Special Message to the Congress Upon Signing Bills Relating to Veterans' Benefits.

To the Congress of the United States:

I have today approved H.R. 4387, "To increase the annual income limitations governing the payment of pension to certain veterans and their dependents," and H.R. 4394, "To provide certain increases in the monthly rates of compensation and pension payable to veterans and their dependents, and for other purposes." These are companion bills designed to provide for veterans and members of their families a financial offset to rises in the cost of living. The bills are applicable to those who draw compensation for service-connected disability and to those who are on the pension rolls as a result of non-service-connected disabilities.

H.R. 4387 has been justified primarily on the ground that the income limitations now governing eligibility for non-service-connected pensions have not been raised since the 1930's when the present limits were established. I agree that the cost of living has risen markedly since these limits of $1,000 in the case of a veteran without dependents, and $2,500 in the case of a veteran with dependents were established, but it is only with great reluctance that I have signed this measure. I would not have done so if there were available any other practical means of lessening economic pressures upon those veterans and their dependents who have come to rely on pensions as their chief means of support.

Basically, I believe that H.R. 4387 and those provisions of H.R. 4394 which pertain to non-service-connected pensions are bad legislation from the point of view of our long-run objectives. Their enactment will give still another excuse to defer facing up to a difficult decision which we must make in the course of a relatively few years.

There was no social security system when the veterans pension laws were passed. When the social security law was enacted in 1935, the world was at peace and the fact that we were establishing a basic economic security system along side the existing benefit program for veterans seemed comparatively unimportant. Little attention was paid to the 839,000 cases receiving pension and compensation from the Veterans Administration in 1935, and since then no major steps have been taken to integrate and relate the two systems of benefits.

I have pointed out several times in the past my belief that out first obligation to our veterans is to care for those who have disabilities resulting directly from their service to their country. Financial assistance to veterans with non-service-connected disabilities, on the other hand, should be put as soon as possible on the same basis as financial assistance payable to the non-veterans of our population.

World War II left us with over 19,000,000 veterans. World events since then mean that hundreds of thousands more will be added each year. At the same time, we have expanded and perfected our social security laws so that they now protect most of our people. The consequences are obvious. Thousands upon thousands of veterans and their families have entitlement to Government payments under both laws. This is confusing, wasteful, and, to many people, hard to understand.

Within the next few decades, the relaxation of eligibility standards for pensions under H.R. 4387 will cost over $200 million a year. The increase in non-service-connected pension rates under H.R. 4394 will also cost about $200 million a year ultimately. Neither of these estimates takes into account the large increase in the veterans population which appears certain. These cost factors, as well as the inequities of present duplication in benefits, make it clear that this is a national problem to which the Congress should give thorough study.

I strongly urge the Congress to authorize at this session a complete study of our veterans benefit programs and their relationships with our social insurance and other general welfare programs. I assure the Congress that it will have the full support and assistance of the Executive Branch in making such a study.

HARRY S. TRUMAN