Jul 28 2010

(R)’s Wanted To Cut VA Budget, Right After Voting More On War Spending!!!

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

And not with just one amendment but Three of them, which we All know they would have walked in lockstep in voting for!

Not only do they not want their pimps, the wealthy, the corporations, whoever else they get on their knee’s for, to pay for veterans issues, and more, but they keep trying to Cut VA Budgets by millions while pushing Defense and their Wars of Choice Spending to the limits!!

The following link just popped into my e-box, a quick search didn’t bring up another just yet, wondering if the FOX and company will be outraged, or even report on this as they wave their flags and yell patriotism meme’s, they’re patriotism definitions!

Proposals to slash VA funding are withdrawn at last minute

July 28, 2010 Three amendments submitted this week under the name of Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, to the House Rules Committee would have sliced proposed fiscal 2011 Veterans Affairs Department funding by more than $52 million.

But all three amendments were abruptly withdrawn Tuesday, just moments before the committee was set to approve them for consideration Wednesday by the entire House.

The amendments had each been submitted to the Rules Committee Monday as possible changes to the proposed $77.3 billion fiscal 2011 spending bill for military construction, the Veterans Affairs Department and related agencies.

“I thought it was extraordinary that someone would want to cut the VA budget to the bone,” said Rules Chairwoman Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. But Slaughter also characterized as “unusual” the sudden request to withdraw the Boehner amendments.

“Yes, the request to withdraw came right before our meeting, very last second, very unusual,” confirmed Rules Committee spokesman Vincent Morris. Continued

Now i wonder what pocessed this sudden withdrawal, hell seems many are wondering same as the weak excuses come out from the real lousy tanned one.

They certainly haven’t shown any interest in Veterans, especially as they rubber stamped two Occupations of Choice, but do peak up when an election is coming in the few months prior, till then you can hear crickets sounding but louder from the (R) silence!

But wait, not only did the above thought of cuts come about there’s a report now being passed around the net far and wide, from of all places Bloomberg, as to one of their Industry Corporate Pimps,who by the way, like the most of the Wealthy and the other Corporations don’t want to pay their fair share, let alone Sacrifice, as to what is owed Veterans of our Military, even as two long running occupations just got the go ahead to borrow more Billions! But they Really want to hand over that cash to Campaigns, as much as they want!

Fallen Soldiers’ Families Denied Cash as Insurers Profit

Jul 28, 2010 The package arrived at Cindy Lohman’s home in Great Mills, Maryland, just two weeks after she learned that her son, Ryan, a 24-year-old Army sergeant, had been killed by a bomb in Afghanistan. It was a thick, 9-inch-by- 12-inch envelope from Prudential Financial Inc., which handles life insurance for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Inside was a letter from Prudential about Ryan’s $400,000 policy. And there was something else, which looked like a checkbook. The letter told Lohman that the full amount of her payout would be placed in a convenient interest-bearing account, allowing her time to decide how to use the benefit.

“You can hold the money in the account for safekeeping for as long as you like,” the letter said. In tiny print, in a disclaimer that Lohman says she didn’t notice, Prudential disclosed that what it called its Alliance Account was not guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its September issue.

Lohman, 52, left the money untouched for six months after her son’s August 2008 death.

Snip

As time went on, she says, she tried to use one of the “checks” to buy a bed, and the salesman rejected it. That happened again this year, she says, when she went to a Target store to purchase a camera on Armed Forces Day, May 15.

Snip

It was being held in Prudential’s general corporate account, earning investment income for the insurer. Prudential paid survivors like Lohman 1 percent interest in 2008 on their Alliance Accounts, while it earned a 4.8 percent return on its corporate funds, according to regulatory filings.  Continued

I bolded Target as I believe I’ve caught a few very recent reports about that Pimp Corporations dealings with the so called TEA Party, who also by the way don’t want to Sacrifice for the Soldiers or Military Veterans, don’t believe me, when have you heard them demand that their taxes be raised, to Sacrifice, and pass a much bigger Veterans Administration Budget!

3 comments

  1. Apparently what started out as some thinking this might be a better way to help and handle the Death Benefits of Soldiers, and possibly others, didn’t stay that way as Corporate Greed stepped in and like everything else rules were developed, over the past decade, and not explained properly or just left unexplained to those who were receiving the Death Insurance Policies Payouts!

    Veterans Affairs to Investigate Fallen Soldiers’ Death Benefits


    Jul 28, 2010 The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said it is conducting a “full investigation” into a report that life insurance companies are putting veterans’ death benefits in corporate accounts and keeping most of the investment profits instead of paying the survivors.

    The agency was responding today to a report in Bloomberg Markets magazine on what has become a standard practice for life insurance policies issued by companies including Prudential Financial Inc. and MetLife Inc.

    Instead of paying a lump sum to survivors when a policyholder dies, insurers keep the money in their own accounts, pay uncompetitive interest rates to survivors and give them misleading guarantees about the safety of the funds.

    “The possibility that life insurance companies are profiting inappropriately from these service members’ sacrifice is completely unacceptable,” Mike Walcoff, acting undersecretary for the agency’s Veterans Benefit Administration, said in an e-mailed statement. “The VA is conducting a full investigation into the life insurance companies and their procedures in this program.”  

    Snip

    ‘Outraged’

    House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Filner said he was “outraged” that insurance practices appear to result in “corporations retaining the assets in corporate accounts, profiting from the interest, and failing to pass accrued interest to surviving families.” The California Democrat said VA officials should “demand answers” about the program.

    “The purpose of these benefits is to assist grieving survivors — not to improve insurance company profits,” said Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs.

    Snip

    $28 Billion

    Insurers are holding onto at least $28 billion owed to survivors, according to three firms that handle the retained- asset accounts for about 130 life insurance companies.

    House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat, said U.S. troops’ survivors must be provided more information about how to handle death benefits. He said insurance companies should be examined to “make sure they aren’t misrepresenting the options being offered to surviving family members.”

    Skelton said his committee will “assist in finding a remedy for this problem.”

    Since 1999, the Veterans Administration has allowed Newark, New Jersey-based Prudential to use this procedure in providing benefits to survivors of fallen soldiers. In 2009, the families of U.S. soldiers and veterans were supposed to be paid death benefits totaling $1 billion immediately, according to their insurance policies. They weren’t. Continued

    From the Bloomberg report above:


    `Shadow Banking System’ of Retained Asset Accounts

    July 28 (Bloomberg) — David Evans talks with Bloomberg’s Scarlet Fu about his investigation into retained-asset accounts by life insurers and how the insurers profit from these accounts at the expense of grieving families. (Source: Bloomberg)

    This reeks similar of the residential mortgage debacle!

  2. …. that actually pulls up the media articles on the politicians that they donate money to.

    They are using the Tea Party to site WalMart stores.  Freedom! to do what you want with your property, yadda yadda.  They’re doing it locally, we’ve been all over them like flies on molasses pie, and then the wankers deny that they are doing it.

    So I goes to the wally- world political site and there they are.  

    It’s called Walmart Community Votes.com

    Get a gander at this:

    http://walmartcommunityvotes.c…


    WalmartCommunityVotes is your one-stop-shop for:

    all voter registration information

    each state’s voting rules, election calendar, government resources

    procedures for early, absentee, overseas and military voting

    answers to questions about the voting process in your neighborhood.

    Over the course of the year, you’ll be able to identify the candidates running to represent you, view their bios, find a polling place, link to nonpartisan and bipartisan voter resources, and share your thoughts on what issues are most important to you this election year.

    They local Republicans are pushing this awful ballot prop that would let voters vote absentee after the election was officially over, by counting them late, because they claim that overseas ballots don’t arrive in time-  imagine being able to order up cooked ballots from your overseas deployed, to tip an election after it was over, under this guise.

    Complete and utter frigging crooks, that’s the Walmart ownership mentality.

  3. Gates Says Pentagon to Help Death-Benefits Inquiry

    29 July 2010 Defense Secretary Robert Gates pledged to help the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs probe how insurers reap profits from death benefits retained for the families of deceased military personnel.

    “I will be very interested in the outcome of the VA investigation,” Gates told a Pentagon press briefing. “We will do everything we can to help.”

    Earlier today, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo began a fraud probe into the life insurance industry and subpoenaed MetLife Inc. and Prudential Financial Inc. for information about profits on the retained death benefits.

    The investigations, along with a review by the New York State Insurance Department, were prompted by a Bloomberg Markets magazine report that more than 100 carriers earn investment income on $28 billion owed to life insurance beneficiaries. New York-based MetLife, the biggest U.S. life insurer, and No. 2 Prudential are among the firms that administer the so-called retained-asset accounts.

    “Until today I actually believed that the families of our fallen heroes got a check for the full amount of their benefits,” Gates said. “This came as news to me.”  Continued

    Bloomberg’s Evans on Cuomo Probe on Life Insurers

    July 29 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg’s David Evans talks about New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s fraud probe into the life insurance industry. Cuomo’s office subpoenaed Prudential Financial Inc. and MetLife Inc. for information about profits on death benefits retained from the families of deceased policyholders including military personnel. Cuomo’s investigation was prompted by a Bloomberg Markets magazine report and follows a review by the New York State Insurance Department. Evans speaks with Margaret Brennan and Scarlet Fu on Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness”. (Source: Bloomberg)

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