Urgent message from the DAV

[Gimpy]

Please see below an urgent message from the Disabled American Veterans asking that you contact your representatives in Congress concerning the budget proposal now before Congress and coming up for a vote.

Thanks, Gimp
###


From: "Lisa Bogle" Add to Address Book
Subject: House Budget Resolution
To: dav_list@mailmanager.net
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 13:52:26 -0500 (EST)





House Budget Resolution, H. Con. Res. 393 Take Action!

Please Contact Your Representative Today !

Debate on the House budget resolution, H. Con. Res. 393, is scheduled to begin Wednesday, March 24, 2004.

For discretionary veterans? programs, primarily veterans? medical care, H. Con. Res. 393 would provide $2.7 billion below the amount recommended by The Independent Budget, formulated by the DAV, AMVETS, PVA, and VFW, and $1.1 billion below the minimum amount determined necessary by the House Veterans? Affairs Committee.

With the funding level that would be provided by H. Con. Res. 393, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would be forced to reduce medical care services to veterans just to meet inflationary costs, such as increases in employee wages. As a consequence of inadequate funding, VA would be required to delay medical care for some veterans and deny it altogether for others.

The House budget resolution would shortchange veterans? medical care at the same time it includes plans for tax cuts costing more than a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. Also, the budget resolution is part of a greater plan to reduce spending on veterans? medical care in the years 2006 through 2007; freeze spending on veterans? benefit programs, such as disability compensation; and possibly even impose reductions in benefit programs.

As stated by DAV National Commander Alan W. Bowers in a letter to all House members, ?To the veterans of this Nation, it is incomprehensible that our Government cannot afford to fund their medical care and benefit programs at a time it can afford generous tax cuts costing hundreds of billions of dollars more.?

Tell your House member he or she must vote against this ill-advised budget plan. Contact your House member by telephone, fax, or e-mail today to urge him or her to oppose and vote against H. Con. Res. 393. If you prefer, you may send a prepared e-mail message by visiting the DAV web site.

#####

[Gimpy]

We got SCREWED again by the Republicans! This is becoming SOP for these jerks!

###

CONGRESS PASSES @$2 TRILLION BUDGET

AP Wire Services
By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Republicans muscled a $2.41 trillion budget through the House on Thursday that sets up a clash over a Senate-passed plan to make it harder for Congress to approve President Bush (news - web sites)'s tax cuts.


The House measure largely embraces Bush's budget proposal, but recasts it in acknowledgment of the record federal deficits that Republicans worry may haunt them in November's elections. The GOP plan pinches Bush's tax reductions and spending proposals and accelerates his goal of halving deficits in five years.

But taking a stand for a Republican priority, the House budget ignores efforts by Democrats and moderate GOP lawmakers to make it harder for Congress to enact future tax cuts without paying for them. The Senate included such a plan in the budget it approved two weeks ago, over the opposition of the White House and its own Republican leadership.

After overcoming disaffection by some GOP deficit hawks and veterans advocates , majority Republicans pushed their fiscal outline for 2005 through the House by a mostly party-line vote of 215-212.

Republicans said the public wants government to spend federal dollars more wisely without turning to tax increases.
"We're going nowhere but up," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, the plan's main author, who cited the rapid economic growth of recent months. "Quit blaming tax cuts for all the problems in the world," said Nussle, R-Iowa.

Democrats chastised the GOP for repeatedly pushing tax cuts through Congress even as the four-year string of annual surpluses that preceded Bush's presidency evolved into record deficits now approaching $500 billion.


For Democrats, that budget gap has become a political surrogate for the lack of jobs afflicting the U.S. economy.
"If the current plan we've been under for three years is such a huge success, why are we broke?" said Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark. "Why are there no jobs? Why are we going deeper and deeper in debt?"

Earlier, the House rejected three Democratic alternatives that would have erased already enacted tax cuts for the richest Americans and plowed the money into deficit reduction and programs for schools, veterans' health care and others.

A budget by the Congressional Black Caucus (news - web sites) was defeated 302-119; one by conservative Democrats lost 243-183. A proposal by Democratic leaders that claimed to reach balance by 2012 fell short by 232-194.

Also turned aside 309-116 was a plan by conservative Republicans that mapped sharper spending cuts and quicker deficit reduction than the main GOP plan.

Congress' budget does not become law, but sets limits on tax and spending bills to follow.
Its enactment also provides procedural protections that could make it easier for the Senate to approve tax cuts this year and for the House to avoid a direct vote on a needed ? but politically embarrassing for Republicans ? increase in the government's $7.4 trillion debt limit.

The budget the Senate approved earlier this month requires future tax cuts or benefit expansions to be paid for with tax increases or spending cuts.

House leaders, adamant about protecting future tax reductions, omitted similar language from their budget. This angered deficit-hawk Republicans, who want the process to at least apply to expenditures. Top Republicans have talked about a House vote this spring on a separate bill requiring spending cuts to pay for any benefit increases.

Some Republicans also complained that the budget lacked enough money for veterans. It proposes $30.7 billion for veterans' services, mostly for health care. That is $1.2 billion more than Bush proposed but short of what some lawmakers wanted by an additional $1.2 billion.

Underscoring the growing Republican concern over the political price they may pay for deficits, the House plan claims to cut this year's projected $477 billion deficit in half by 2008, a year earlier than Bush claimed to do the same.

Even so, the smallest deficit over the budget's five-year projections would be $234 billion. Like the similar plans by Bush and the Senate, much of the reductions come not from specific budget savings but from assuming that a growing economy will produce more federal revenue.

The House plan pares Bush's proposed $181 billion in five-year tax cuts to $138 billion, but ignores his call to make permanent tax reductions expiring at the end of the decade. It also slices 0.5 percent off his planned 10 percent boost for anti-terrorism programs at home.

While it provides the full 7 percent increase Bush wanted for defense, to $418 billion, it holds domestic agencies to $369 billion, the same as last year and $1.3 billion less than Bush sought.

It proposes $13 billion in five-year savings from benefit programs that could include Medicaid. While that is a relatively small figure, it puts Republicans in the position of advocating savings from politically sensitive programs.

###

[Gimpy]

From: Lisa Bogle"

To: dav_list@mailmanager.net

Mon, 29 Mar 2004 1331 -0500

House Passes Budget Resolution

Please send a message to your Representative TODAY!

After extended debate and defeat of an alternative budget resolution offered by Budget Committee Ranking Member John Spratt, Jr. (D S.C.), the House passed H. Con. Res. 393 by the narrow margin of 215 for and 212 against the resolution. The DAV and all other major veterans organizations had urged House members to vote against H. Con. Res. 393 because it under funds veterans? programs, primarily veterans? medical care, in 2005 and cuts funding below current levels in the 4 years that follow.

Those members who voted for H. Con. Res. 393, voted against veterans; those members who voted against H. Con. Res. 393, voted for veterans.

You are encouraged to let your House member know of your disapproval and disappointment if he or she voted for H. Con. Res. 393, or to let your House member know of your sincere appreciation if he or she stood by veterans and voted against H. Con. Res. 393. If you enter your zip code, the proper letter based on your member's vote will automatically come up.


As always, thank you for your support.

*****

How did YOUR Representative vote??