Determined: Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner submitted another bill approving the payment of 'death benefits' to military families but Democrats don't want to take a 'piecemeal approach'
The failure to make the payments has stirred outrage.
`The Fisher House Foundation will provide the families of the fallen with the benefits they so richly deserve,` Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a statement, adding that the Pentagon would reimburse the foundation.
Relatives of the four soldiers killed by a Taliban bomb attack gathered at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday to attend the solemn ceremony commemorating the return of the remains of their loved ones to the United States.
They included 24-year-old Sergeant Joseph Peters of Springfield, Missouri.
'It is upsetting because my husband died for his country, and now his family is left to worry,' NBC quoted his widow, Ashley Peters.
Shannon Collins, who lost her son, Marine Lance Corporal Jeremiah M. Collins Jr., over the weekend in Afghanistan told NBC News ‘Families shouldn’t have to worry about how they’re going to bury their child’.
Republican Speaker John Boehner has blasted Democrats for failing to support his bill to fund the payouts before the budget is approved fully. 'I think it's disgraceful that they're withholding these benefits,' he said.
Obama has threatened to veto other legislation passed by the House in recent days that would reopen individual funding steams.
The House has passed legislation that would provide veterans disability, pension and other benefits in the event of a prolonged shutdown, but the White House has pushed against the piecemeal approach.
The families of these heroes should soon receive their benefits, according to Speaker Boehner. ‘I hope the president will sign it,’ he said.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2451641/Embarrassed-Defense-Secretary-Chuck-Hagel-braves-solemn-ceremony-fallen-soldiers-government-shutdown-temporarily-halted-death-benefits-families.html
All this despite the fact that Congress passed and Obama signed into law a bill authorizing these payments last week. Why did Obamas' DoD refuse to make the payments?