Veterans Benefits Still In Danger!

[Gimpy]

I just found this latest info about the new Chairman of The House Veterans Affairs Committee, Representative Steven Buyer (R-IN).

Seems like this guy is in for a fight with all the Military Service Organizations like the DAV, VFW, AMVETS, American Legion, etc. Let's all hope they can pull in the reigns on this jerk before he can do any more damage to the VA than he already has!..............

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Veterans, House chairman clash

Legion accuses Buyer of being ?insulting?; Hoosier favors more limits on benefits

By Sylvia A. Smith

Washington editor

WASHINGTON ? To veterans? groups, it?s a slap in the face. Or worse.

To an Indiana congressman, it?s just a matter of scheduling.

The two interpretations of Rep. Steve Buyer?s decision to cancel a traditional joint House-Senate hearing at which veterans service organizations present their legislative wish list have exposed a fault line in the relations between the chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee and groups that represent the 24.5 million men and women who served in the U.S. military.

?He?s been very adversarial,? said Dennis Cullinan, chief lobbyist for the Veterans of Foreign Wars? Washington office. ?He?s not our idea of an advocate at all. In fact, he seems to work to the detriment of veterans oftentimes.?

The national commander of the American Legion was even more blunt. In a letter, Thomas Bock accused Buyer of being ?insulting and patronizing.?

It?s an abrupt change in the normal relations between the House committee that oversees the operation of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the benefits ? including VA hospitals ? that veterans receive.

In more than two decades of lobbying for the American Legion and working with the congressional committees, Steve Robertson said, ?it?s gotten a heck of a lot more partisan.? A former Democratic congressman who served on the Veterans Affairs Committee, Tim Penny, said previous committee chairmen ? Republican or Democrat ? ?have been more than willing to accommodate these organizations.?

Buyer is just finishing his first year as chairman of the committee, a post he won when the GOP leadership booted the former chairman in January. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., had been an outspoken supporter of veterans? issues and argued that the administration?s 2006 budget proposal for the Department of Veterans Affairs was low-balled by $2.6 billion because it didn?t take into account the veterans returning from the Iraq war. (The White House has since increased its budget request by nearly the same amount Smith said was needed.)

?It?s almost as if no good deed goes unpunished. In Baghdad, when somebody?s bleeding, they?re not Democrat or Republican. This is one committee that should have nothing to do with politics,? Smith told a New Jersey newspaper when he was dismissed as chairman. Smith was out of the country last week and could not be reached.

Unlike Smith, Buyer has backed a series of proposals that would restrict some veterans? benefits to only low-income veterans or those with only service-connected disabilities. He has also backed requirements that veterans pay more to enroll for benefits. And, has appeared to go along with new suggestions by some to re-evaluate Federal codes for veterans disability claims.

It?s a view that infuriates many veterans and the agencies that lobby for them in Washington.

?We would like to see the VA open to all veterans, as the current law provides,? said John Dahman of Fort Wayne, chief of staff to the national VFW commander. ?They were promised medical care after they got out, but the way Steve Buyer looks at it, it should be all service-connected, or only 'combat related' which means a wound or an injury when they were on active duty.?

Penny, the former Minnesota congressman who was a senior member of the committee when Buyer was appointed to the panel as a freshman lawmaker in 1993, said the committee historically has been an advocate for veterans.

Most members of the committee, he said, take the view that veterans have a bigger claim on the public purse than others because ?this is a population of people who put everything on the line and weren?t very well compensated for it. This is the price we pay for the war they fought on our behalf.?

Buyer, however, believes that veterans? benefits shouldn?t be universal.

Buyer?s ?core constituency? distinction has made veterans? groups uneasy all year. So there was no reservoir of good will when Buyer announced last month that he was adopting a new game plan for the annual joint House-Senate hearings.

Leaders of the veterans groups traditionally testify before the House and Senate veterans committees meeting jointly. Joint hearings are rare on Capitol Hill. The VFW, for instance, typically testifies in September. Buyer announced that the 2006 hearings would not be held with the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and would be in February.

That did not sit well with Bock, the VFW national commander.

?I fail to see how testifying about the budgetary needs of veterans two months after the (president?s) budget has been submitted serves any good purpose,? Bock wrote in a letter to Buyer.

He said he was also annoyed that Buyer made the decision without first consulting with the VFW.

Buyer?s announcement struck many as odd, including a former member of the committee, Jill Long Thompson. She served on the committee for six years when she was the congresswoman who represented northeast Indiana and now heads an agricultural think tank in Washington. While she was in Congress, Thompson said, she found the veterans? groups to be a good source of information about veterans? needs as well as fair-minded about fiscal responsibility.

?I think it is inappropriate to retaliate against a group that holds a different position,? she said. ?If there is disagreement, the solution does not lie in trying to silence a group or to reduce their voice.?

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And, here's another article......................


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December 15, 2005

From The Editor


Indiana Congressman, Republican Steve Buyer Turns A Deaf Ear To America's Veterans

We usually focus our attention on the precepts of military readiness, equipment, leadership, and training; leaving the unfortunate circumstances veterans often face upon returning Stateside to others better prepared to address the many issues veterans are confronted with after the speeches and parades are over. But, during this holiday season we thought it appropriate to comment on the recent actions of House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind).

Recently Buyer announced that veteran's service organizations will no longer have the opportunity to present testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees, a tradition enjoyed and anticipated by veteran's service organizations that dates back to 1955. It is such an affront to the veterans of this country that we simply could not let Buyer's remarkable action pass without comment.

The joint hearings before America's leaders have been held each year since the Presidency of General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower to provide a forum for the elected leaders of veterans groups to discuss their organization's legislative agenda and concerns with the lawmakers who have jurisdiction over federal veterans programs. Most veterans, whether members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans, or any of the other fine organizations that represent the interests of Vets, are familiar with the annual pilgrimage the veteran's leadership makes to Washington to present the plight of America's best to the Federal legislature. It is during those few moments in the limelight that the veterans' often unfortunate circumstances are brought to the attention of the country's so-called leaders for consideration and resolution.

But not anymore!

Remarkably, Buyer, a veteran of the Gulf War, and a soldier who still maintains his commission in the Army Reserve's Judge Advocate Generals Corps, has decided to turn his back on the warriors he once served at a time when they need representation as much or more than any other time in American history. On Buyer's web site and in his official biography he claims to be a "pioneer" on health issues affecting active duty military personnel, veterans, and their families. He also claims he is a "leading advocate" to provide health care and assistance to Gulf War veterans who continue to suffer from yet undiagnosed illnesses.

Buyer is a pioneer alright!

This doesn't mean Buyer is opposed to military spending or sending our warriors in harm's way. That is not the case at all. In fact, Buyer is one of the most vociferous advocates of a strong military in the United States Congress. And here lies the paradox. Buyer is more than willing to send America's war fighters into combat; he just doesn't particularly care to hear about what happens to them after they return home. If he did, he wouldn't lend his voice to such an outrageous insult to American veterans.

On April 22, 2005, after feeling some heat from veteran's groups for his conduct as the new Chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, Buyer released a statement presumably written to explain that what he says and what he does aren't necessarily the same thing.

"America is the most generous nation in the world in its support to military veterans. With our Greatest Generation World War II and Korean War veterans seeking health care in their twilight years, our Vietnam veterans now in their fifties and sixties, and a new generation of veterans returning from the global war on terror, that support has never been more important," he said.

Perhaps that is why he has proposed limiting what veterans receive health care? Has he forgotten that all veterans who defend their country honorably in peace or war are assured of receiving health care for the rest of their lives if need be as a reward for serving their country? In Buyer's world it is apparently okay to renege of sacred promises made to young recruits during their first days of military service and reinforced up to the day they are discharged. Buyer even went so far as to use the name and influence of VFW Commander-in-Chief John Furgess to further his cause.

Last March, while addressing Congress, Furgess said the Veterans Administration should "start acting like a business and create a corporate culture of accountability that rewards success and penalizes failure." Buyer obviously took his message to heart, but for all the wrong reasons. Now Buyer thinks the United States Congress is a private corporation where only those privileged few who receive special invitations are allowed to speak. Those whose messages may be upsetting are now barred from representation.

Despite his unconscionable action Buyer still claims "America has kept faith with its veterans."

"The cause to serve veterans is personal to me," Buyer claims. "I followed my grandfather, father and brother into uniform, where I polished the values of duty, honor and country. For me, one of the "absolutes" in this work is caring for those disabled in the service of this country. It is a sacred duty. I look forward to continuing it as Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs."

Too bad maudlin speeches and vague promises aren't the solutions America's veterans need to resolve their many, many health problems. If they were, Buyer would be the veteran's true champion. But as matters stand now, Buyer has done a bigger disservice to America's veterans than any member of Congress has ever dared before.

Shame on you Congressman Buyer and Happy Holidays to you too.

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If we value our 'earned benefits', we had surely better start writing our OWN Legislators and Senators to demand that folks like Rep. Buyer are not allowed to continue with their 'agenda' of dismantling, undermining and rewriting these laws and codes that have been in place for years now!

Otherwise, he (and they) will continue on their path to destroy the advancements and increases we have fought for all these years!