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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Play by the rules, get screwed

I know someone who has been in negotiations with the VA over his World War II disability payments. This guy was a Marine and was too close to a blast, and it affected him just about all over his body -- loose teeth, hearing loss, shrapnel wounds. You should see all the paperwork, the letters, the comments of the doctors doing physical exams. All of this is for a pittance, a difference of a few hundred dollars a year. Does the hearing loss qualify for a 10 percent disability or a 20 percent one? Does this particular wound meet the very precise definition for that type of wound spelled out in great detail in the official government guidelines?

This is the same government, mind you, that lets FEMA just hand money out like candy to any charlatan who comes along, no questions asked:

WASHINGTON - A FEMA official angered lawmakers Wednesday, after she cast doubt on a congressional study that concluded up to $1.4 billion of the individual aid doled out after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was spent for bogus reasons.

[. . . ]

Congress' Government Accountability Office used a statistical analysis to estimate the fraud may have totaled 16 percent of the individual assistance after the two hurricanes last year.

[. . .]

The GAO concluded that FEMA was hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and a sex change procedure. Prison inmates, a supposed victim who used a New Orleans cemetery for a home address and a person who spent 70 days at a Hawaiian hotel all were able to get taxpayer help, according to evidence that gives a new black eye to the nation's disaster relief agency.

In its indefensible handling of immigration, the government makes people who play by the rules -- those who apply to become legal immigrants -- go through all kind of hoops, do the paperwork, learn the language, know our history, stand in line until its their turn. But it wants to give a pass to those who disregard the rules. Not only does it propose to forgive them their sins, but it is engaging in PR hucksterism to convince us they're the backbone of the nation and that any who question their legitimacy are racist nativists.

The way the government handles money falls into the same category. Those who do it right -- my acquaintance who served his country and came within a whisper of paying the ultimate price -- get put through the ringer over pennies. Those with a scam to sell find the bank is open and the guards are looking the other way.

If you want to know the real secret of the discontent felt by the great masses in bedrock America today, it is that sense of disconnect. There is a growing feeling -- at times, impossible to dispute -- that the government has become so big and unmanageable that anybody who wants to grow fat and lazy by conning it can get away with it. And the minute you play by the rules, you're screwed.

Comments

Bob G.
Thu, 06/15/2006 - 7:21am

...And NOW we know why we have SO many multi-generational WELFARE families....don't we?

Take a walk (if you don't mind the thought of being held up) on the south side of the Summit City, and you'll see a LOT of people conning the government, be they federal, state, or local (and bilking the taxpayers) with their 60" TVs, brand new SUVs, new clothes & "grilles" with nothing to do ALL day but show it all off.

It's no wonder the tax base of this city is as eroded as it is...and we need to ANNEX to shore it all up (temporarily, I might add).

But hey...that's just what I see every day.

(BTW...Pass the Dom Perignon, please)

;)

B.G.

William Larsen
Fri, 06/16/2006 - 10:13am

Leo, I can actually sympathize with this and feel this individual anxiety. I was about one foot above an explosion on board ship. It sheared 24 - 5/8 diameter Rockwell C38 bolts, tensile strength about 178,000 foot pounds each. The turbine casing came up through the deck plates and sheared the I beam supporting them. The deck plates went through the overhead and I went up and "bounced" off the overhead to the lower level. The noise was heard on the surrounding ships. I received third degree burns, boiled the skin off my right arm, fractured my scull, took a chunk out of my right arm, burnt my feet, legs and back and cut me up pretty good.

The VA told me there is no disability for scars, lack of motion in my right hand or decreased use of my right arm. Though they can measure that my strength is greatly diminished and I cannot move my right fingers in cold weather, there is no rating for that either. The visual acuity in my right eye is greatly diminished, but there is no disability for that either. For a long time I could do the Spock thing by raising only one eyebrow (only because of nerve damage to my right side) but that finally healed ten years later. If some one touches my right arm to get my attention, there is a very good chance I will not feel it.

A month ago I went to the VA hospital for treatment for my injuries. I presented my service connected disability card I had been given and they would not see me. They told me I had to update my file by supplying tax return information and a list of all assets both tangible and intangible. It could take a month or two to process I left.

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