Democrats use Veterans Day to assail Bush's record on military benefits

[thedrifter]

Democrats use Veterans Day to assail Bush's record on military benefits


By Nedra Pickler
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12:43 a.m. November 10, 2003

WASHINGTON ? Democratic presidential candidates are leading up to Veterans Day by attacking President Bush's treatment of former service members and outlining their own plans for improving benefits.

Military benefits have become a point of debate in the campaign. The Democrats argue that veterans and members of the military face hardships that have been perpetuated by the commander in chief. Bush argues that his 2004 budget contains the largest increase for the Department of Veterans Affairs ever requested.

In advance of Veterans Day on Tuesday, Democratic candidates Wesley Clark, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman are calling for better health care and other benefits for those who served their country.

"Walking away from our veterans is wrong and in a Kerry administration it will be a thing of the past," the Massachusetts senator and Vietnam veteran said in remarks prepared for a round of appearances in Iowa on Monday.

Clark, a retired Army general, says he would spend $2 billion more annually than Bush spends on health care for veterans. In addition, he says his broader health care plan would provide medical insurance to the roughly 240,000 guard and reserve members who only have coverage when they are on active duty.

Clark and Kerry have been especially critical of Bush for allowing thousands of veterans to languish on waiting lists for care at VA hospitals. And they use the issue to remind voters that they served in the active military, while Bush did not.

"When I hear about how we're not giving our veterans their due and when I hear about how we're shortchanging our soldiers, I take it personally," Clark said in a speech prepared for an appearance Monday in Arizona.

There are other veterans issues the candidates pledge to address:

?Clark said he would prevent the closure of schools on military bases, provide support for homeless veterans, and immediately allow disabled veterans to collect military retirement benefits along with their disability benefits. He also proposed "A National Soldiers' Memorial" to honor American troops who died in Haiti, Somalia, Iraq and other conflicts that don't already have a national memorial.

?Kerry would provide mortgage insurance for National Guard and Reserve members to assure that members who see their civilian pay cut when they are called to active duty won't lose their homes.

?Lieberman called for "a decent wage" along with special compensation for housing, health care and other services so veterans can provide for their families. The Connecticut senator promised that if elected he would not cut military pay and would keep Defense Department schools open.

"On this Veterans Day, particularly with 135,000 soldiers on duty in Iraq and others in the Balkans, Afghanistan and elsewhere ... we should commit ourselves to take good care of them the other 364 days of the year," Lieberman said Sunday while campaigning in New Hampshire.

In a campaign release defending his record, Bush noted his increase for the Department of Veterans Affairs and said he increased the budget for the agency more in his first two years in office than in the previous six years.

He said he also took the unprecedented step of allowing veterans with a prescription from private physicians to have the VA fill them.





Associated Press writers Mike Glover in Iowa and Mike Recht in New Hampshire contributed to this story.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...-veterans.html

Sempers,

Roger

[darrels joy]

Jackson misleads when he says that "veterans are getting the shaft ... the administration continues to seek cuts in the medical and housing benefits available to veterans." This is an oft-repeated Democratic mantra.

Congress, to the contrary, has increased discretionary funding for veterans by 38 percent since the Bush administration took power, and there is a White House plan under way to get rid of the long lines at VA hospitals through a $4.6 billion modernization of VA facilities.

The $400 billion defense bill that passed the House last week contains a 4.15 percent pay raise for our troops and an increase in the death benefit.

In fact, Democrat Ike Skelton, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told Fox News, "There is so much in this bill that takes care of the troops, their families, their needs, their capability of waging war ? and we are at war."

Jesse Jackson said not a word about Bill Clinton and his evisceration of the military when Clinton cut cut cut, everything from the number of troops ? what about the jobs, Jesse? ? to the number of bullets, of which we did not even have enough for training.

But now, Jackson has the following message for the Bush administration regarding what he sees as Bush?s lack of respect for the military: "The soldiers on the ground in Iraq and the veterans at home would prefer that the respect be paid not in words but in deeds."

Perhaps the reverend Jackson should practice what he preaches?

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2...1/112330.shtml

[Jerry D]

Joy thanks for posting my thoughts exactley .....

[MORTARDUDE]

It never ends does it ? These pompous jerks ( all parties ) are good at pointing fingers, making accusations, juggling figures, making up statistics, and generally obscuring the FACT that if they gave a DAMN about the active, reserve, guard, retired, disabled, other veterans, widows, orphans and dependents of veterans ( some WW1 folks are still alive..so almost 90+ years involved ! ), they could sit down in ONE day and solve it. All of it. I am making a resolution to myself. I am not going to post anything else about these kinds of issues on here until the day after the election in Nov. 2004. It is simply a big f**king waste of time and effort.

Larry

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