payments, including disability compensation, GI Bill living stipends and dependency and indemnity compensation for survivors

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Maybe a time line will help as it doesn't have any partisan leanings:

 

The House passed a CR with out funding for the ACA (Obamacare).

 

They sent that bill to the Senate.

 

Harry Reid put that bill up for a vote and it didn't pass.

 

The Senate came up with their own version of the bill and passed it.

 

The Senate's bill is still sitting on Boehner's desk.  He won't bring it up for a vote because while he does have enough votes to pass it, he doesn't have a majority of the Republicans' votes.

 

Nothing partisan in that description, and that's exactly what has happened.  

 

If Boehner would just bring the bill to the floor for a vote it would pass.  Reid at least brought the House bill to a vote.  That's why I claim it's Boehner's fault, and only his fault.  He could end the whole thing right now by just letting the bill get voted on.  There are enough Republicans and Democrats together to pass the bill and end the shutdown.  My statement is based on procedure, not partisan politics.

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In that same light cel

 

H j Res 72 has passed the house and strictly provides funding for the VA. Reid could call a vote in the Senate on it and pass it and the VA would be funded.

 

That is procedure.

No partisanship.

 

Why has it not been voted on and approved? It has nothing to do with the ACA other than the Senate(Reid) wants to make a point that it is everything or nothing. Were broke, we cant afford everything.

 

passage in house:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hjres72pcs/pdf/BILLS-113hjres72pcs.pdf

 

Vote record for senate:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_113_1.htm

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"Ever notice that the people that are pro abortion are alive?" 

 

I think we should outlaw all abortions for unwanted pregnancies (including the unborn people who were made by rape and incest) and instead we should implement the "if you breed them, you feed them policy."   That way, once unwanted children are born into the world, we can watch them die and then say "oh well, your parents were the ones responsible for your care.  NOT MY FAULT."

 

I have never understood how it is that many self-described Christians will oppose abortion but don't want to provide a safety net to the unwanted children born to unfit parents who don't/won't care for their children. 

Edited by Highlander
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Mal you don't know anything about me.

 

I don't get disability from the VA.

 

I get GI Bill that I paid for, plus an additional kicker which I paid for. Out of my pocket.

 

They make money off of the program due to the extremely low usage of education benefits.

 

You couldn't be more wrong. I'm saying screw me first, Then everybody else.

 

I have never gotten a dollar from the government for any type of program.

 

I pay money to the government, not the other way around.

 

No food aid for me

No rent aid for me

No health care aid for me

No disability aid for me

No cheap mmj card for me

 

We cant afford everything. Thats the facts.

 

Edit

 

I have gotten a Pell grant in the past. Just for accuracy.

Edited by OG Fire Beaster
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I got ya mal.

 

I don't get anything so it is easy for me to give up nothing. I understand that many people are helped and need government programs. It is not easy for them to give that up.

 

This is the heart of the problem. Our government does not know how to fix our spending problem. They do not want "their" constituents to be the ones taking the hit.

 

They could start with what they agree on. The Senate does not want to do that. That is why I chimed in. Reid and the Senate are just as much at fault as everybody else. I believe more so.

 

The ACA was a well intentioned idea. It was implemented horribly. Do I have a better solution? No. Does that mean I want a bad solution implemented? No.

 

I am happy for the few that are helped tremendously by the ACA. The majority are not though. That is why the majority got an exemption for a year while the few did not.

 

Both chambers need to man up and find out what they can agree on and go from there. It is called negotiating. It is why there are two chambers of Congress and not one. It is so stalemates can happen and the two sides forced to come together. They both need to accept blame and move on.

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In that same light cel

 

H j Res 72 has passed the house and strictly provides funding for the VA. Reid could call a vote in the Senate on it and pass it and the VA would be funded.

 

That is procedure.

No partisanship.

 

Why has it not been voted on and approved? It has nothing to do with the ACA other than the Senate(Reid) wants to make a point that it is everything or nothing. Were broke, we cant afford everything.

 

passage in house:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hjres72pcs/pdf/BILLS-113hjres72pcs.pdf

 

Vote record for senate:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_113_1.htm

 

But that wouldn't even be needed if Boehner would just put up the CR bill for a vote.  It also isn't what's shutting down the government.  I was trying to keep my observations non-partisan about the shutdown.

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No Zaphod

 

It requires us to pay our debt, which are interest payments + principal. It does not require Congress to continue to fund programs.

That's not how the bond market works.  The debt ceiling will be raised or we're really screwed.  This is nothing but extortion in an attempt to nullify an election,  Force Obama to do something on his own to fix the problem and then impeach him for it.  As for the ACA, I would rather see a single payer plan like Medicare.

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I just read an article stating that at least four of the republicans that said they would vote for a clean CR have now changed their minds. Making it so the bill would no longer pass the house.  In my mind it's no longer just Boehner's fault.  I was reading it just before I had company and for the life of me I can't find it again or else I would put up a link.

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It remains unclear whether the VA will be sending out compensation checks on Nov. 1 to about 3.8 million veterans who rely on them, department spokeswoman Victoria Dillon says. While the VA is continuing to process compensation cases this month, funding for this will run out by the end of October if the shutdown continues, she says.

The VA pays out about $5 billion the first of each month to veterans in compensation and pension payments, Dillon says.

Meanwhile, the families of four soldiers and a Marine killed in Afghanistan since the shutdown last week are not receiving a $100,000 death gratuity or any unpaid income due their loved ones, or being reimbursement for burial expenses, the Pentagon says.

"Unfortunately, as a result of the shutdown, we do not have the legal authority to make death gratuity payments at this time," says Navy Lt. Com. Nate Christensen, a Pentagon spokesman.

 

 

 And this is just one minor problem that happens when you just shut the government down and stop funding. 

 

 Congress by law defunded this benefit due to the inability to pass a clean continuing budget resolution; a budget that even cut the deficit from last fiscal years budget. 

 

 So do we fund these programs one at a time, 1 bill at a time so incompetence can be awarded? 

 

 I mean, the bill sent back to the house agreed to the spending cuts the republicans asked for, except for the ACA.  They got the dollar amount requested, yet still won't pass it.

 

 This story is just one small example of why this is so stupid.

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