Archive for category: On The Hill

By PNC Sheldon Ohren

Tax time is here. While most attention has been paid to the federal tax overhaul, most provisions will not affect tax returns filed for 2017.

There is one change you may wish to consider as you fill out your forms. The tax law expanded the availability of the deduction for medical expenses not just for 2018, but also for 2017. The deduction previously applied to medical expenses over 10 percent of adjusted gross income, but the law lowered the bar to 7.5 percent for those two years.  So if your adjusted gross income is $40,000, you can write off medical expenses over $3,000 rather than $4,000. But there is a catch, you must itemize to take the deduction. After 2018, the bar is scheduled to move back up to 10 percent.

I will now focus on veterans, especially those recently returning to civilian life.

The first thing to know is that pension payments received after retirement from the military are taxable and should be reported. If you also receive disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs you do not need to report these disability benefits on your personal income tax returns. They may include the following items: (1) Disability compensation and pension payments paid either to veterans or their families; (2) Grants for homes designed for wheelchair living; (3) Grants for motor vehicles for Veterans who lost their sight or use of their limbs, or (4) Benefits under a dependent care assistance program.

The Federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) is a Federal tax credit available to employers who hire veterans and individuals from other eligible target groups with employment barriers. Veterans who have service connected disabilities, are unemployed for at least four weeks or are receiving SNAP food stamp benefits are also eligible to help their employers through the WOTC.

Employers may also consider taking advantage of these generous tax credits once you are hired. The credit can vary from $2400 to $9000 (dollar for dollar tax reductions) depending upon your circumstances.

In addition, there are federal tax credits available to the general public as well, (e.g. child tax credit and the earned income tax credit). Various state credits may also help, consult your tax advisor for more information.

Lastly, general tax planning strategies for individuals this year include postponing and accelerating deductions as well as careful consideration of timing related investments, charitable gifts, and retirement planning. For example, you may consider one or more of the following: (1) Selling any investments on which you may have a gain or loss or (2) Prepaying deductible expenses such as charitable contributions this year (2017) using a credit card. This strategy works because deductions may be taken on when the expense was charged on the credit account and not when the bill was paid.

This is far from a comprehensive review. These are some of the highlights, and I recommend you have a thorough review of your tax situation with your tax professional.

Volume 72. Number 1. Spring 2018

By PNC COL Carl A. Singer

America needs a “Universal Service” where every young woman and man contributes to society via mandatory service.  As witnessed within Israeli society, such service is a vital resource, a badge of honor, and the price of admission so to speak as a full-fledged membership of society.  This calls for a draft!

Why?  Our military is overused, understaffed, and not representative of our population.  Today’s Military is  deployed worldwide and we are relying too heavily on the Guard and Reserve which are being grossly overused with multiple deployments – all to avoid having a draft.  Today there are approximately 1.3 Million brave women and men in the U.S. military.  Only about 0.4% of the population is serving.  That’s only 1 in 250!  But for crisis events, our 16 year long war is not on America’s conscious.  For the men and women who are serving and for their families – we are at war.  For the rest of us it is pretty much business as usual.

The Vietnam era draft which, ended in 1973 was grossly unfair.  Despite a draft lottery which gave an illusion of fairness, local draft boards were gerrymandered and subject to political influence.  For example, Shaker Heights, Ohio, a wealthy Cleveland suburb.  Its local board was carved out to include a portion of inner city Cleveland.  The latter supplied sufficient draftees so the former was a source of easy deferments.  Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are many tales of questionable deferments – easy to come by in certain draft boards, impossible in others.  A doctor’s letter asserting “severe allergies” was sufficient for a friend of mine.

Additionally, the demographics of today’s U.S. military do not reflect this great nation’s people.  The poor and immigrants are disproportionately represented.  They see the military as a way to serve, a pay check, a source of training, and an opportunity to later go to college or receive occupational training via the GI Bill.  Thankfully, there are additional patriot young women and men who choose to serve – but most do not consider the military within their plans.  They are takers, not givers.

It is no secret that our military is being stressed.  Reinstituting a draft is considered political suicide.  Thus in a misguided attempt to avoid having a draft, administration after administration has in essence “drafted” the Guard and Reserve instead.  In short, the military makes do by grossly overusing its existing assets.  This cannot go on forever.  One can logically speculate that the disproportionate rate of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and the high rate of military suicides are symptoms of the current situation.

I cannot pretend to design a new draft in a paragraph or two – but here are a few points: (1) To assure fairness local draft boards should be eliminated.  The draft pool should be on a state wide basis.  This helps level the playing field so to speak; (2) National health and fitness standards will be established.  All physicals will be done at the Department of Veterans Affairs – personal physicians will be out of the equation; and (3) there should be a four-year college deferment.  School deferments beyond these initial four years (say for Medical School) shall be tied to a commitment for extended service upon graduation.

The measure of success for a new draft program will be the quality of those drafted.  The measure of fairness will come in a decade or two.  When looking back, no one will be complain about this new draft as having been unfair or biased.

The benefits would be enormous.  I steadily heap praise on our World War II veterans – not only for their service in uniform, but also for what they did upon coming home.  Some historians say that World War II ended the great depression.  To me this is an understatement.  Bolstered by the GI Bill, they went to school, learned trades, became professionals and thus ushered in a booming age of prosperity.  They truly rebuilt this great nation!  Today, universal service can similarly provide a generation of trained, motivated and disciplined young men and women to reinvigorate our nation.

I am not a sociologist, but I believe that in addition providing our military with young men and women from across American society a universal draft would benefit all of our maturing youth.  The opportunity to serve, be it in the military or in another significant capacity will have a positive influence and provide lifelong benefits.

Volume 72. Number 1. Spring 2018

By Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff, Post 212

From 1982-84, I was part of a three-man rabbi-priest-minister chaplain team assigned to Commander 6th Fleet on the USS Puget Sound, homeported in Gaeta, Italy. I visited all US ships in the Mediterranean in addition to frequent visits to the Marines in Beirut.  On October 21, 1983, I was sent to Beirut in order to lead a memorial service for Allen Soifert, a Jewish Marine killed by sniper fire.  I was offered a flight back to Italy the next day, but after explaining that I would not travel on Shabbat, I stayed until Sunday October 23, when the Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah terrorist attack took the lives of 241 men – 220 Marines, 18 Sailors, and 3 Soldiers.  It was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded, and for the Marines, it was the deadliest attack since the WWII Battle of Iwo Jima.  Four days after the attack, Vice President George H. W. Bush led a White House team to visit the survivors, asking me to write a report of the bombing and its aftermath for President Ronald Reagan.  The president read that report in full to the 20,000 attendees of the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s “Baptist Fundamentalism ‘84” convention in Washington, DC.

As I look back at the terrorist attack 34 years later, these excerpts from the final entry of my article provides background for the 1983 attack and some of my reflections of its aftermath:

On October 21, 1983, I arrived in Beirut to lead a memorial service for a Jewish Marine, killed by sniper fire.  The Protestant and Catholic chaplains joined me for a psalm during hat service.  We wanted to say something about our presence; we wanted to say that here and in a country where peoples of different religions were killing each other, we believed we could stand together.  Had there been a Muslim chaplain in the Navy then, I would have welcomed his presence at that service.

Because the next flight was on Shabbat, I postponed my planned departure until Sunday. It was that morning, October 23, when the truck crashed through the gate, and two hundred and forty-one Americans were killed.

For the first time, those of us in Beirut understood the “terror” in the word “terrorism.” There was an immediate reaction, a feeling that we should expand our perimeters, to ensure that the next attack would be more distant from our center.  If you can’t stop a terrorist who is willing to die, then you must make him die farther away.  In the future, I think all of us would think differently about Israel’s need for “buffer zones.”

The Marines were heroic that day, risking life and limb to save their comrades. Amidst the rubble, we found the plywood board which we had made for our “Peace-keeping Chapel.” The Chaplain Corps seal had been hand-painted, with the words “Peace-keeping” above it, and “Chapel” below it.  Now “Peace-keeping was legible, but the bottom of the plaque was destroyed, with only a few burned and splintered pieces of wood remaining.  The idea of peace, above; the reality of war, below….

Our final decision to pull back and to redeploy to the ships was inevitable given the deteriorating situation within Lebanon.  There was some hesitation, because no one wanted to send out a message that terrorism works.   But the response to the changing situation had to take one of two forms: withdrawal from our positions on land, or a massive build-up, and perhaps a military intervention to shore up the Lebanese Armed Forces.

As we pulled back, there was some talk of failure, but these Marines did not fail.  They served with strength and with courage, never succumbing to the hatred around them, never giving in to the urge to avenge their fallen comrades.  It was the international effort to negotiate peace which failed, despite the time the peace-keepers had “bought” for the diplomats.

Mark Twain once wrote that a cat which sits on a hot stove will never do so again – but it will most likely never sit on a cold stove either.  I hope we will not overreact to our experience in Lebanon, lumping all stoves together, and losing courage to try again to help when the cause seems just – even if helping means taking risks.

The Jewish teaching [based on the Biblical story of Moses intervening to save a slave who was being beaten] is “Where there is no man, strive to be a man.”  Or, as William Cohen, a Jewish poet, has translated it: “Where there is no humanity, you be humanity.”

In Beirut, we Americans strove to be human, despite the inhumanity which sometimes seemed to surround us.  For a time our presence seemed to make a difference – seemed to give breathing space for hatreds to cool, and working space for diplomats and politicians to confer.

It is inspiring how many of our men who have suffered here still speak in terms of an effort which was worthwhile, and a goal which was – and I hesitate to use the word when it is chic to be cynical – noble.

During Purim, as I sat with the Marines on the ships so close to Lebanon, we read the Book of Esther, the story of personal vendetta, religious hatred, and political intrigue.  Somehow Jews kept faith.  Perhaps this was the real miracle of the Purim story.

Volume 71. Number 4. Winter 2017