Your Tax Dollars at Work

There are about 145,000 U.S. service personnel who are due back pay because they were required to extend their service after 9/11. Last October, Congress approved "stop-loss" pay for them in the amount of $500 for each month of involuntary service.

Those personnel are required to submit an application to receive the money, but only about a third of those eligible have done so. So the government is sending letters and mounting a publicity campaign to the remaining two-thirds.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but if the government knows where they are (and it's a good bet it does), and the government has all the military records so it knows how much it owes to each person, why doesn't it just send the check? Why send out letters and ask them to send in for an application? Oh -- I know -- I bet it's part of that government paperwork reduction act!

"Troops leaving back pay on the table." The Dallas Morning News; September 7, 2010; p. 4A.