Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America founder Paul Rieckhoff told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on the The Kelly Filethat the budget deal House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) cut with Senate Budget Committee chairwoman Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) is a “total betrayal” to American military members.
On Wednesday evening, the House voted to pass the second part of the budget deal—an omnibus spending bill drafted by House Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) and Senate Appropriations Committee chairwoman Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). That bill is expected to pass the Senate soon, after which President Barack Obama will sign it into law.
In December, the Ryan-Murray budget deal passed the House, then the Senate and was signed by Obama before the end of the year. The December budget deal legislation is a broad budget outline while this bill that just passed the House from Rogers and Mikulski allots money program-by-program and agency-by-agency—more than a trillion dollars in spending government-wide.
Rieckhoff said the deal is a “whole new level of bipartisan stupidity,” because it cuts the pension benefits of more than 90 percent of military veterans. While the omnibus bill restores the pension cuts that the original budget deal had taken out for wounded warriors and disabled and injured veterans, it cuts the pensions of all other military veterans.
“It’s a promise that’s been made with our military folks when they raised their right hand and they sign up,” Rieckhoff said of the deal’s military pension cuts. “Somebody in Washington came up with this stupid idea to try and find some money to save and they are going to do it on the backs of retirees from the military? It’s absolutely absurd.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
