Granted, if this were a Republican lawmaker, there would still be little outcry from the left regarding veterans, because, really, the crises vets face are just overblown. Right, Hillary?
However, when Governor Andrew Cuomo vetoed a veterans pension bill (mere weeks before Veteran’s Day, mind you), he penalized another group among our fighting service members – women in non-combat roles.
War on freaking women!
Via State of Politics:
State lawmakers are pushing back against Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s veto of a bill that would expand pension credits for public workers who served in the military.
“He actually lumped it in with five or six other pension bills and did it as one lump sum thinking nobody would notice,” said Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua.
The bill would provide a credit to the public employees who served in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Korean DMZ.
Currently, those veterans are not eligible for the military service credit, and neither are women who served in non-combat roles.
Cuomo vetoed a similar bill last year saying it hadn’t been included in the budget. This year, it was allocated in the budget, but Cuomo blamed the cost – according to the Governor’s office, “approval of the bill would mean $229.7 million in near-term costs and $607 million in projected costs for the long term.”
New York State recently had the rare gift of a $6 billion windfall from fines and penalty payments from financial institutions, a majority of which was budgeted for political pork and corporate welfare.
Of the $6 billion, only $5.4 billion was allocated in the budget. Meaning, that after the wasteful spending Cuomo green lighted, there is still more $600 million remaining. Whynot use that to help our veterans? It might just be an appropriate Veteran’s Day gift to those who served.
Cross-posted at the Mental Recession