APFN
The House budget cuts veterans benefits across the board
Wed Apr 16 00:47:09 2003
208.152.73.77


The House budget cuts veterans benefits across the board --
http://newsobserver.com/news/story/2436056p-2266359c.html

health-care benefits, disability benefits, survivor benefits, pensions, everything -- a total of $28 billion in cuts over the next decade. In my state, in North Carolina, more than 30,000 veterans will be pushed out, forced out of the VA system. Tens of thousands more North Carolina veterans would face sharply higher costs.

The budget cuts benefits when needs are increasing. World War II veterans and Korean War veterans are aging. Their health-care needs are pressing, and Vietnam veterans are just behind them. There are already waiting lists, and those lists will only grow longer, if the benefits are available at all.

The men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan must see this budget and wonder if our praise for them today is simply hollow rhetoric intended to score political points, not a sincere appreciation for their service. The House budget walks away from our debt to veterans so we can cut taxes.

I know that I am not the first to point out on this floor how lopsided that tax cut favors the richest Americans. I know I am not the first to point out that Americans making more than a million dollars a year get a tax cut of $90,000 but ordinary Americans fare much less well. Half of North Carolina families get less than $100 a year. One-third of North Carolina families get nothing at all.

The Americans who would benefit the most from proposed tax cuts owe the most to our veterans, and the veterans who need their veterans benefits the most would benefit least from the proposed tax cut.

The majority party is now saying that they did not really mean it; they had their fingers crossed behind their backs the whole time. They knew the Senate would put veterans benefits back into the budget and that they would go along. Just minutes ago, the majority party voted to repudiate the very budget that they adopted less than two weeks ago.

Veterans deserve better than that kind of political double-talk. They should not be bargaining chips and back-room budget deals between the House and Senate. They have earned better than that.

I do not believe that the House budget reflects our nation's values. I do not believe that we have become a nation of ingrates.

(From a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives by North Carolina Rep. Brad Miller, a Democrat.)
http://www.house.gov/bradmiller/csflags.html

http://thomas.loc.gov /


MORE TO FOLLOW!

• va bENEFITS — BEE, Wed Apr 16 01:57