Vets from all our wars are facing cuts in food benefits.

For much of the past week, the Internets machines have been all atwitter over the following spectacle. As part of the GOP Congress’ continuing cuts to payments and services for the poor, hundreds of thousands of families (some 48 million Americans) had their SNAP benefits (formerly ‘food stamps’) cut on November 1. Many of those are families of US veterans. Tabulating the hit on US service personnel is complicated, because computing the impact would have to include the value of things like low-cost on-base housing and medical care. But this is a double-edged sword: many military families live on bases where there’s little opportunity to go off-post to find work. The estimate I saw is that some 170,000 veterans and their families would get a smaller check.

So there has been the usual back-and-forth on the subject with the usual people on both sides–Republicans want to cut $40 B from the plan, Democrats are upset that active duty servicemen and women will be cut off from this benefit.

Can I ask a question here? Let’s start with a presumption that what military service people do is vital for our country and benefits us all. So why is it that the two parties have let military pay lag behind inflation to the point where enlistees and veterans have to get supplemental benefits for their families?

Just a thought.