Support the Troops

If it's a choice between supporting the war and supporting the warriors, isn't it more important to pump money into supporting the warriors?

Not according to the Bush administration which plans to cut Veterans' benefits.

You can read about some of the negative effects right here to just get an idea of how damaging this is to the brave men and women who have fought for this country. They deserve more than lip service. They deserve more than what they've gotten. They deserve more than excuses and ineffectual responses like "we're doing all we can." American veterans deserve the best this country has to offer.

Proponents of the Bush budget say that VA spending has increased - and while that's technically true, the VA budget has always been historically underfunded and the "increase" in spending in no way keeps up with the massive increase in veterans that we have recently created, nor does it keep up with the increasing needs of the aging veterans' community. And even Republicans acknowledge that veterans are getting screwed:

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, described the proposed budget as "lean" and acknowledged the funding levels would "not be sufficient to allow the VA to continue to operate as it has."

What's worse: the cuts would only save a few hundred million dollars - pocket change compared to the billions of dollars in the budget. From the Winston-Salem Journal:

Cuts to the 119 state veterans homes across the nation would save nearly $300 million, according to documents provided by the VA. They are part of a plan to shift the VA's health-care focus to veterans who need help the most, specifically those with service-related health problems or low incomes, said Terry Jemison, a VA spokesman in Washington.

The effects on the homes would be devastating, said Donald Mooney, a Washington spokesman for the American Legion, the nation's largest veterans group. "It would just put a lot of state veterans homes out of business," he said.

In some states, he said, the cuts would affect more than 80 percent of the veterans population.

don't you think we could save those same millions of dollars from elsewhere in the budget? Maybe, instead of saving money by hurting veterans' homes, MAYBE we could save some money by NOT charging tax payers millions of dollars for state-sponsored propaganda.

Veterans across the country are outraged, and rightfully so. When Americans sign up to serve this country, this country made a promise: you take care of us, we will take care of you. It's not a conditional promise, like "we'll take care of you...but only if your right knee is shot in combat." It's a promise made to reward selfless service. And at a time when average Americans are being told NOT to make sacrifices during time of war, it is unconscionable to ask our nation's veterans to make yet another sacrifice.

Support the troops and demand that the VA receives the money it needs to treat ALL of our nation's veterans.