On Day of Iraq Speech, House Conservatives Gouge Vets
On Day of Iraq Speech, House Conservatives Gouge Vets
This just in from the Hill. On the same day President Bush will use the soldiers at Fort Bragg as a backdrop for his address on Iraq, conservatives in the House have voted to underfund veterans’ health care by at least $1 billion.
The backstory: Last week, the Washington Post revealed that the budget for veterans’ health care was suffering a billion dollar shortfall this year, a fact unearthed “only during lengthy questioning” of a Veterans Affairs undersecretary.
The Bush administration had claimed on multiple occassions that the current budget was enough to provide full care. Back in February, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson testified that he was “satisfied that we can get the job done with this budget.” Later, when Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) tried to add funds into the VA budget, Nicholson wrote her a letter assuring that the VA did not “need emergency supplemental funds in FY2005 to continue to provide timely, quality service that is always our goal.”
Yet today, even after the administration’s misleading claims had been exposed, and despite brand new data showing that demand for veterans health programs had grown twice as fast as the VA predicted earlier this year, House conservatives still voted to block any additional funding for veterans’ care.
Moments ago, Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX), the ranking minority member on the House Subcommittee on Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs, proposed making up the shortfall for vets’ care in a foreign aid bill that is still being considered. According to the AP, conservatives shot down the measure on a 217-189 vote.
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I mean, I really have a tough time understanding how this isn’t headline news. How can they continue to do this time after time after time after time, and no one seems to pay attention?
June 28th, 2005 at 2:31 pmTerry,
It isn’t headline news because Conservative Corporate Media doesn’t want to upset the apple cart. The ‘liberal media’ is almost as big of a lie as WMDs were…
June 28th, 2005 at 2:38 pmWe have a President who cannot give a simple speech anywhere except at military bases, where the attendees are under orders to applaud when told to. If those soldiers know about this betrayal of their interests, and were free to express their opinions I could make a fortune selling eggs at that speech.
June 28th, 2005 at 2:43 pmTerry
Bill Moyers explained it very well - The corporate news media only reports what the government tells them is news. If a government spokesperson makes a statement - gives on opinion - on a topic - that’s the signal to the media that they can report on it.
If the government says nothing on a topic - the media knows to stay silent too.
It’s really a very simple communication system.
June 28th, 2005 at 2:52 pmLet’s hope some of them ask some of the tough questions that actually affect them.
But, back in reality…
Z.
June 28th, 2005 at 2:54 pmVaughn
What you are suggesting is that the military - the officers - not just the rank and file - but the officer class would even consider turning against the commander-in-chief - it will take alot more than 1700 soldiers dead on the battlefield and 4000+ dead after removal from the battlefield (that’s the real total of US soldiers dead) for the officer class to turn on Bush.
Not that it can’t or won’t happen. But if it does, we are in for a whole new problem - when the military has to step in to take over the government - that’s a whole other world entirely that we have yet to face.
June 28th, 2005 at 2:55 pmOf course the conservatives are cutting benefits to injured soldiers. How else will they make up for the tax cuts to the rich and the siphoning off of billions to bechtel, halliburton and their own pockets.
When was the last time you heard of a Lieutenant or a General dying in Iraq. The officer class is not dying or being injured in Iraq. It’s the lowest level rank and file who are getting injured and dying.
This is a war fought by the poor against the poor. The officer class is not touched by these budget cuts. And they don’t care about the poor solidiers doing the fighting.
June 28th, 2005 at 3:04 pmLess surviving soldiers=less healthcare paid out
Its the bottom line, isn’t it? Do the “cut and runners” in the House realize this? Who knows? Do they offer any reasoning? Do they have a better deal coming down the pipeline (a pun on serveral levels)? I’d love to go down to the local VFWs and get some reactions as to who is supporting who here, and who really deserves the others’ support.
June 28th, 2005 at 3:23 pmI don’t want to piss off Vets, but American patriotism and honor in duty don’t prevent getting screwed by your own, even when they’re wearing a magnetic lapel pin of Ol’Glory.
June 28th, 2005 at 3:29 pmWe have to find the $$Billions$$ to pay for occupation of Iraq…
…and we’re going to have to find the $$Trillions$$ to pay for our continues occupation of Iraq for the next decade.
What a better program to cut than the Vets… after all, they would willingly give up their benefits to once again serve their country again, right? (sarcasm)
June 28th, 2005 at 3:36 pmIts difficult to avoid the conclusion that the administration has no remaining integrity whatsoever and is willing to spew whatever it takes to score political advantage. Shameless…
related: http://www.hairytruth.blogspot.com
June 28th, 2005 at 3:42 pmtruth4achange
You are too generous!
The administration never had any integrity.
Organized crime operates without integrity except loyalty to the family.
June 28th, 2005 at 3:58 pmAnd, to add another log on the fire, Congress and the W, Rove and Co are also about to produce a large windfall to their cronies in the energy biz…so, let us see…cut welfare to poor - Check. Cut benefits to vets - Check. use current GIs as a backdrop to flog a flagging war and for possible political gain - check. Screw the tax payer and stick them with a bill for a war in Iraq ignighted under false pretenses and manufactured intelligence - check.
The list goes on. Why any right thinking republican supports their leadership is beyond me.
June 28th, 2005 at 4:24 pmhouse members turned their backs on the veterans .wonder how many of their kids are being wounded or killed fighting the so called war on terror?bet you can count them on one hand
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June 28th, 2005 at 4:33 pmLet the two Bush girls join the military(ha-ha) and then and only then will you see the chimp in charge give a tinker’s dam about Vets. We need a vets march on Washington that is loud and that carries coffins, or boots or whatever to the White House Lawn and to the halls of Congress and puts them in the offices of all those bas….s who voted against funding Vets health benefits.
June 28th, 2005 at 6:05 pmWhat a disgraceful excuse for human beings these neocons are.
The Bush twins would join up if they could serve their tour of duty on night patrol in Georgetown.
Too bad the National Guard doesn’t keep you out of combat like it used to, right George?
June 28th, 2005 at 6:18 pmThis is the scariest administration yet. As Bush has said in the past, he will do what he wants. He has political capital and he intends to spend it. In essence, he is saying the American people gave him the power to use so, it’s our fault (not mine…I didn’t vote for him) that he is killing our families, stealing from the poor and giving to the rich and lying to the American people. We gave him the power and so he is going to use it the way he wants.
He has an attitude that says, in your face. So, what are you going to do about it??? The people are getting angry, but until all voices raise in anger and just plain disgust he will continue to act in a manner that is sub-human and arrogant. He is essentially a bully who only cares who can line his pockets. He aligns himself with bullies. Look at the characters of Bolton, Chenney, DeLay. These are his people. What is the old saying, Birds of a feather……
The soliders are being thrown to the sidewalk because they have served their purpose. They don’t make any money for Bush & Co. so why would he care??? Hmmm…Ponder that??
June 28th, 2005 at 6:28 pmTHe people are starting to wake up to the fact that this Moron Fascist spoiled rich boy , draft dodging, war criminal is a LIAR.
Time is ticking on this fascist regime. It will be overthrown.
Tick f’in tock Chimpy. Tick f’in tock!
June 28th, 2005 at 6:44 pmThis filthy media pounded dick durbin for his comment’s about the troop’s, but when there is realy injusted being done to the troop’s where are they. American right wing media suck’s.
June 28th, 2005 at 6:56 pmAs a Vietnam Era Vet, this does not surprise me. Bush will preach how we need to support the troops…I can’t wait till the Troops become Vets…and find out whats left. The only thing we Vets can do is try to help them when they come home. It was the Vietnam Vets after all, who set up the programs for PTSD though the VA Hospitals. Its just us taking care of our own. It seems no one else will.
June 29th, 2005 at 12:16 am“Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951� - Federal Documents
By John Buchanan and Stacey Michael
from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 3, November 7, 2003
After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen “enemy national” relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.
Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.
Bush’s partners in the secret web of Thyssen-controlled ventures included former New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and his younger brother, E. Roland Harriman. Their quarter-century of Nazi financial transactions, from 1924-1951, were conducted by the New York private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman.
The White House did not return phone calls seeking comment.
And you seem suprised by anything these thugs do??? Bet O’reilly won’t spin this one!!!!
June 29th, 2005 at 12:26 amBoth Senate and House committees met with Nicholson to address the budget problems, which first came to their attention last week. Nicholson said he first began addressing the problem in April, when officials realized that VA services were being used at nearly twice the rate forecasters had predicted.
House members, who passed their version of the VA Department’s 2006 budget in May, blasted the department for not informing them of the budget problems before June.
“If the VA had informed Congress about funding difficulties, I believe Congress could have added several hundred million to the Iraqi war supplemental,� said Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, ranking member of the House Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs.
House Appropriations Committee chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., said the decision not to ask for help earlier “borders on stupidity� and suggested that some officials within the department might have been trying to hide the problem.
Nicholson blamed the shortfall on outdated forecasting methods and the increased workload related to veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. But he promised lawmakers the financial problems would not impact the care veterans receive, calling that the agency’s top priority.
Over in the Senate, Veterans Affairs Committee chairman Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said lawmakers need truthful information from department officials to make their budget needs are met.
“Now, I sit here having recently learned that the information provided to me thus far has been disturbingly inaccurate,� he said. “Needless to say, Mr. Secretary, I am not pleased with that.�
The Senate is still debating its version of the department’s fiscal 2006 budget, and Craig said lawmakers there will take the deficit into account before it passes a final budget.
Meanwhile, House officials said they will conduct their own investigation into the size of the department’s budget deficit for next year and how to prevent similar shortfalls in the future
June 29th, 2005 at 12:28 amI’ll tell you, these people are EVIL and capable of ANYTHING… READ ON:
The head bone’s connected to … Bush?
June 29th, 2005 at 12:28 amSaturday, September 23, 2000
One expects, from a family of politicians, a certain amount of skullduggery. But that is a term of art. It should not involve the actual digging of skulls.
So begins one of the odder political stories of recent years. It involves allegations that George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, late of the United States Senate by way of Connecticut, had joined a midnight foray 82 years ago into an Oklahoma graveyard whence he emerged with the mortal skull of Geronimo, the Apache warlord who spent his final years as a tourist attraction and, it would seem, part of his afterlife as a souvenir.
Was it just me, or did anyone else notice President Bush’s face tonight? He looked…(how to put it?)…nervous, edgy, lost? Who knows (shrug), his eyes always have always reminded me of mice or rats anyway. But it DID seem that something was different.
June 29th, 2005 at 1:48 amYes, 4. of July enjoy and celebrate the murder, torture and imprisonment of +100.000 Iraqis.
Hope all of your stupid Americans enjoy their Nazi holiday!
Sieg Heil!!!!
June 29th, 2005 at 2:35 amI see no way the government can fund veterens health, or the rebuilding of Iraq. What is wrong with you people? Halliburten is suffering it needs massive infustions of money. It isn’t the only company suffering either. Do you expect them to get by on mere billions of dollars? How selfish can those veterans be anyway. Please send money to Halliburton
June 29th, 2005 at 3:03 amI hope the Democrats (as much as I think they’r the slightly less corrupt, slightly less right wing cousin of the GOP) take a hint and make this an election issue for ‘06.
I can see the commercial now:
Fade in to montage of clips from angry Republicans in mid rant about how Democrats and liberals hate the troops, want to kill the troops, and don’t support the troops.
Here, hmm… perhaps whipe to various still shots of US troops, starting with typical, daily tasks, with a voice over listing bills that Republicans have voted down, like increases in VA benefits and other “support the troops” legislation, all the while changing the images of the soldiers to gritty combat shots of troops in harms way.
Fade to black, add voice over, “Who really supports the troops?”
June 29th, 2005 at 10:52 am“When was the las time you heard of a lieutenant or general dying in Iraq……”
Actually, the officer class has its own little caste system and lieutenants and captains do die. granted their numbers aren’t as great as the grunts but there’s no glory in being a Marine or army second lieutenant, not with an RTO following closely behind you to identify your ass as the boss to the enemy.
Granted the generals don’t die with frequency and the officer class, as a class, is pretty conservative, but they are conservative in the true meaning of the word. Except for a few zealots, they don’t advocate ripping up the constitution or the bill of rights; they know the importance of the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Convention, the Rules of Land Warfare and the fact that if we abrogate them there will be no reciprocity when Americans are captured.
This whole group is just emblematic of the guys I was in high school with, the Young Republicans back in the sixties. While some of the working class kids went to Vietnam, these little opportunists went on to college and law school so that by the time those of us lucky enough to survive Vietnam came home, these little weasels were preparing to change America to make it fit their image.
Nothing short of a violent civil war is going to fix the cracks in the America body politic. And you’d be surprised to see the numbers of veterans and active duty Marines and soldiers who are going to rally to the side of those of us who love this country and hate what the Bushies are doing to it.
June 29th, 2005 at 1:55 pmLeCar,
Where does your reference to 4000+ dead after removal from the battlefield come from? Not that I doubt it, but is there a source you can direct to? Thanks.
June 30th, 2005 at 3:23 pmThe harsh reality is that a soldier in need of medical care is no longer of use on the battlefield. Why “waste” money fixing up someone who will never fight again? Better to use the same funds to increase profits for some military contractor, who will in turn make generous campaign contributions down the line. This is not what I believe, but it obviously makes sense to the current administration and the ruling Party.
June 30th, 2005 at 3:46 pm[…] Republicans claim they "support the troops" and paint Democrats on the other side of America’s men and women in uniform. However, the GOP-controlled Congress and White House slash veterans’ benefits and stab them in the back at will. They must really believe that lapel pins, yellow ribbon magnets, U.S. flags, and marching in lockstep with GOP "policy" is all it takes to "support the troops." Republicans talk tough — and have the t-shirts and bumper stickers to prove it — but seldom do they ever follow through on the rhetoric; be it body armor, veterans’ benefits, defense contractors running amok, or a viable Iraq policy that includes more substance than simply saying "stay the course." That’s not a plan. That’s a death sentence. […]
June 24th, 2006 at 11:32 pm[…] How they really feel about the props: This just in from the Hill. On the same day President Bush will use the soldiers at Fort Bragg as a backdrop for his address on Iraq, conservatives in the House have voted to underfund veterans? health care by at least $1 billion. […]
March 17th, 2007 at 11:55 pm