The USA is STILL paying dollars for WWI


  • This in today’s paper:

    World War I, which ended 94 years ago, continues to cost taxpayers about $20 million per year.  World War II? $5 billion.

    Of the 2,289 survivors drawing cash linked to WWI, about one-third are spouses and dozens of them are over 100 years in age.

    Some of the recipients are curious: 47 of the spouses are under the age of 80, meaning they weren’t born until years after the war ended.  Many of those women were in their 20s and 30s when their aging spouses died in the 1960s and 1970s, and they’ve been drawing the monthly payments since.


    Gold diggers who marry war vets??  Wow.
    Thoughts?

  • Moderator

    Believe me, it was love.

    GG


  • @Gamerman01:

    This in today’s paper:

    World War I, which ended 94 years ago, continues to cost taxpayers about $20 million per year.  World War II? $5 billion.

    Of the 2,289 survivors drawing cash linked to WWI, about one-third are spouses and dozens of them are over 100 years in age.

    Some of the recipients are curious: 47 of the spouses are under the age of 80, meaning they weren’t born until years after the war ended.  Many of those women were in their 20s and 30s when their aging spouses died in the 1960s and 1970s, and they’ve been drawing the monthly payments since.


    Gold diggers who marry war vets??  Wow.
    Thoughts?

    Well, they are veterans and deserve everything we can give them.  The spouses on the other hand…  if they remarry then those payments should stop, but I bet they haven’t.

    Where did you get this info?


  • Today’s paper, like I said.

    Written by Mike Baker, AP
    Olympia, Washington


  • Well, I meant which paper.  Interesting stuff.


  • It’s just a small local paper

    But I did an internet search for Mike Baker and WWI cost and voila -

    This is the same article:

    http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/46878


  • One of the few things I agree with the white house on is the ‘means testing’ of disability payments.

    I know guys that have gotten out of the Navy recently, collecting 80% disability, using the GI Bill to go to college, and then get a good job after college, still getting disability.

    I know other guys collecting disability who have jobs making >$100k/year.

  • 2024 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17

    That’s pretty amazing. And incredibly, the article even mentions ongoing payments to children of US Civil War veterans.

    In the Netherlands, it’s legally possible to become a victim of World War II today, if you suffer a disability as a result of exploding WW II ordnance. I don’t think that’s happened on land for some fifty years or so, but even now, North Sea fisherman occasionally get wounded severely when they trap an old bomb in their nets.

  • '10

    Young women marrying war veterans for their pensions has been going on for a 100 years.  The last Civil War widows died about 10 years ago.

    http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908934.html


  • @johnnymarr:

    Young women marrying war veterans for their pensions has been going on for a 100 years.  The last Civil War widows died about 10 years ago.

    http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908934.html

    I can see this happening, for sure.  No different than your typical ‘gold digger,’ with the exception that military pensions are typically in the $24k/yr range, minus taxes (so, not that much)- (E-6 or E-7 retiring at 20 years; more like $30k/yr for E-8 or E-9 at 20).

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    A large percentage of Canada’s national debt is the payments for the trans continental railroad from the late 1800’s…

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