I was thinking today about the Major Richard Star Act, H.R. 2102. A question about the math that nobody seems to want to answer.
Take two soldiers. Same war, same injuries, same 100 percent rating from the VA. Both under the legacy retirement system.
The first one separates at 19 years. Walks away, collects the VA disability, and nobody blinks. Here is the part nobody mentions: the government spent 19 years paying into the Military Retirement Fund for that soldier, and that soldier never sees a dollar of it. No vesting, no partial credit. The fund keeps all of it. No score, no press release, no budget hawk on the floor calling it a crisis.
The second one gets medically retired at 19 and a half for a combat injury. Qualifies for CRSC. Under the Star Act, that soldier collects the retirement the government had already been setting aside the whole time, plus the same disability the first soldier gets free and clear.
That second case is what gets scored at $9.75 billion over ten years.
So here is my question. The retirement money was banked. Paid in month by month for 19 years. When a soldier forfeits it, silence. When a wounded soldier collects it, it is suddenly a line item. Which is it? Was that money there or was it not?
Now, somebody is going to tell me it does not work that way. Fine. The money forfeited by early separators helps hold the contribution rates down. It is not a vault with your name on it. But that cuts my way. The fund is already built on the assumption that plenty of people leave with nothing. A few thousand combat-wounded retirees collecting what was set aside for them is not the shock to the system it gets scored as.
$9.75 billion over ten years is under a billion a year. SNAP spends $8.2 billion a MONTH. Five weeks of SNAP covers the Star Act for a decade.
Major Richard Star spent his last months fighting for this bill after a terminal diagnosis ended his career. He did not live to see it pass. The men and women it covers are aging, and every year of delay makes the bill cheaper for the worst reason there is.
The discharge petition cleared 218 on September 16. The vote is coming. So if your Representative co-sponsored H.R. 2102, this is the moment that co-sponsorship gets tested. Call the office and ask it straight: was that signature sincere, or were combat-wounded veterans just a convenient name to have next to yours? Co-sponsoring costs nothing. A recorded vote costs something. We are about to find out which ones meant it.
But what do I know, I am just a science teacher who can read a CBO score and a roll call.
@TPUSA @54KVeterans @passmajstaract @restore_GI_Bill
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