Veterans struggle in an economy rigged to benefit the top 1%

story here http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/11/1254829/-Veterans-struggle-in-an-economy-rigged-to-benefit-the-top-1?Detail=facebook#

It's Veterans Day, which means honoring sacrifice ... and leaving a lot of the story out. We don't talk so much on Veterans Day about how to avoid creating new generations of wounded and struggling veterans. We don't talk so much about the problems today's veterans face that could be changed through policy, if only our politicians could be pushed into abandoning the austerity agenda. Let's review a few of those:

• Republican-controlled states that have rejected Medicaid expansion are denying health care to thousands of veterans. One in 10 veterans doesn't have health insurance.
• House Republicans passed a bill that would kick 170,000 veterans off of food stamps.
• The unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans remains high. Republicans have shown no interest in job creation.
• Hundreds of thousands of veterans are homeless; disproportionately so.

Of course, what's happening to veterans is more broadly symptomatic of a broken economy and a Republican party bent on making it worse for those at the bottom. All the rhetoric about honoring veterans may translate into a few programs to try to improve their lot. But not enough to counter the more general policy assault on poor people, working-class people, middle-class people—basically everyone but rich people.