Help me out with dueling statistics: veterans benefits under Bush . . .

[MrModerate]

Schimpanski says he's increased veterans health benefits 69% during his terms so far, including health benefits targeted to those coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq. Dems talk about cuts in benefits. I realize these funding formulas are complicated (not to say impenetrable), and I know that just the wounded alone from Afghanistan and Iraq must account for much of the increase.

So, in a paragraph or two, what's the true story? Any links you can recommend for a quick education?

[Ian HR]

1. Vets

Check of iava.org

[newyawker99]

8. Hi Ian HR!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[acmejack]

2. http://vawatchdog.org/

http://vawatchdog.org/

WASHINGTON - At least tens of thousands of veterans with non-critical medical issues could suffer delayed or even denied care in coming years to enable President Bush to meet his promise of cutting the deficit in half - if the White House is serious about its proposed budget.

After an increase for next year, the Bush budget would turn current trends on their head. Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing by leaps and bounds, White House budget documents assume a cutback in 2008 and further cuts thereafter.

In fact, the proposed cuts are so draconian that it seems to some that the White House is simply making them up to make its long-term deficit figures look better. More realistic numbers, however, would raise doubts as to whether Bush can keep his promise to wrestle the deficit under control by the time he leaves office.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,89556,00.html

The recent rally cry "Support Our Troops" seems to me little more than a perverted, propaganda ploy to "Support the War." But we can support our troops, without supporting the war, by rectifying some of the following conditions.

The House of Representatives have recently voted on the 2004 budget which will cut funding for veteran's health care and benefit programs by nearly $25 billion over the next ten years. It narrowly passed by a vote of 215 to 212, and came just a day after Congress passed a resolution to "Support Our Troops." How exactly does this vote support our troops? Does leaving our current and future veterans veterans without access to health care and compensation qualify as supporting them?

The Veteran's Administration, plagued by recent budget cuts, has had to resort to charging new veterans entering into its system a yearly fee of $250 in order for them to receive treatment. It is a sad irony that the very people being sent to fight the war are going to have to pay to treat the effects of it.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0328-11.htm

Veterans' Benefits "hurtful" to National Security, says Pentagon

By Joel Wendland

The Wall Street Journal describes the pittance set aside for veteran's benefits as "Congress' generosity," even as the Republican-controlled Congress and Bush Pentagon get set to slash billions more from Veterans Administration's (VA) programs. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal (1-25-05), Pentagon official David Chu, in a mockery of the contribution of veterans, defended a new round of cuts by ironically describing funding for programs like veterans' education and job training, health care, pensions, VA housing and the like as "hurtful" to national security.

Slow spending growth isn't even the biggest immediate problem for vets. In the last two years, Bush ordered the closing of several VA hospitals in different parts of the country, pushing waiting lists for medical services for veterans as high as six months for about 230,000 vets. These closings followed in the wake of the congressional Republican's concerted drive in 2003 to cut $15 billion from VA spending over the next ten years.

http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=437&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

[Monkeyman]

3. Read Larry 's rant today about Nicholson

The GAO reports show Bush's Veterans 2007 Budget is based on False Numbers. 600,000Veterans denied or put on waiting list last year alone. In the last six years the Republicans have slowly chiped away at health care. You have to scroll down on my better half blog but the Bush's cuts are all there under Mission Impossible Support our Troops and supporting Bush

http://janets-conner.blogspot.com

Right now its still not gone Cat 7-8 vets will lose their health care that what Steve Buyer R. Chairmam of Veterans Affairs Committee calls non-veterans because they were not wounded. If that passes over 2.3 million veterans out of the VA. His Hand Picked Veterans Commission wants to close 18 VA hospitals 3500 clinics

[Monkeyman]

4. Its number 38 the story you want

[Bozita]

5. Here's a stat any doofus will understand: Vet brain injury funding HALVED

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/health/283063_iraqinjurie...

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Brain-injury funding may be cut
Ailments on the rise for U.S. troops at war

By JAY PRICE
THE (RALEIGH, N.C.) NEWS & OBSERVER

Brain injuries are so common among U.S. troops that they're called the signature injury of the Iraq war, but Congress is poised to cut military spending on researching and treating them.

House and Senate versions of the defense appropriation bill would chop funding for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center from $14 million to $7 million. The center runs 10 facilities across the country.

"It's just ridiculous," said Sgt. Maj. Colin Rich, a Fort Bragg, N.C., soldier who has been legally blind since he was shot in the head while serving in Afghanistan in 2002. "Whoever is cutting the budget must have a head injury themselves."

"With the bombs, the gunshot wounds and everything else, their plate is full," he said. "They need that money."

more...

[acmejack]

6. It doesn't go away, either.

The concussive effects are what people really cannot appreciate until they have been near an explosion. The blast is what really gets you, seizures, headaches, mood changes, memory loss, I still don't even know what happened to me. I know, they have told me, but I certainly have no memory at all. I remember where I was, that is it, nothing else until I woke up in Tripler Army Hospital.

[trof]

7. More on funding cuts for brain injuries:

From a LTTE I wrote recently:

Exactly WHO supports our troops?
Especially our troops wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Evidently not our Republican controlled congress.

Here's why:
1. According to military scientists and medical experts, "traumatic brain injury is THE signature injury of the war on terror".
Unlike in past wars, body armor (when our troops can even get decent body armor) helps protect the torso. The steel-pot helmet can protect the head to some degree, but not when it's blown off by a roadside bomb or a rocket propelled grenade. By far, the most common trauma is to the head, whether it's a hard lick that causes concussion, or an open wound to the skull. It is estimated that at least 20% of frontline troops suffer "reported" concussions. The actual count is probably higher. Add to that the number with skull penetrating head wounds.

2. The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center was set up just for the purpose of treating this most common and debilitating injury. Scientists at the center develop ways to diagnose and treat servicemembers who suffer brain damage. The work is done at seven military and Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, including the center's headquarters at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, and one civilian treatment site.

3. In HR 5631, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2007, our Republican controlled House of Representatives voted to cut the funding for the center in half. That's right. HALF.
In 2001, the center received 6.5 million dollars.
By 2005 that had more than doubled to 14 million dollars. Money well spent to help heal and rehabilitate our brave men and women sent off to war.
For 2007, congress cut it back to almost 2001 levels, 7 million dollars.
About the same amount we spent before we even invaded Iraq and had troops in actual combat.

A spokesman for the appropriations committee (they're the ones who recommend to congress how much is spent on what) said "Honestly, they would have loved to have funded it, but there were just so many priorities. They didn't have any flexibility in such a tight fiscal year."

"They would have loved to." Yeah, right.
But keep those tax cuts for the super-rich families coming. Keeps the Bill Gates and Warren Buffetts and Hilton Hotels family rolling in dough.
Keep those oil company tax breaks/profits up.
Absolutely.
The best way to try and lower our record deficits is by cutting funds to wounded veterans.
"Because they just didn't have any flexibility in such a tight fiscal year."
Sorry, soldier. Should have kept your head down, I guess.

This is the sickest, most hypocritical, vicious circle I think I've ever seen.
And I am beyond tired of hearing lip-service sound-byte comments by our congressmen about "supporting our troops".
As a governing body, they are creating more and more head wounds by sending our troops into harm's way, while cutting the very funds to treat the injuries they receive.

By the way, on June 20, 2006, Jo Bonner voted for the bill, according to his own website.
That's just one reason I'm voting for Vivian Beckerle for congress this year.
Besides being a very smart lady, she was treasurer of Mobile County for 12 years, and is a retired U.S. Army Major with 20 years of service.
So...she knows how to handle finances and she knows what the military needs.
I'll bet she knows how to treat our troops right.
trof