Representative Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) vowed to continue pushing for passage of his Major Richard Star Act in a recent post to X (formerly Twitter).
The post responded to a story from Alternet.org describing the plight of the U.S. Army veteran Dan Nevins, who lost two limbs after an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated under his vehicle while serving in Iraq.
After being wounded, Nevins learned that for every dollar paid in disability compensation, he lost a dollar in retirement pay due to having served less than twenty years, which he called the "wounded veterans tax," costing him and approximately 50,000 other veterans $1900 in lost income.
As The Floridian previously reported, Rep. Bilirakis's Major Richard Star Act allows veterans with less than 20 years of service to receive their full benefits of disability and retirement pay without offset.
In an interview with us last May, Rep. Bilirakis derided the offset as "bullsh*t."
"They're losing a portion of their pension, either a portion of their pension, they don't get the full 100% or a portion of their VA disability. They have to choose one or the other, whichever one they take, and that's bullsh*t," the Florida Congressman declared. "These people sacrificed so much, we're giving all this money to illegal aliens, and our veterans are being cheated out of that."
"ICYMI: I'll keep pushing the Richard Star Act to fix the unfair concurrent receipt policy that hurts Veterans like Dan Nevins," Bilirakis said in his recent X post, adding, "These heroes shouldn't have to fight their government to deliver the benefits they've earned."
The Major Richard Star Act has garnered strong bipartisan, bicameral support, with 326 cosponsors in the House and 73 in the Senate; yet, neither chamber of Congress has brought the bill to the floor for a vote.
"Given its substantial support in Congress and true bipartisan nature, we respectfully urge you to consider this bill under suspension of the rules at your earliest opportunity," Bilirakis urged in a December letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).
