Veterans Resources Network Speaks Out

[Gimpy]

VETERANS RESOURCES NETWORK

Dear Readers,

Below is an article from militaryupdate.com (see their link at the bottom) wherein Rep. Steve Buyer, Chairman of the House Veterans Committee puts the blame for the governments money problems ON THE VETERAN AND MILITARY RETIREE's. ---

Are you service connected? you won't be for long! ---

Are you in the military and injured while on active duty? you will get nothing ! ---

Military Retired, say bye bye to your concurrent pay !---


Rep. Buyer, QUOTE FROM THE ARTICLE BELOW: "He said he wouldn't want to assure current veterans with disability ratings that they will be excluded from commission recommendations ." Rep. Buyer blames the VA medical money problems on the Old warriors coming into the system; rather than his own actions, and President Bush's cutting taxes for all their wealthy friends. And running up War debts .


War is needed sometimes, but it is the height of arrogance to think you can win any war easy and have it cost nothing. Instead of paying what's owed, President Bush has his Congressional partners shaft the veterans and current military people. If the President and Congress want to make War, they need to step-up like Men, and say they will honor their obligations to the Military and veterans and raise taxes if needed to pay for the War and other obligations.


SEE complete article below my name.

Also look for two new websites in coming days:

http://www.stevebuyer.net and,

http://www.stevebuyer.info

When these links become active, share them with all your friends.

Rep. Steve Buyer does not deserve the honor of being a congressman, and over the next two years Veterans Resources Network will do everything we can to see he is not re-elected.


Write to Rep. Buyer at:

http://stevebuyer.house.gov//

Washington, DC 2230
Rayburn HOB Washington, DC 20515

Tel: (202) 225-5037
Fax: 202-225-2267

Fax Rep. Veterans Committee: 202-225-5486

Fax Dem. Veterans Committee: 202-225-2034

Your Editor,

Ray B Davis, Jr. http://www.valaw.org

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ARTICLE and REP. STEVE BUYER -- By Tom Philpott

Published March 13, 2005


Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., is the new chairman of House Veterans Affairs Committee. He says the medical and rehabilitation needs of a new generation of war vets leave him more certain than ever that Congress erred in 1996, when it opened VA health care to any vet willing to pay modest fees. "While some veterans' organizations like to create a theme, that 'a veteran is a veteran, (and) there is no difference,' I disagree," he said.


A decade ago - in the wake of the Persian Gulf War, which saw relatively few U.S. casualties - the Veterans Affairs Department went back to worrying about an aging patient population and underused VA clinics and hospitals, Buyer said. Those concerns, along with wishful thinking about VA billing employer-provided insurance plans for the cost of care, led Congress to open VA sites to vets neither poor nor disabled, he said. Time has shown that as a mistake, Buyer said. Today, VA has $3 billion in "uncollected debt" for health care rendered, which insurance companies haven't paid. "And we find ourselves now in protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - and the war on terror all over the world.

So the sense from 1996 that we could open up the VA to protect the bricks and mortar because of a declining population of veterans," Buyer said, has been replaced by "the reality that we have more veterans now that have to come into the system."

Buyer's comments occurred in an interview for this column.
The interview was days after his committee voted to impose an enrollment fee of $230 to $500 a year on 2.4 million vets in priority categories 7 and 8 - those who aren't poor and have no service-connected disability.

In January, Republican leaders removed Rep. Christopher Smith, R- N.J., as committee chairman. They said he was too close to veterans' groups, too supportive of expanding benefits and too dismissive of Bush administration plans to slow VA spending and impose fees on low- priority vets. New chairman Buyer, 46, is a blunt-spoken attorney and Citadel graduate, deployed in the Gulf War as an Army Reserve lawyer.


With oversight responsibility now for the second-largest department in government, Buyer said, he has three short-term priorities: Refocus VA health care on its "core constituency" of service- disabled, indigent and special-needs vets; Develop a "seamless transition" process for vets moving from active duty to VA care. So far, more than 10,000 have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as many as 100,000 could have post-traumatic stress disorder, Buyer said. "The VA needs to prepare to receive them"; and Improve VA rehabilitation and vocational training to ensure that even the most severely injured vets return to rewarding lives. "For a lot of years," Buyers said, "it was, 'Here's your check. Good luck in your life. And if you find it in a bottle, we'll try to get you in a program.' I want the system to be far more personal."

Buyer also said : He expected a new bipartisan Veterans' Disability Benefits Commission, which will conduct its first meeting soon, to review whether Congress went too far on allowing concurrent receipt of military retirement and VA disability payments. Buyer said that as chairman of the House subcommittee on military personnel a few years ago, he "found $25 million" to lift the concurrent receipt ban only for 100 percent combat-disabled retirees. "Little did I realize that my care and concern would be so enveloped" by politics, he said, and the ban quickly lifted to benefit a few hundred thousand retirees, many having no combat-related disability.


He expected the commission to consider whether to change the way that disability ratings were set or to tighten the definition of "service- connected" injuries or ailments. "There is something bothersome in the system where you can have a soldier blow out his knee from a roadside bomb and end up with a disability that's the same as a guy who blew out his knee sliding into home plate at church-league softball on Sunday," Buyer said. "Is that the type of disability system that is just and fair?" He wouldn't want to assure current veterans with disability ratings that they would be excluded from commission recommendations. "I think everything should be on the table," he said.

He wants to offer lump-sum payments to vets with disabilities rated 20 percent or less, as settlement of all future compensation claims. "Part of the problem is there's gamesmanship in the system, whereby (veterans) consistently - over their lifetimes - keep reapplying for their ratings, trying to get bumped up higher and higher," Buyer said.

(What's the matter with this idiot!..............Dosen't he realize that certain "disabilities" worsen and increase in their degree of pain & suffering with old age???....Surely he can't be THAT stupid, or can he???????..........Editorial comment by the Gimpster).......


Veterans' organizations argued that all vets earned the right to VA health care, using what Buyer called inflammatory rhetoric to knock proposals to raise fees on nonpoor, nondisabled vets.

The groups are abandoning values like duty and sacrifice under which vets served, he suggested. Buyer said that's why, during a recent VA budget hearing, he asked representatives of veterans' groups where they took their military oaths. "I asked them to be very careful with the words they select because ... they have an impact all over the country," he said.


He also cautioned them, he said, because "it is upsetting to me when someone refers to veterans as 'whiny.' That's very upsetting to me." Buyer didn't say who referred to vets as "whiny."


Write Military Update,
P.O. Box 231111,
Centreville, VA 20120-1111;
e- mail milupdate@aol.com;
or visit www.militaryupdate.com. http://www.dailypress.com/news/loca...,4851766.story?
coll=dp-news-local-final


###

Veterans Resources Network
http://www.valaw.org
Ray B Davis Jr
P.O. Box 68
East Flat Rock, NC 28726
http://valaw.org http://veteransresources.net

[Gimpy]

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Disabled veterans protest budget proposal for health care

By Leo Shane III,

Stars and Stripes European edition,

Thursday, March 10, 2005 WASHINGTON

? Hundreds of disabled veterans booed and jeered Republican House members on Tuesday for their budget proposal for veterans' health care, which critics call inadequate to deal with the future needs of current troops. Following testimony before a pair of congressional committees by officials from the Disabled American Veterans, or DAV, the crowd of more than 400 wounded and disabled veterans cheered House members who criticized the president's budget plans and heckled representatives who defended the spending.

The loudest heckling was reserved for House Veterans' Affairs chairman Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., who was criticized by Democrats on the committee and rebuked the crowd at one point by saying "where the river is the shallowest, it makes the most noise."

The proposed 2006 budget includes a 1.1 percent increase for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which officials from the DAV called too little to deal with the large number of servicemembers expected to return from Iraq and Afghanistan with missing limbs, mental illnesses and other service injuries. In addition, the budget would require veterans without combat injuries and who make more than $25,000 a year to pay a $250 enrollment fee to use department health services. James Sursely, national commander of the DAV, which calls itself the voice of service-connected disabled veterans, said he wants to see an additional $3.4 billion added to the budget for veterans' medical care, and see the new fees removed.

But Republicans on the committee have already forwarded their budget proposals to House officials, and they include an enrollment fee and only slight funding increases. Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., called Buyer and his supporters hypocrites for scheduling Tuesday's hearing without any intention of considering the veterans' budget concerns. "This budget is an insult to our troops and to you," he told the crowd, who responded with a standing ovation. "This is unconscionable." Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., called promises made by Republicans "frankly a lot of [expletive]," and was quickly censured by Buyer as the crowd roared in approval.

Army Sgt. Tyler Hall, a 24-year-old Alaskan who lost part of his left leg in an improvised explovsive device blast in August, said he attended Tuesday's hearing to learn more about the legislative process and see how he can help other soldiers like himself. "The number of disabled vets is growing, so this affects us quite a bit," he said. "You almost automatically go into the VA hospitals, so we need to make sure the care is there.

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[Gimpy]

More Bull$hit from Buyer!

Rep. Steve Buyer (R- Indiana) the new Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committeewould take the money off a dead man's eyes.

Below, Rep. Steve Buyer (R. 4th district IN) the Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee is up to his old tricks of BEING TO BIG FOR HIS BRITCHES! --

This time he opposed the increase in Life Insurance for our military forces on a retroactive basis , if the military person had not elected to have the insurance earlier.

Rep. Buyer, does not take into account that at the time, the military person did not have the option of the higher amount; before the Wars began very few hostile casualties were occurring; the pay of low ranking military people is so low that some are on food stamps, and they could not afford to pay premiums, and feed their family? And lastly all of the people helped by the retroactive parts of the benefits: are DEAD, and their families need the money.

NOTE from first article: "Buyer, however, was unhappy with the bill's provisions. In a floor speech, he vowed to hold hearings on the expanded benefits in April. And he complained that neither the Department of Veterans Affairs nor the House Veterans' Affairs Committee were consulted. Why, Buyer asked, should Congress authorize retroactive insurance coverage for service members who declined coverage and did not pay premiums?"

PORK BUYER: But, Rep. Buyer is never opposed to PORK BARREL funding when it puts some contributions into his campaign war chest;

Below find a second article about His home town, One section reads: "Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Monticello, whose clout increased this year when he became chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, increased his funding from $14 million to $20 million. Buyer directed most of that toward improving access into Indiana Beach, the amusement park in his hometown of Monticello. Buyer also directed $5.6 million toward a road project at Purdue University."

http://www.indystar.com/articles/5/228449-5605-010.html

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CQ TODAY March 15, 2005.

House Appropriators Tell New Veterans' Chairman They Call the Shots

By Anne Plummer. CQ Staff.

Steve Buyer, freshly elevated by House Republican leaders to head the Veterans' Affairs Committee, was put on notice during floor debate Tuesday not to flex his muscle when dealing with the Appropriations Committee. "We can either do this my way or we don't," Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., snapped at Buyer, intervening in a heated exchange over death benefits between the Indiana Republican and Democratic appropriator David R. Obey of Wisconsin.

The fiscal 2005 supplemental spending bill (HR 1268), currently containing $81.4 billion, would increase military death benefits. But at Buyer's request, the Rules Committee initially recommended leaving the death benefit provisions vulnerable to a procedural objection on the floor that could knock them out of the bill. By the time Tuesday's floor debate began, House GOP leaders had done an about-face.

Tom Cole, R-Okla., a member of the leadership-dominated Rules panel, offered an amendment to the rule for floor debate on the supplemental spending bill that would waive "points of order" against sections that would increase life insurance coverage for military personnel to $400,000 from $250,000 and boost the "death gratuity" to $100,000, from $12,420. "Sometimes these issues take a little time to work out," Cole said, adding, "I'm glad that in the end we were able to act in the best interests of our brave men and women in uniform who certainly deserve these increased benefits."

Democrats and aides said the Republicans agreed to change course after several lawmakers threatened to make the rule endangering the military benefits the focus of Tuesday's debate. Increased death benefits for military personnel have become a popular cause on both sides of the aisle as the war in Iraq continues.

Buyer, however, was unhappy with the bill's provisions. In a floor speech, he vowed to hold hearings on the expanded benefits in April. And he complained that neither the Department of Veterans Affairs nor the House Veterans' Affairs Committee were consulted.

Why, Buyer asked, should Congress authorize retroactive insurance coverage for service members who declined coverage and did not pay premiums? He also opposed language requiring service members to obtain their spouse's concurrence on insurance coverage decisions.

But it was Buyer's description of a portion of the bill championed by Obey and adopted by the Appropriations Committee that sparked the most contentious exchange. The provision would extend the increased death benefits to any personnel on active duty, including those killed in training accidents. Buyer said he supports the bill's original language, which would have limited payments to "those who died in the performance of duty" and would not have covered other types of death.

Obey told Buyer to "get his facts straight" and stop characterizing his provision as restrictive. He also said the Appropriations Committee has full authority to deal with military benefits. "I make no apologies that the Appropriations Committee may have been stepping on his toes," Obey said.

. "I'm not going to play games with you, Mr. Obey," Buyer responded.

That drew Lewis into the fray. The chairman said he would look into the issue before the supplemental spending bill goes to conference with the Senate. When Buyer tried to pipe up again, Lewis cut him off and warned him that it was his approach or no approach.

http://www.cq.com

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article two

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Bill helps Indiana highway funds But the 6-year transportation bill approved by house lessens gas returns.

By Maureen Groppe Gannett News Service

March 11, 2005 WASHINGTON --

Indiana would continue to send more money to Washington in federal gas taxes than it gets back in transportation funding under a six-year transportation bill the House approved Thursday. The state's funding would increase primarily because Congress has boosted spending overall. But Indiana would be guaranteed to receive only 90.5 cents for every dollar it pays in gas taxes. State officials had hoped to boost that rate of return.

But Indiana Department of Transportation Commissioner Tom Sharp said he told Indiana lawmakers to support the bill because it is more than a year overdue, which is causing project delays.
"At this point in time, we're happy to go with that and we hope we're going to get a little bit more (as the bill moves through Congress)," Sharp said.

The Senate needs to pass its version of the bill, which must then be reconciled with the $284 billion House bill. Sharp said he also is pleased that Indiana's percentage funding increase for highways in the House bill would be one of the largest in the nation -- a 37 percent increase of $1.4 billion. Indiana's lawmakers -- all of whom voted for the bill -- promised to work for a higher gas tax return rate. But finding more money to help "donor" states like Indiana without hurting other states could be tough, particularly because President Bush has threatened to veto any bill that costs too much.

Nearly half of the more than $230 million included in the bill for specific road and transit projects in Indiana goes to only two of the state's nine congressional districts -- the two represented by members of the transportation committee that wrote the bill.

Rep. Julia Carson, D-Indianapolis, got the most money of any Hoosier lawmaker: $57.5 million that would be spent primarily on road improvements and transit projects in downtown Indianapolis.

Freshman Rep. Mike Sodrel, R-New Albany, who was given a seat on the transportation committee for narrowly defeating Democratic Rep. Baron Hill last year, got the second-highest amount in the state: $44.995 million.

Rep. Chris Chocola's 2nd District could have gotten $45 million in project funding under last year's House bill that died. Funding for Rep. John Hostettler, R-Wadesville, also substantially decreased from last year. One of the House Republicans targeted for defeat by Democrats in last year's elections, Hostettler got an above- average $40 million. But this year -- which is not an election year -- Hostettler's funding is $20 million. That means funding to construct I-69 between Indianapolis and Evansville dropped from $22.5 million to $14 million.

Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Monticello, whose clout increased this year when he became chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, increased his funding from $14 million to $20 million. Buyer directed most of that toward improving access into Indiana Beach, the amusement park in his hometown of Monticello. Buyer also directed $5.6 million toward a road project at Purdue University.

Rep. Mike Pence -- who had objected to the transportation committee chairman's desire to increase the federal gas tax to generate more transportation funding -- got the least amount in the delegation last year. This year, Pence's allocation doubled to $16 million. Indiana Sens. Richard Lugar and Evan Bayh have not yet revealed their priorities for local project funding.

http://www.indystar.com/articles/5/228449-5605-010.html

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Looks like Rep. Steve Buyer is gonna be a REAL PAIN IN THE ASS for retired, disabled veterans AND active duty military and their families (and survivors) as well. Everyone needs to write the House Leadership and complain to get this guy removed from his position as Chairman of the House Vetearns Affairs Committee before it's too late!


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