Question:
Well now that Maxine Waters (D California) introduced H.R. 5028 to keep the TDIU vets from losing their benefits, do uou still think we will be "grandfathered"in? If they take it away, it will ruin me & my Family & then I have to make a choice: ruining my life or suicide @ my VA, then maybe I'm worth more dead than alive
Jim's Reply:
Every year without fail, someone notices that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published a study (like this ) that suggests that one way to reduce the federal budget deficit would be to restrict veterans from 'double-dipping' when they may be eligible for both VA TDIU (Unemployability) and the SSA version of that called SSDI and/or SSA retirement benefits. There's a certain fiscal accountability logic to this but it never goes anywhere...there are reasons.
The CBO is a think-tank and their job is to produce scenarios, no matter how unlikely they may be, to reduce our growing budget deficit. Veterans benefits and Social Security benefits are tax money eating monsters that always invite ways to tame them a bit. Veterans benefits are a third rail in politics and even after the CBO suggestion, most politicians are loathe to actually try to reduce a benefit. We have powerful lobbying at every level of government and that never changes. Congresspersons may not support additional benefits as strongly as they should but won't ever vote to remove an existing benefit.
Every year this CBO report rumor sends the tens of thousands of veterans who are receiving both benefits simultaneously into a panic when the social media rumors start to fly. Representative Waters H.R.5028 - Protecting Benefits for Disabled Veterans Act of 2019 seeks to do away with all the noise and ensure that our traditional benefits are protected and not subject to the political whim of the moment. Just the mention of that bill was enough to start the rumors again for the close of 2019 and here we are.
As of the moment I'm typing this there are no actions to take away any benefits from any veteran who is receiving both SSA retirement or SSDI in addition to 100% a VA TDIU disability award. If the decision were ever to be made to modify the way the TDIU and SSDI or SSA retirement benefits are meted out, veterans with existing benefits are always 'grandfathered' in so nobody is losing anything.
You can relax. Nobody is coming after your TDIU benefit...not today, not in the foreseeable future. You should tell your Congressional representative that you support the bill. Get involved...defend your benefits.