Senate quietly passes 'death gratuity' bill
The House passed a bill Wednesday that would have funded the $100,000 emergency payments to the families of deceased service members despite the ongoing government shutdown.
But the non-profit Fisher House announced almost immediately after the vote that it would step in to continue the funding instead, a workaround devised after President Barack Obama asked the Department of Defense to find a “creative” way to continue the program.
unclear now if the president will sign the Senate-passed legislation, since the White House still says that the Fisher House deal solves the problem.
"The legislation is not necessary," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday, calling the GOP strategy of passing individual bills to address some of the most heavily publicized consequences of the shutdown "preposterous."
After the president said Wednesday that he’d sign on to the Fisher House plan, the Senate did not immediately take up the House-passed bill.
But early Thursday afternoon, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, came to the Senate floor to ask that the upper chamber approve the House-passed measure anyway.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid responded that the move would be “moot” because of the Fisher House program, and the vote would be only “for show.”
“
The death benefit issue has been resolved,” he said. “The Department of Defense stepped forward and took care of everything, and so this issue is largely moot.”
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_new...enate-quietly-passes-death-gratuity-bill?lite
Carney is prick. Reid is a boring pompous partisan lackey. The Republicans are warmongering show boaters. Loathing for them all