GOP Thanks The Troops By Gutting Food Stamps For 170,000 Veterans

Apparently the GOP thinks veterans haven’t sacrificed enough after deciding to cut roughly 170,000 vets from food stamps.  If you’re a Republican politician,  it is just so much easier to find the biggest flag pin you can find and get a photo-op in front of as many people in uniform as you can. But once the photo-ops is over, it’s pull yourself up by the combat boot stars (or more likely eat them for sustenance). It seems House Republicans decision to go all evil dead with a chainsaw to the food stamps program, cutting $40 billion and booting 2.8 million people off the program next year, includes 170,000 veterans. But they’re still free to continue fighting our commerce wars, as that program will never lose a penny.

Civilian life for a veteran is no walk in a poppy field and cutting food stamps doesn’t help.

Much too many returning veterans succumb to homelessness. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reports that 131,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, with twice that many falling into homelessness over the course of a year. And it doesn’t get much better for the countless vets experiencing brain injuries and PTSD, as they’re at an even greater risk of becoming homeless.

So what does the GOP do for veterans?

Back in 2007, when the paste-eater in chief was in office and running around deciding things on aircraft carriers, our troops were languishing at Walter Reed.  At the Walter Reed medical facility, moldy ceilings, leaky plumage, rodent infestations were among some of the thank yous for  soldiers that the Bush Administration had sent to fight a neocon wet dream.  Well, it’s a good thing they learned their lesson, right? The fact remains that returning veterans have the hardest time at adjusting to civilian life and finding work more so than anyone else. In fact, unemployment for veterans who have served in the past decade is at an astonishing 10 percent, That’s roughly 3 points higher than the national rate.

The common culprit behind such woefully high unemployment for veterans is war-related trauma, with roughly a quarter of recently returning vets claiming disabilities.  Consequently, a great many of veterans rely heavily on food stamps while they’re rebuilding their lives, or picking up where they left off. But you know the GOP mantra: sacrifice for the rest, handouts for the rich. Maybe the US military uniform should be a Brooks Brother pin-stripe suit instead.