Wimps

“A plague on both your houses” could well be today’s use of that hoary phrase as we apply it to both Democrats and Republicans who will not face up to fiscal reality when budget slashes are needed.

Each month I get a substantial check from the Veterans Administration (tax free) for a combat injury I received in Germany in 1944. For almost 10 years I have tried to get legislators interested in applying a means test to veterans receiving disability payments, but with no success. If the payment was originally to help a disabled veteran get started, that’s fine, but if it isn’t needed now, why pay it?

There are certainly many thousands like me from World War II, plus Korea, Vietnam and peacetime veterans, too. As politically sacred as the veteran’s lobby may seem, it’s time for us to force our elected representatives to show some guts. During combat days we could be charged with cowardice if we ran when under fire. That’s what Congress is doing now under fiscal fire. It is time to tell them that wimps won’t be reelected.

ROBERT W. DINGMAN

Westlake Village