This story will probably make most of you react like the congressman...and I'll bet if it does you, and the congressman, have never spent a day in uniform.
However, If you were to see a story with the headline "US Congressman introduces law to require taxpayers pay for six meals per day for soldiers", you probably would also wonder just what in the heck is going on. But, in essence, the taxpayers ARE paying for 6 full blown meals per day if the soldiers ARE NOT billed.
Click on the story, because the whole thing has a good explanation of why the soldier's are "billed".
What is apparent to anyone who truly understands what is happening here, is that the Congressman doesn't really understand what is going on.
Don't get me wrong...the soldiers will be happy for the congressman to succeed. They will be happy to double one of their non-taxable benefits (meals or money-for-meals) any day of the week.
Talk about adding insult to injury, said one U.S. Congressman.
Troops wounded in combat in the nation’s war on terrorism are being handed more than just discharge papers when they leave military hospitals — some also are getting a bill.
At a daily rate of $8.10, hospitalized troops, including those wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, are being charged for their meals.
“I was amazed. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it,” said Rep. C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, who has introduced a bill to repeal what he calls an “offensive” law.
“Some things don’t meet the common-sense test, and this is one of them,” said a soldier injured in Iraq in June, and who has received two meal bills, one for $24.30 from the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, and a second for more than $300 from the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
“It’s not a good precedent to have when a servicemember, having received wounds in Iraq, to see the first correspondence from his government after he gets out is a bill to pay for the hospital stay,” said the 16-year Army veteran, who asked his name not be used for fear of reprisal.
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