Entitlement Mentality

If you died as one of the random victims of 9/11, your heirs are compensated (on average) over a million bucks. If you die as an American soldier volunteering to fight in the war on terror, your heirs are compensated a tiny fraction of that amount.

Doesn’t seem right, does it?

By Rush Limbaugh:

I think the vast differences in compensation between victims of the September 11 casualty and those who die serving our country in Uniform are profound. No one is really talking about it either, because you just don’t criticize anything having to do with September 11. Well, I can’t let the numbers pass by because it says something really disturbing about the

entitlement mentality of this country. If you lost a family member in the September 11 attack, you’re going to get an average of $1,185,000. The range is a minimum guarantee of $250,000, all the way up to $4.7 million.

If you are a surviving family member of an American soldier killed in action, the first check you get is a $6,000 direct death benefit, half of which is taxable.

Next, you get $1,750 for burial costs. If you are the surviving spouse, you get $833 a month until you remarry. And there’s a payment of $211 per month for each child under 18. When the child hits 18, those payments come to a screeching halt.

Keep in mind that some of the people who are getting an average of $1.185 million up to $4.7 million are complaining that it’s not enough. Their deaths were tragic, but for most, they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Soldiers put themselves in harms way FOR ALL OF US, and they and their families know the the dangers.

We also learned over the weekend that some of the victims from the Oklahoma City bombing have started an organization asking for the same deal that the September 11 families are getting. In addition to that, some of the families of those bombed in the embassies are now asking for compensation as well.

You see where this is going, don’t you? Folks, this is part and parcel of over 50 years of entitlement politics in this country. It’s just really sad. Every time a pay raise comes up for the military, they usually receive next to nothing of a raise. Now the green machine is in combat in the Middle East while their families have to survive on food stamps and live in low-rent housing. Make sense?

However, our own U.S. Congress voted themselves a raise. Many of you don’t know that they only have to be in Congress one time to receive a pension that is more than $15,000 per month. And most are now equal to being millionaires plus. They did not receive Social Security on retirement because they didn’t have to pay into the system.

If some of the military people stay in for 20 years and get out as an E-7, they may receive a pension of $1,000 per month, and the very people who placed them in harm’s way receives a pension of $15,000 per month.

I would like to see our elected officials pick up a weapon and join ranks before they start cutting out benefits and lowering pay for our sons and daughters who are now fighting.

When I first read this, I worried that it might be an urban legend — so I ran it by Snopes. It really is a piece of commentary from Rush Limbaugh, from early 2002. And it’s mostly accurate (only the bits about the Congressional pensions are wrong — that is a persistant urban legend, repeated here by someone who really ought to know better). In reality, Congressional pensions are generous, but nothing like as generous as Rush would have you believe. The worst thing about the Congressional pensions is the way they’ve removed themselves from the Social Security system — in effect saying it’s good enough for us, but not for them. Hypocrites!

If the families of each of the soldiers we’ve lost in Iraq and Afghanistan were compensated at the same level as the 9/11 families, that would add less than $3B to the cost of the war on terror. That sounds like a lot of money, but it’s actually a small fraction of the war’s overall cost. Even a percentage of that — say a quarter — would represent a huge increase in compensation for the soldiers' families. That’s something I would certainly support, and I would think that politicians would have a hard time saying “no” to it. But I must be wrong, because nothing remotely like that has happened.

When I was in the U.S. Navy lo these many years ago, there was another conflict still raging: Vietnam. I remember well how the Navy made relatively cheap life insurance available to all the sailors headed for the war zone. I was single at the time, so insurance wasn’t a consideration for me — but every family man I knew signed up for the maximum amount (as I recall, that was $100,000). I wonder if the same thing is being done today?

Hat tip to reader (and relative!) Mike Dilatush.