I've done my fair share of contacting my senators (Kerry and Kennedy when I lived in Massachusetts, Durbin and Obama since moving here), to support or oppose thus and such legislaltion. I haven't had to do it all that often, because my senators usually could be trusted to vote correctly (with the exception of Kerry on the IWR). I am very familiar with the type of email I receive in return, if any.
Well, one day I got an email from WESPac asking to contact my senators regarding thus and such veteran's issue (can't remember), and I thought, okay, what the hell, I'll do that just to keep the issue on the burner. I never even expected a reply, and in fact, never got one from (my beloved) Dick Durbin, which was okay. I know he supports veterans affairs.
But all of a sudden one day, I got this email from Barack Obama. It was in June 2005, when he had been a senator for only six months, well before any talk of a presidential bid. I read it, and my first reaction was--gosh, this isn't like any email I've gotten from a senator or representative. I knew it couldn't have been personally written to me, but it
felt kind of like it had been. (It talked about It my comments, and it apologized at the end for having taken some time to reply.) It not only addressed some very specific issues I had mentioned in my own email--but it did so in detail, in a way that did not speak in plaltitudes (I support veterans and will work hard for them!)--and, most important--in a way that did not speak down to me, that assumed I could understand some detailed and relatively complex matters. Here's that email. It was the first thing that made me think, "this guy is a bit diffrent." Maybe it won't seem different to you, but it was different from the form emails I'd received from my legislators before, if in nothing else but tone. I felt like I wasn't just getting a form letter, but that someone had sat down and actually thought about the real issues.
Dear :
Thank you for your message regarding our nation's commitment to its veterans. I agree that our country and its leaders must assign a higher priority to meeting the needs of America's veterans.
I may be new to Washington, but it did not take long to appreciate how poorly our government treats its veterans. That's why I sought a seat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, and I will use this position to be an advocate for meeting our commitments to our veterans.
As far as I am concerned, we have a long way to go in that regard, as your comments document. In just a few short months in the Senate, I have been amazed by what can appear to be the federal bureaucracy's callous disregard for America's veterans.
For example, my introduction to this situation came before I was sworn into office when I learned about the problems Illinois veterans are having with disability payments. It is simply unacceptable that an Illinois veteran receives $5,000 less in benefits than a comparable veteran in Puerto Rico. In January, I raised this issue directly with Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Nicholson, and he agreed to look into the situation immediately. A subsequent VA report confirmed these benefit discrepancies and indicated that VA regional offices do not have sufficient staff to thoroughly review veterans' claims. In the coming months, I will work to address the problems identified in the report.
The President's proposed budget also was a shot of cold water to veterans. It proposed a mere .04% increase in the VA budget from the Fiscal Year 2005, which is wholly inappropriate considering the fact that we are getting an increasingly high number of veterans returning from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The budget also called for a $9 million decrease in medical research, which is totally unsatisfactory given the trouble this government has had in the past adjusting to various diseases such as Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome, the symptoms of which do not appear for years. It also proposes cuts in nursing homes for long-term care and requires priority 7 and 8 veterans pay a $250 dollar user fee and that co-payments for medication increase from $7 to $15. Our veterans should not be left to personally finance medical care they were promised by their government.
While I understand and support the President's call for fiscal responsibility, I do not believe that funding valuable domestic priorities and restoring discipline to federal spending are mutually exclusive propositions. During Senate debate on the Federal budget, I cosponsored and voted for an amendment that would increase veterans' health care funding by $2.8 billion. I believe that this amendment better reflects the priorities of the American people than do many of the President's budget recommendations.
This fight is not over. As Congress prepares the final budget for 2006, I will work with my colleagues in the Senate and the leaders of veterans organizations in Illinois and Washington to resist the Administration's cutbacks and provide America's veterans with the benefits they need and deserve.
Finally, I want to apologize for the delay in my response. Quite frankly, it has taken a bit longer than I had anticipated to get caught up on the backlog of correspondence I inherited when I was sworn into office. I hope that this delay will not deter you from keeping in touch in the future.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
United States Senator