Age cap would keep promise to vets

When the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs created the individual unemployability benefit in the 1930s, Social Security didn't exist, manual labor was the predominant option of workers and the Great Depression raged.

At that time, this benefit was a safety net for veterans who could not work due to health problems that began in the military and whose government-determined disability ratings fell shy of 100 percent.

In the wake of World War I, the VA adopted regulations guaranteeing eligibility regardless of age. That decision underpins much of the massive program growth, and current boondoggle facing taxpayers.

The benefit continues to embody laudable goals when it is applied to our nation's veterans who are of working age. But the federal government has known since at least 2006 the program was rapidly including retirees, and has done nothing to curtail the $4 billion (and growing) expense in the wake of technological and medical advances.

The number of 'unemployable” veterans has nearly tripled since 2000, and many expect expenses in excess of $60 billion in the near future.

More than half of the 137,343 veterans approved since 2010 were 65 or older, including 13,684 who were at least 75, according to VA statistics. Government data shows that 56 percent of the beneficiaries are at least age 65; 11 percent are 80 or older.

Given the nation's ever-increasing supply of combat veterans, the current trajectory of this program is unsustainable and unethical. It threatens to pit the needs of elderly veterans against later generations and, as such, may obstruct a population not prone to accepting aid from accessing the program. In short, in its current form, it places an unnecessary stigma upon the very veterans it was intended to help.

We have previously advocated for the promises made to our nation's veterans to be fulfilled, and see no diversion from that stance as we advocate for an age cap on this program.

The original intention and promise of the program was to provide for veterans who could not work due to military-related disability, not due to voluntary retirement.

We are willing to consider a program that would specifically target the needs of aging Vietnam and Korean veterans, and believe our lawmakers should do the same. The spirit of the individual unemployability benefit needs a bold champion.

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