Word: pensionable
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...repealing the pension patchwork of years, the Economy Act permitted the President to divide the wartime sheep from the peacetime goats and pension those with real claims on the U. S. Likewise he was free to hack all civil and military salaries 15%. Next step: issuance of executive orders establishing new pension groups and putting cuts into effect...
...years Congress has bowed fearfully before the most potent organized minority on record-the War Veterans. The lobbies of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars whipped through the Bonus (1924) and forced its part-payment (1931), both over Presidential vetoes. Spanish War pensions were upped and widened. The presumption date whereby veterans could legally attribute any ailment to World War service and thus draw full military compensation kept moving forward through the years. Finally a browbeaten Congress voted to compensate all veterans disabled in civil life, with pensions for all widows and orphans of all veterans...
President Hoover's soft-voiced pleas to purge the pension rolls fell on deaf ears at the Capitol. Special Congressional committees investigated only to report disagreement and deadlock. The National Economy League took the field in response to widespread sentiment against nonmilitary disability allowances. But the thumbscrew tactics of the veterans' lobbies blocked all legislative action...
What a House & Senate majority could or would not do in the way of specific pension reform President Roosevelt was now ready to undertake if given full power. Gladly would he become the "whipping boy" (his word) for the veterans, thus letting timid members of Congress pass the blame to the White House. His proposal amounted to sweeping the whole patchwork pension system aside and starting afresh on a merit basis. Those with real War hurts would be fully cared for-but not malingerers. If a veteran was so permanently and totally disabled in civil life as to become...
...President's economy bill reached the Capitol before the veterans' lobbies could get into action. House Democrats promptly caucused, with their leaders bent on pledging their huge majority solidly for the measure. But, as always, pensions spawned mutiny. Tennessee's hulking Browning, A. E. F. field artillery captain, induced the caucus to adopt an amendment prohibiting the President from discontinuing a single pension now on the rolls and limiting his cuts to 25%. For the moment Speaker Rainey and Leader Byrns had lost their grip on their party, for the Browning amendment practically nullified the bill...