[Gimpy]

You WERE NOT "hallucinating when Rumsfeld and Co. tried to cut combat pay and other allowances in the middle of a war.... "

And......sorry Packo & Sparrow, but it's time, I think, to get your heads out of the "Sand".........cause evidently you aren't reading the same information and listening to the same "troops" and "veterans" I have been listening to!

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In 2003, the Republican House, at the bequest of President Bush and the Whitehouse, cut the budget for veterans health care by $844 million and other programs by another $463 million. "This could mean the loss of 19,000 nurses, equating to the loss of 6.6 million outpatient visits or more than three-quarters of a million hospital bed days.

But that is not all of the devastation that will be caused by the proposed cuts. Congress will be reaching into the pockets of our nation?s service-connected veterans, including combat disabled veterans, and robbing them and their survivors of a portion of their compensation. Ninety percent of VA?s mandatory spending is from cash payments to service-connected disabled veterans, low-income wartime veterans, and their survivors," said Edward Heath, National Commander of the Disabled American Veterans.

House Democrat Lane Evans (IL) explained why we got these cuts: "These cuts must be made, so that our government can afford to provide a tax cut which will benefit only the wealthiest Americans, many of who never served in the military. This is utterly humiliating to every veteran and every active duty service person. While our nations leaders are still wageing war with the sons and daughters of yesterdays warriors, the Republicans are stabbing veterans of earlier wars in the back."

The budget that the president pushed for 2004 included a $28.8 billion dollar CUT in funding for veterans programs . The budget was opposed by Democrats and veterans groups. Virtually every Republican in Congress favored the bill. It took a public campaign by veterans groups to get the cut scaled down to only a $6.2 billion dollar cut. The overall Veterans Administration budget wil rise $3.4 billion in 2004, below the $4.5 veterans advocates say is needed. Republicans cut $5.1 billion in VA medical care by not allowing "Priority 8" veterans to enroll in the medical program. He also instituted a enrollment fee for "Priority 7 and 8" veterans in medical programs, "saving" another $1.3 billion.

By 2013, the Republican House Budget proposal would have cut almost $30 billion from veterans programs. A Democratic motion killed the cuts, but the Veterans' Affairs Committee has been directed by the Republican leadership to still find $3.9 billion in cuts to veterans' programs.

Bush's 2004 budget proposal cut $206 million from the Impact Aid program that helps make sure children of those fighting overseas receive quality education. The new Republican tax refund also made a point to exclude some military families by not allowing combat pay to be included in the income that can go toward claiming the credit. Many of those who don't get to claim the extra income won't get the tax credit. Additionally Bush sought to cut $150 million from aid to schools that attended by the children of enlistees and further cuts to VA budgets.

The U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by Republican appointees, rejected a lawsuit by Korean and World War II veterans who had been denied health care promised to them by military recruiters. The promised health care, which was not delivered, would have gone to as many as 1.5 million people and totaled $15 billion in benefits. The Court ruling means these veterans won't get any of this money. "It is not enough to hold parades or tie yellow ribbons," the court was told by the Military Officers Association of America, one of the groups supporting veterans in the case. "We must honor their commitment and sacrifice by assuring that the government honors its commitments to them." The Republican Court didn't listen, despite the fact that the military basically lied to these soldiers to get them into the wars they fought on our behalf.

None of this is new, Republicans have been attacking the budgets for veterans since at least the 1980s. President Ronald Reagan issued a proposal to cut 20,000 medical personnel in the VA and proposed to scrap a counseling program for veterans, during the middle of a surge of Vietnam veterans suicide attempts. The first President Bush cancelled burial benefits for veterans and cut $600 million from the VA.

Joe Fox of Paralyzed Veterans of Americans said "the most recent reduction will slam the poorest disabled veterans and cut GI Bill benefits for soldiers who are currently serving in Iraq." It could also eliminate 9000 doctors from an already taxed system. Fox said it was "an in-your-face insult to the veterans of this country."

And all this is coming at a critical time. The group Disabled American Veterans says that the VA is already facing a $2 billion shortfall. "Pressures on the VA health care system have escalated to a critical point that can no longer be ignored by our government," said Joe Violante, legislative director for the Disabled American Veterans.

Due to a shortage of funding there is a backlog in claims from Gulf War veterans of almost 500,000 (a third of veterans of that war) and another 500,000 compensation and pension cases backlogged. Also because of budget cuts, the VA has had to treat more than 1.4 million additional veterans in the last seven years with 20,000 fewer staff employees.

According to VAIW this means hardships for any veterans who need new benefits in the future: "Some will have to stand in line, others will be refused, and still others may face new $250 enrollment fees," and "a quarter-million vets [will have] to wait up to 10 months for specialized treatment and surgery." This has also meant that clinics and hospitals have had to stop accepting new patients and that veterans whose income is more than $35,000 have been cut off from all health benefits (about 164,000 vets).

So the "PROMISE" that G. Bush made in 2000 that "help is on the way" and "A PROMISE MADE SHOULD BE A PROMISE KEPT" when speaking before veterans groups then....is just so much more bullshit from this adminstration!!

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Another Year, Another Inadequate Budget

Request for Veterans? Health Care

February 3, 2004 ? Washington, D.C.?

Yesterday, the Administration released its Budget Request for FY 2005 providing grossly inadequate funding of health care for our Nation?s sick and disabled veterans for yet another year. The request includes only $310 million more than the FY 2004 appropriation which was only just passed two weeks ago, nearly four months late. This is the lowest appropriation request for Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care made by any Administration in nearly a decade.

The VA Under Secretary for Health testified last year that it requires an average yearly medical care increase of 12% to 14% to meet the cost of inflation and mandated salary increases. However, $310 million is only 1.2% more than the FY 2004 appropriation. The Administration?s budget proposal relies far too heavily on budget gimmicks, major cuts in long term care programs, higher out-of-pocket costs for veterans, and not enough on appropriated dollars.

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Sorry folks..................But surely anyone can see that to say this president OR the republicans in Congress have even come CLOSE to meeting the requirements needed to even maintain the "status quo" for ALL veterans, their families and some military personnel are sadly mistaken and completely IGNORING the FACTS!