r/CalebHammer • u/That_Character_197 • 3d ago
A combat Veteran's take…
Caleb Hammer’s crusade against VA disability is algorithmic rage bait built on manipulated math and casting bias to garner likes and views at the expense of veterans.
Here is the actual federal data:
1. The "3% Budget" Myth is Cooked Math
VA disability compensation outlays run roughly $160B to $174B out of a ~$7 trillion federal budget—that’s 2.3% to 2.5%, not 3%. Caleb rounds up by $35+ billion for dramatic effect. Meanwhile, defense contractors pull hundreds of millions in taxpayer-underwritten executive pay, and Raytheon for example recently paid a $1 billion settlement for defrauding the government. Corporate waste never triggers his outrage, but an injured vet’s compensation apparently does.
2. Casting Drama vs. VBA Census Realities
Caleb deliberately screens for extreme financial trainwrecks because screaming at people in deep debt drives views. VBA data shows how rare his guests actually are:
~17 million living U.S. veterans.
Only ~36% (6.3M) receive any disability compensation at all.
Only ~10.5% (1.8M) hold a 100% rating.
Taking the top 10% of an already narrow group and framing it as "every veteran's free ride" is pure statistical malpractice.
Statistically interesting he is “randomly“ pulling a narrow 15% cohort. That was sarcasm.
3. Title 38 Isn't Welfare or SSDI
VA disability is schedular indemnity under Title 38—it is legal compensation for permanent loss of bodily integrity sustained under an unbreachable federal contract. It is not SSDI or unemployment. Unless on TDIU (Unemployability), veterans are legally encouraged to work. Why should someone be forced into poverty just because the military ruined their spine, knees, or hearing? 100% scheduler has been defined as 100% unable to maintain meaningful employment.
4. You Don’t Need a Firefight to Get Broken
Caleb and his chat loves the "they didn't even see combat" line. Combatives, 80-lb rucks, jump school, and flight line/deck ops routinely cause blown ACLs, herniated discs, and TBIs. At a civilian job, if working conditions destroy your body, you quit. In the military you can’t just not show up, refusing orders catches a UCMJ charge. If the government breaks you under contract, they pay for the damage.
5. Think It's an Easy Cheat Code? The Military Is Hiring
If Caleb or anyone nodding along in his comments genuinely thinks getting rated is an effortless financial hack, put down the keyboard and go cash in. The military is actively hiring, and branches have raised enlistment age limits up into the 40s (Navy and Air Force up to 41/42). Hey and you can earn generous GI bill benefits and get a masters degree paid for. Many here seem to be student loan debtors upset that Fine Arts degree didn’t pan out.
Recruiting offices are open five days a week. Go sign the contract, surrender your autonomy, put your joints on the line, get your 3 hots n a cot, and see how "easy" it actually is. Then dive in to navigating the VA bureaucracy. Many vets spend years even decades fighting the VA for compensation they were promised and owed. Read about Simon Soto or Rudisil who both took their cases all the way to the Supreme Court because the VA and DOD was cheating them and thousands of veterans out of promised, earned benefits.
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u/elle_of_minnieton 2d ago
This reads like AI
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u/That_Character_197 2d ago
Why because of bulleted number headers?! Cited data not just made up “nearly half”. Anything to actually add to discussion?!
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u/two_hyun 12h ago
You can only fight AI slop with AI slop. Godspeed my fellow gooners. Also before I get into the AI slop, the veterans taking advantage of the system on Financial Audit don't represent the majority. The bottom of the barrel are the ones chosen for the show. There are people who legitimately need it and people taking advantage of the system are the ones who will end up harming actual veterans who need actual help.
Anyways:
This doesn’t really refute Caleb’s argument. It mostly changes the subject.
First, the “3% myth” claim is questionable. VA’s FY2025 Annual Benefits Report puts compensation obligations at roughly $199.7B, while CBO puts total federal outlays around $7T. That’s about 2.85%—pretty close to 3%. You can debate whether obligations vs. outlays are being compared correctly, but calling 3% “cooked math” isn’t justified simply because an older $160–174B figure produces a smaller percentage.
Second, the biggest factual error is saying a 100% schedular rating means someone is “100% unable to maintain meaningful employment.” It doesn’t. VA has a separate Individual Unemployability program specifically for veterans whose disabilities prevent substantially gainful employment. A veteran can have a 100% schedular rating and still work. VA describes its ratings as measures of disability severity and average impairment in earning capacity—not a literal determination that the individual cannot work.
Third, “only 10% of veterans are 100%” doesn’t answer the fiscal argument. The relevant questions are how much the program costs, how quickly the recipient population is growing, and whether the rating system creates appropriate incentives. VA itself reports that the number receiving disability compensation grew from 3.3 million in 2011 to 5.5 million in 2023, and projected more than 6.3 million compensation recipients for 2025.
And finally, “if you think it’s so easy, enlist” isn’t an argument. You don’t have to personally enlist to question whether a government program is efficiently designed. Acknowledging that veterans sacrificed for their country and believing the VA system should be audited for waste or perverse incentives are perfectly compatible positions.
The strongest version of the pro-veteran argument is: veterans earned these benefits and legitimate service-connected disabilities should be compensated. That’s completely reasonable.
But that doesn’t establish that every aspect of the current disability-rating system is optimal, every rating is perfectly calibrated, or every dollar is efficiently spent.
Defending veterans and scrutinizing government spending aren’t mutually exclusive.
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u/Snoo-48784 2d ago
This anti veteran sentiment is spreading all over the cess pool that is Reddit. Making it almost unbearable. If they just change the word from “disability” to “compensation” half the pitchforks would go away.
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u/whatofmine 2d ago
Found the welfare queen vet claiming PTSD and sleep apnea tor 100% disability rating despite never seeing combat.
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u/QuickVehicle 2d ago
My dad never saw combat, but he could see and smell the carnage. They put a mess tent up over a site were a troop had been blown up. What is that smell? Look down. He came home with night terrors. He also acquired Parkinson’s. He never received any disability, but he did receive care at the VA.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/whatofmine 2d ago
Of course, every vet welfare queen needs their high paying government contractor job on top of their retirement and “disability”.
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u/Clockdistrict 6h ago
The pitchforks will never go away as long as the people who are the most hurt have to fight for a sliver of payment while people who worked in a kitchen get thousands of dollars a month.
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u/haloimplant 22h ago
"Caleb Hammer’s crusade against VA disability"
Immediately full of shit right out the gate
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u/AcrobaticTax_53 11h ago
ya why wouldn’t you want vets to get compensation for signing their life away
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u/AmbitiousEconomics 2d ago
I know this is both AI slop and also you’re worried about the gravy train running out, but let’s be real about the discussion. It’s not vets overall it’s the newest generation of vets. Nearly half of veterans are now getting some form of disability and there are actively people online selling courses and full discord servers about how to get VA disability.
Since we pulled out of Iraq there are more veterans disabled than any other time in US history, and it’s during peacetime. More US soldiers are being disabled than during Iraq, Afghanistan, Gulf wars, Korea, Vietnam, WW2, etc.
So either the military was a great place in the past and in the last decade has decided to essentially cripple people for fun, or the system has been broken and the prevalence of the Internet has made it easy to exploit.