Why Would Any Military Person Suppoert Bush?

There ya go.

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Pork for the pigs in congress

Congress Says It's Going All Out for the Troops. Here's $8.9 Billion in Pork That Says It's Not.

By Winslow T. Wheeler
Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page B01

We're in the middle of simultaneous wars against terrorism and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the outcomes are anything but certain. To help fight these wars, Congress passed a gigantic $416 billion appropriations bill for the Department of Defense in July, which President Bush signed into law on Aug. 5. The measure, the president declared, ensures that "our armed forces have every tool they need to meet and defeat the threats of our time."

Well, not exactly. If you look at the hidden details of the legislation, it's clear that Congress has failed dismally -- and deliberately -- to fulfill its constitutional mandates to "raise and support armies" and to "provide and maintain a navy."

Legislators have amply demonstrated that what they're really interested in is raising and providing some home-state pork to impress voters in an election year. To that end, they have busied themselves with squeezing funds for war essentials such as training, weapons maintenance and spare parts -- things troops in combat need more, not less, of -- to send extra dollars their constituents' way. And it's equal-opportunity raiding: Both Republicans and Democrats have been fully engaged in this behavior. Even Capitol Hill's self-proclaimed "pork buster," Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has made a regular practice of calling his colleagues on their gluttony, has essentially given the gorging a wink and a nod.

A pork-hungry Congress has long been with us, of course, but this year, with our armed forces engaged on two major fronts, Congress has pushed the pork in the defense budget to an all-time high, totaling $8.9 billion. And even as they did so -- and voted to fund wartime operations at only a fraction of what nearly all analysts agree is needed for the duration of 2005 -- conservatives, liberals and moderates alike have presented themselves as doing everything they can think of to support the troops in the field. Don't believe it.

A brief examination of how the Senate, where I worked for three decades for senators from both parties, handled the defense appropriations bill this summer illustrates the chasm between appearances and reality. On June 24, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Alaska Republican Ted Stevens, rammed the $416 billion bill through the Senate in just a few hours. Forty-two amendments, the majority of them involving small spending projects promoted by senators with an eye on bringing home the bacon, were adopted by unrecorded "voice" votes -- usually after cursory deliberation that failed even to explain the subject matter.

The next day's Congressional Record provided some details when it printed the text of the amendments. There, for example, you can find the amendment offered by Democratic Sen. Max Baucus for a grant to Rocky Mountain College in his state of Montana for three Piper aircraft and a simulator, and Republican Sen. Rick Santorum's $3 million add-on for an unbudgeted artificial lung device for the Army. By the time Congress had finished with the bill in July, House and Senate members had added more than 2,000 of these "earmarks," thereby achieving their new porcine record. Some of these items had at least some tenuous relevance to defense, but many didn't. None, though, had been included in the defense budget put together by DOD and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and there was subsequently little, if any, objective evaluation -- for instance, either by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) or in a congressional hearing -- of their cost and efficacy. Each one was literally a pig in a poke.

As usual, McCain performed the very useful task of highlighting many of the amendments, tallying up the cost and offering appropriately caustic remarks about his colleagues' penchant for "porking up our appropriations bills." Based on such revelations, a few journalists wrote articles about some of the foolishness, such as how Stevens and his fellow Alaska Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, had junked up the bill with help for their state's fisheries.

But both McCain and the press were just going through the motions. With Stevens in a big rush to push the defense bill through in just one day, McCain helped speed things along by not taking the time to actually deliver his speech. Instead, he simply had Stevens insert the text into the Congressional Record. Stevens was probably happy to extend McCain this courtesy. Not only did the unspoken speech not draw undue attention to the Senate's goings-on that day, but McCain was also helping out by taking no parliamentary action against the pork-laden bill. He didn't even throw up a speed bump by seeking recorded roll call votes, let alone any real debate, on the pork amendments. Roll call votes take at least 15 minutes each, and spending that much time on a few dozen amendments was apparently more inconvenience than McCain was willing to impose.

Worse still, McCain's printed speech also praised the Appropriations Committee and the Armed Services Committee, which had passed a bill authorizing the defense spending, and on which he is the second most senior Republican, for writing bills that "will enable us to continue to meet our obligations to support [armed] service members in the fight against terror." It is true that the bills add spending for personal armor for soldiers and other items that the committees eagerly flagged to the media and public, but other aspects of the legislation, about which they were all too quiet, reveal actions that take out much more than they put in.

In parts of the bill that no one talked about, the Armed Services Committee raided the accounts that support combat readiness. Specifically, the committee cut Army depot weapons maintenance by $100 million (just when the repair backlog from the wars has grown to unmanageable proportions), and it removed $1.5 billion from the services' "working capital funds" for transportation and consumables (e.g. helicopter rotor blades, tank tracks, spare parts, fuel, food and much more). In one unseemly move, the committee also cut from one account $532 million for civilian repair technicians activated to support the deployed forces, claiming the money should have been credited elsewhere in the bill. But then it failed to add the money where it said it belonged.

In another feat of legislative trickery, the committee cut another $1.67 billion throughout the bill in anticipation of lower inflation in 2005 -- a pretense at a savings that OMB said in written comments to the committee "do[es] not exist." OMB concluded that "the practical effect of these reductions would be cuts to critical readiness accounts." In response, the Armed Services Committee did nothing and urged the Senate to endorse its bill, which it did by a vote of 97-0 on June 23.

Thereafter, the Senate Appropriations Committee used other gimmicks to reduce essential defense accounts in its bill. By the time Congress had finished with the appropriations measure on July 22, I counted $4.534 billion in reductions, mostly buried in the General Provisions section in the back of the bill. Ostensibly labeled as "unobligated balances," "general reductions," "excessive growth," "adjustments" and savings due to "management improvements," these were simply offsets to accommodate the $8.9 billion pork invoice the appropriators wrote. That more than $2.8 billion of these cuts came in military pay and the Operations and Maintenance budgets that support soldiers' salaries, training, spare parts, weapons maintenance and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan shows where the committee's real priorities lay.

Moreover, it is not as if Congress had not been told that its actions would cause problems: House and Senate hearings held in the spring and early summer, and a GAO study issued in July, were replete with assertions that the military services were facing underfunding for training, maintenance and purchases of spare parts. In June, OMB warned that "increasing Congressional reliance on reductions of an indiscriminate nature and increasing use of earmarks within the DOD budget will damage future military capabilities."

With no Republican doing anything to restore the funding cut from the war-fighting accounts or to stem the record-busting pork parade, you might think some Democrats would step in where McCain and others declined to tread. You'd be mistaken. There was nary a peep of complaint on the Senate floor. Feasting at the pork trough every bit as much as others, Democratic defense leaders such as Hawaii's Sen. Daniel Inouye, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee, spent his time and energy making sure his home state was well taken care of, adding funding for brown tree-snake eradication programs and health-care spending for Hawaii and the Pacific Islands. As far as I could determine from the Congressional Record, committee reports and conversations with former colleagues, others, such as Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, did nothing to undo the mess.

As for President Bush and Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards, it's hard to say whether they are ignorant of the corrosive nature of congressional business as usual on defense, which seems unlikely, or are simply intimidated by the prospect of seriously fighting a system of debased values that sacrifices military readiness for selfish gain. In any case, none of them has made an effort to combat Congress's feeding frenzy.

And the media? Not for the first time, they were sound asleep. Using members' ready-for-publication news releases (or anonymous tips from their staffs) and fact sheets from the Appropriations Committee can help a harried journalist meet an impending deadline on long and complex legislation. But only part of the story will be told. Four hundred pages of legalese and small print tables in a bill and committee report can actually make some pretty interesting reading, but apparently no journalist seems to think so. I have looked for but failed to find even a single news article about the raids by the Armed Services and Appropriations committees on funding intended to help the armed forces fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's all there in the fiendish details, but they were ignored.

The consequences are serious. Extraordinarily expensive defense bills pass Congress, and the congressional authors are credited with being pro-defense heavies. Pork-busting reformers augment their already inflated reputations. The troops in the field think Washington is doing its best to help them, and the public believes no stone is left unturned to ensure that the nation's sons and daughters are being sent to war with all the training and other forms of support we would want for them.

In each case, the reality is quite different. Nonetheless, Congress is content; there's $8.9 billion in pork to impress the voters back home before the elections, and no one is the wiser about what is really being done to "raise and support armies" and "provide and maintain a navy" -- or not.

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Well, veterans should certainly be given significant benefits in return for their service to all of us, however:

au1929 wrote:

From what I have been told by some of my friends the cost for prescriptions at the VA is going up to $15 per.
As to the costs involved in providing the promised benefits to veterans. If there is enough money to give large tax cuts to the wealthy...

Tax cuts to all taxpayers in proportion to the taxes they paid.

au1929 wrote:

...and to provide corporate welfare....

This is completely unspecific - hardly above the level of name calling. Like to see some citations on this, but in general, the health of the economy is dependent on the health of the country's businesses.

au1929 wrote:

...It would seem that Bush has gone AWOL again this time...

If you tell a lie often enough, people will believe it. This has never been remotely proven, unless you count Bush's failure to account for every second of his time 30 years ago as proof. It is very unusual for a person to be considered guilty of a crime unless he can affirmatively account for every moment of his time, with no burden of proof on the accuser.

au1929 wrote:

...Note. $189 billion have been spent to support Bush's misadventure in the Mid east.

Like retaliation against the Taliban for harboring the perpetrator of 9/11. Like invading a brutal dictatorship, which had promised to destroy WMD and WMD programs, but, after a dozen years, could offer little evidence that it had, and bearing in mind the damage that even one single WMD could do were one ever used on a western city.

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How do you show evidence that you've destroyed something? After all, it's destroyed. There's not supposed to be a ton of evidence left.

Cycloptichorn

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Quote:

au1929 wrote:

Quote:
From what I have been told by some of my friends the cost for prescriptions at the VA is going up to $15 per.
As to the costs involved in providing the promised benefits to veterans. If there is enough money to give large tax cuts to the wealthy...

Brandon wrote
Tax cuts to all taxpayers in proportion to the taxes they paid.

Nothing to do with not supporting our veterans. What is a greater priority? Supporting our veterans or giving tax cuts to people who do not need them

Quote:

Quote:
au1929 wrote:
...It would seem that Bush has gone AWOL again this time...

Brando wrote
If you tell a lie often enough, people will believe it. This has never been remotely proven, unless you count Bush's failure to account for every second of his time 30 years ago as proof. It is very unusual for a person to be considered guilty of a crime unless he can affirmatively account for every moment of his time, with no burden of proof on the accuser.

More than enough circumstantial evidence to support that claim. In addition it was used as an analogy. He certainly has gone AWOL on our veterans.

Quote:

au1929 wrote:

Quote:
...Note. $189 billion have been spent to support Bush's misadventure in the Mid east.

Brandon wrote
Like retaliation against the Taliban for harboring the perpetrator of 9/11. Like invading a brutal dictatorship, which had promised to destroy WMD and WMD programs, but, after a dozen years, could offer little evidence that it had, and bearing in mind the damage that even one single WMD could do were one ever used on a western city.

The Bulk of the funds have and are going to support Bush's war in Iraq. A war that should not have been fought. In addition by diverting forces and funds from Afghanistan to Iraq. Our glorious leader has allowed Al Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup and Bin Laden, to escape.

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au1929 wrote:

Quote:
au1929 wrote:

Quote:
From what I have been told by some of my friends the cost for prescriptions at the VA is going up to $15 per.
As to the costs involved in providing the promised benefits to veterans. If there is enough money to give large tax cuts to the wealthy...

Brandon wrote
Tax cuts to all taxpayers in proportion to the taxes they paid.

Nothing to do with not supporting our veterans. What is a greater priority? Supporting our veterans or giving tax cuts to people who do not need them

The Bush tax cut reduces the amount that all people give to the government. You allegation that it is for the wealthy is incorrect, except in that a fair tax cut returns more to people who pay more in the first place. Some people think that for the government to confiscate too much of someone's money is itself tyranny, and that a government forced to operate on less might just cut waste.

au1929 wrote:

[
Quote:

Quote:
au1929 wrote:
...It would seem that Bush has gone AWOL again this time...

Brando wrote
If you tell a lie often enough, people will believe it. This has never been remotely proven, unless you count Bush's failure to account for every second of his time 30 years ago as proof. It is very unusual for a person to be considered guilty of a crime unless he can affirmatively account for every moment of his time, with no burden of proof on the accuser.

More than enough circumstantial evidence to support that claim. In addition it was used as an analogy. He certainly has gone AWOL on our veterans.

But you stated as fact that he went AWOL during his military career, which would be a crime, if true. I challenge you to come anywhere near proving this. In an unrelated development, I have recently found out that John Kerry was the ringleader of a group of soldiers who beat up Vietnamese shopkeepers for protection money.

au1929 wrote:

[
Quote:
au1929 wrote:

Quote:
...Note. $189 billion have been spent to support Bush's misadventure in the Mid east.

Brandon wrote
Like retaliation against the Taliban for harboring the perpetrator of 9/11. Like invading a brutal dictatorship, which had promised to destroy WMD and WMD programs, but, after a dozen years, could offer little evidence that it had, and bearing in mind the damage that even one single WMD could do were one ever used on a western city.

The Bulk of the funds have and are going to support Bush's war in Iraq. A war that should not have been fought. In addition by diverting forces and funds from Afghanistan to Iraq. Our glorious leader has allowed Al Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup and Bin Laden, to escape.

Bush took steps to save your butt. Iraq developed WMD and was developing more, but agreed to eliminate both weapons and programs, as a condition of its surrender in Gulf War 1. One single WMD ever used in an American city could make 9/11 look very, very miniscule by comparison. After a dozen years of Hussein's cat and mouse games, we finally ended the farce by going in to check for ourselves. As for allowing Al Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup, that would only indicate mismanagement if you could first gauge the extent to which they have been damaged by our efforts and show that it is not substantial, and also demonstrate that preventing them from regrouping would not have been very hard.

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Brandon wrote

Quote:

The Bush tax cut reduces the amount that all people give to the government. You allegation that it is for the wealthy is incorrect, except in that a fair tax cut returns more to people who pay more in the first place. Some people think that for the government to confiscate too much of someone's money is itself tyranny, and that a government forced to operate on less might just cut waste.

My allegation is absolutely correct. The tax cuts for the wealthy should be eliminated.

As for Bush and his being AWOL. Since you like to say prove it. Can you prove that he was not?

Bush saved my butt. Is that some kind of a joke? He ordered a preemptive attack upon a nation based upon a lie. And all he succeeded in doing is Kill almost 1000 American service people, Grievously wounding 26000 more as well killing and wounding thousands of Iraqis. Men women and children. In addition he squandered billions of dollars basically looting the treasury and putting us under staggering debt for many years to come. And what did he accomplish? Nothing. North Korea has WMD'S and Iran is on it's way to developing them. And Iraq had none. How did he save any ones butt?

I should add that Bush has the blood of those people on his hands. I wonder if that keeps him awake at night. Nah! not the macho man.

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I love when someone makes an allegation and then asks for it to be proven untrue or true.

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Brandon,

You like to act as if your assumptions are, in fact, facts.

and this

Quote:

As for allowing Al Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup, that would only indicate mismanagement if you could first gauge the extent to which they have been damaged by our efforts and show that it is not substantial, and also demonstrate that preventing them from regrouping would not have been very hard.

Is absolute Bullsh*t. You know as well as I do that you can't look at this from an accounting point of view. How about we look at how many people were killed by terrorism in 2003 and 2004?

If they are still blowing people up; if we have not caught their leader, who we SWORE to track down; if we are spending a VAST MAJORITY of our military budget on something else; then we have not taken the appropriate steps to solving the problem. Simple as that.

Cycloptichorn

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The the Current Administration has increased education spending nearly 50% in its first 4 years, a greater rate of increase than that achieved under any administration since Kennedy. Since 1996, the first year of a Republican controlled Congress, education spending has increased nearly 120%, a rate of increase unprecendented in history. Under The Current Administration, Education fares better than ever before:

Quote:

President Bush's FY 2004 Education Budget: Spending More, and Spending It More Wisely

More Money Than Ever for Education; Increases Targeted to No Child Left Behind, Special Education, Higher Education

February 4, 2003
The twin challenges of war and economic uncertainty have not deterred President Bush in his commitment to improving America's schools.

Despite the limited resources available, the President's FY 2004 Budget provides a larger increase for the Education Department (5.6 percent) than for any other domestic Cabinet agency. Federal education spending has increased by 118 percent from FY 1996 (the first fiscal year under a Republican majority in Congress) to FY 2002. The President's FY 2004 Budget builds on that increase ...

As for The Military and Veterans, much the same is true:

Quote:

Bush military spending rivals Reagan's ... Another substantial chunk of Bush's buildup has gone toward higher salary, health care and retirement costs associated with sustaining a fully professional, family-oriented military. This, too, contrasts with Reagan's spending increase, much of which went to buying fleets of tanks, helicopters, aircraft and other military equipment ...

"A lot of the extra money that the president is giving us is being soaked up not in hardware or structure, but in compensation," said Lt. Gen. Jerry Sinn, the Army's top budget officer. "Without these budget increases, we'd be looking at force reductions." ...

Quote:

CONGRESS GIVES VETERANS RECORD BUDGET INCREASE ... 32 percent spending increase since President Bush took office, contrasted against the previous administration's virtual "flat-line" budgets ...

Like it or not, spin it however you wish, but the fact, the absolute truth of the matter remains that, in terms either of percentage increases or total-dollar-increases, The Current Administration has accomplished historic funding improvements both for Education and for The Active Military and Veterans. The Opposition, upset it can claim no credit for the improvements which have been effected, has no issue, it has merely election-year complaints that things aren't being done as they might wish.

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Yeah, that's a bunch of crap as well, Timber....

Quote:

Bush Administration's Proposed Cuts to Veterans' Benefits Denounced

While much has been written about whether or not President Bush misled the nation in declaring that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, much less has been reported about the conflict between the president's praise for the nation's combat troops at that same time that his administration is proposing slashing veterans' benefits, huge cuts that the Veterans of Foreign Wars has called "disgraceful."

The contradiction between campaign rhetoric and budget realities was apparent in recent remarks by Mr. Bush at an event in Ft. Polk, Louisiana, where thanked American soldiers for their service, saying, "In the war, America depends on our military to meet the dangers abroad and to keep our country safe. The American people appreciate this sacrifice."

While nobody doubts that Mr. Bush's praise for our combat troops is well deserve, it has unfortunately not been matched with the kind of resources that show appreciation. Indeed, President Bush has refused to adequately fund some of the most important priorities to soldiers, veterans and their families.

Last year, while troops were at war, the president proposed slashing $1.5 billion from military family housing and tried to roll back recent modest increases in bonuses paid to soldiers serving in combat zones. The president also refused to extend the child tax credit to one million children living in military and veteran families.

And Congressional Quarterly reported on February 4th that Mr. Bush's own Secretary for Veterans Affairs told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the President rejected a desperate request for $1.2 billion in funding needed for veterans' health care. Many lawmakers believe that the Mr. Bush's administration is now cutting programs like veterans' benefits because the massive tax cuts it gave to benefit the wealthiest Americans have created massive budget deficits.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars issued a statement after receiving the White House's budget, calling it "disgraceful" and saying it was a "disgrace and a sham."

In 2002, the co-pay went from $2 to $7." Even Rep. Christopher H. Smith, a New Jersey Republican, said the proposal raises questions about the impact on "near-poor" veterans whose incomes are just high enough to require that they pay the new premium. Meanwhile, the American Legion called it "utterly ridiculous."

http://www.uswa.org/uswa/program/content/998.php

Despite the spending increases it seems there are more than a few veteran's groups pissed off at Bush's lack of respect for veterans.

You give credit to the admin where little credit is actually due. Example:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3068417/site/newsweek/

Quote:

April 4 - House Republicans rarely lose a vote, and they lost two this week. Democrats restored cuts in veterans benefits, arguing that American troops shouldn't have to come home from Iraq and fight for health care.

It seems the democrats are responsible for at least part of the budget increase you tout so highly.

And it's not as if they didn't try to cut said benefits more, but had to back off:

Quote:

In the spring of 2003, shortly after the start of the war in Iraq, the state of affairs on veterans funding in the Republican controlled House was by all accounts surprisingly hostile to veterans. The Bush administration sent to the House its proposal for cutting $844 million from veterans' health care from the 2004 budget. Over a 10-year period the cuts would total approximately $10 billion. When the proposal reached the House Budget Committee, all 18 Democrats opposed the cuts, and they proposed an amendment to restore the $844 million and add another billion for VA discretionary health care. Led by their chairman, Jim Nussle of Iowa, Republicans on the committee, in an almost perfect party-line vote, 22-19, rejected the amendment and proceeded with the Bush proposal.

The uproar that followed this partisan attempt to cut veterans' benefits in a time of war caught Republicans off guard and they quickly backed off. But the die was cast. Everyone knew where Bush and the Republicans stood on the matter of honoring the country's veterans.

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=803

I'm sure you'll call this fact 'spin,' just like the guys on Fox News refer to facts as 'spin.'

I think the fact that you are attributing raises in the VA benefits to the Bush admin as a success is 'spin.'

Cycloptichorn

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Think of it however you wish, Cyc ... The Current Administration has accomplished historic increases in Veterans spending ... period. Here are the facts once more, in somewhat greater detail and specificity:

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Funding for Veterans up 27%, But Democrats Call It A Cut

Money for Veterans goes up faster under Bush than under Clinton, yet Kerry accuses Bush of an unpatriotic breach of faith.

February 18, 2004
Modified:February 18, 2004
Summary

In the Feb. 15 Democratic debate, Kerry suggested that Bush was being unpatriotic: "He's cut the VA (Veterans Administration) budget and not kept faith with veterans across this country. And one of the first definitions of patriotism is keeping faith with those who wore the uniform of our country."

It is true that Bush is not seeking as big an increase for next year as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs wanted. It is also true that the administration has tried to slow the growth of spending for veterans by not giving new benefits to some middle-income vets.

Yet even so, funding for veterans is going up twice as fast under Bush as it did under Clinton. And the number of veterans getting health benefits is going up 25% under Bush's budgets. That's hardly a cut.

Analysis

Funding for veterans benefits has accelerated in the Bush administration, as seen in the following table.

Fiscal years ending Sept. 30

Source: Budget: Table 5.2 - Budget Authority by Agency

In Bush's first three years funding for the Veterans Administration increased 27%. And if Bush's 2005 budget is approved, funding for his full four-year term will amount to an increase of 37.6%.

In the eight years of the Clinton administration the increase was 31.7%

Those figures include mandatory spending for such things as payments to veterans for service-connected disabilities, over which Congress and presidents have little control. But Bush has increased the discretionary portion of veterans funding even more than the mandatory portion has increased. Discretionary funding under Bush is up 30.2%.

By any measure, veterans funding is going up faster under Bush than under Clinton.

One reason: the number of veterans getting benefits is increasing rapidly as middle-income veterans turn for health care to the expanding network of VA clinics and its generous prescription drug benefit.

According to the VA, the number of veterans signed up to get health benefits increased by 1.1 million, or 18%, during the first two fiscal years for which Bush signed the VA appropriations bills. And the numbers continue to grow. By the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30, the VA estimates that the total increase under Bush's budgets will reach nearly 1.6 million veterans, an increase of 25.6 percent.

And according to the VA, the number of community health clinics has increased 40% during Bush's three years, with accompanying increases in the numbers of outpatient visits (to 51 million last year) and prescriptions filled (to 108 million).

But They Keep Repeating: "It's a Cut"

That's just the opposite of the impression one might get from listening to Democratic presidential candidates debate each other over the past several months. One thing they seem to agree on is the false idea that Bush is cutting funding for veterans.

Examples:

Oct 9, 2003:

Sharpton: As this president waved the flag, he cut the budget for veterans, which dishonored people that had given their lives to this country, while he sent people like you to war.

October 27:

Dean: I've made it very clear that we need to support our troops . . . unlike President Bush who tried to cut -- who successfully cut 164,000 veterans off their health-care benefits.

Jan 4, 2004:

Kucinich: Look what's happened with this budget the administration has just submitted. They're cutting funds for job programs, for veterans . . .

Jan 22, 2004 :

Kerry: And while we're at it, this president is breaking faith with veterans all across the country. They've cut the VA budget by $1.8 billion.

Feb 15, 2004 :

Kerry: And most importantly, I think he's cut the VA budget and not kept faith with veterans across this country. And one of the first definitions of patriotism is keeping faith with those who wore the uniform of our country.

And even the Democratic National Committee website proclaims, "Bush Cuts Funds for Veterans' Health Care," despite what the numbers show.

Veterans Groups Want More

While it's false to say the veterans budget has been cut, and false to say that any veteran getting benefits has been cut off, it is true that funding is not growing as rapidly as demand for benefits, or as rapidly as veterans groups would like.

Veterans groups are unanimous in calling for more money than the administration or Congress have provided. Four groups -- AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States -- have joined to ask for $3.7 billion more than the administration is requesting for next year.

Even Bush's own Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi -- in a rare break with administration protocol -- told a House committee Feb. 4 that had asked for more money than Bush was willing to seek from Congress. "I asked OMB for $1.2 billion more than I received," he said, referring to the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Some Denied Benefits; A Cut Proposed

In January, 2003 the Veterans Administration announced that -- because the increase in funds couldn't meet the rising demand -- it would start turning away many middle-income applicants applying for new medical benefits.

That led to accusations that Bush was denying benefits to veterans. " We have 400,000 veterans in this country who have been denied access in a whole category to the VA," Kerry declared during a debate Oct. 9, 2003. The VA's estimates of the number who might be denied benefits is much lower, and in fact nobody can say with certainty how many middle-income veterans might have signed up for medical benefits if they had been allowed.

Meanwhile the VA continues to add hundreds of thousands of disabled and lower-income veterans to those already receiving benefits, and has kept paying benefits to all veterans who were already receiving them.

The middle-income veterans who currently aren't being allowed to sign up are those generally with incomes above 80% of the mid-point for their locality. The means test cut-off for benefits ranges up to $40,000 a year in many cities. And any veteran with income less than $25,162 still qualifies no matter where they live. Those figures are for single veterans. The income cut-off is higher for those with a spouse or children.

Veterans groups have called for "mandatory funding" of medical benefits, which would automatically appropriate whatever funds are required to meet demand. Kerry has endorsed mandatory funding, which would allow middle-income veterans with no service-connected disability to resume signing up.

The administration also has proposed to make the VA's prescription drug benefit less generous. Currently many veterans pay $7 for each one-month supply of medication. The administration proposes to increase that to $15, and require a $250 annual fee as well. Congress rejected a similar proposal last year. The proposal wouldn't affect those -- such as veterans with a disability rated at 50% or more -- who currently aren't required to make any co-payments.

And it should be noted that the administration is proposing to increase some benefits, including ending pharmacy co-payments for some very low-income veterans, and paying for emergency-room care for veterans in non-VA hospitals.

All this means Bush can fairly be accused of trying to hold down the rapid growth in spending for veterans benefits -- particularly those sought by middle-income vets with no service-connected disability. But saying he cut the budget is contrary to fact.

(Note: FactCheck.org twice contacted the Kerry campaign asking how he justified his claim that the VA budget is being cut, but we've received no response.)

Sources

Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2005 (Washington, Government Printing Office) 3 Feb 2004.

US House of Representatives, Committee on Veterans Affairs, [url=http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/schedule108/feb04/2-4-04/aprincipi.html]" Statement of Anthony J. Principi , Secretary Of Veterans Affairs" 4 Feb 2004.

US House of Representqatives, Committee on Veterans Affairs, " Statement of Peter S. Gaytan, Principal Deputy Director, Veterans Affairs And Rehabilitation Division, The American Legion" 4 Feb 2004.

US House of Representatives, Committee on Veterans Affairs " Statement Of Joseph A. Violante , National Legislative Director, The Disabled American Veterans" 4 Feb. 2004.

US House of Representatives, Committee on Veterans Affairs " Statement of Vietnam Veterans of America , Presented by Richard F. Weidman, Director, Government Relations" 4 Feb 2004.

Press Release , Rep. Lane Evans (D IL)"Bush administration '05 VA budget reflects misplaced priorities, places greater burden on some veterans" 2 Feb. 2004.

Suzanne Bamboa, "Principi Wanted $1.2B More for VA Budget," Associated Press 4 Feb. 2004.

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You better tell some of the other lads on your team that you use factcheck.org, timber.

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Facts is facts, ehBeth.

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au1929 wrote:

Brandon wrote

Quote:
The Bush tax cut reduces the amount that all people give to the government. You allegation that it is for the wealthy is incorrect, except in that a fair tax cut returns more to people who pay more in the first place. Some people think that for the government to confiscate too much of someone's money is itself tyranny, and that a government forced to operate on less might just cut waste.

My allegation is absolutely correct. The tax cuts for the wealthy should be eliminated.

Your allegation was that the tax cut was for the wealthy. Aside from repeating the statement, how have you demonstrated it? The tax cut is not really that far from a flat percentage back across the different brackets. How is this for the wealthy?

au1929 wrote:

As for Bush and his being AWOL. Since you like to say prove it. Can you prove that he was not?

Sorry, but this is hilarious. As I think someone else asked here, since when is it proper to accuse someone of a crime and then demand that he prove his innocence? Prove that Kerry didn't extort protection money from Vietnamese shopkeepers. Once again, I ask that you do something of the general nature of proving your charge. Or do you wish to be able to make all kinds of accusations, but resent requests to back them up?

au1929 wrote:

Bush saved my butt. Is that some kind of a joke? He ordered a preemptive attack upon a nation based upon a lie.

Really? Sounds bad! What lie was that? Please provide a citation to him saying it.

au1929 wrote:

And all he succeeded in doing is Kill almost 1000 American service people, Grievously wounding 26000 more as well killing and wounding thousands of Iraqis. Men women and children. In addition he squandered billions of dollars basically looting the treasury and putting us under staggering debt for many years to come.

Are you saying that all wars are inherently improper? Most of them fit this kind of discription.

au1929 wrote:

And what did he accomplish? Nothing. North Korea has WMD'S and Iran is on it's way to developing them. And Iraq had none. How did he save any ones butt?

1. Based on the totality of the history with Iraq, at the time of invasion, there was significant probability that Iraq still had WMD and WMD programs. We had been trying to negotiate this for a dozen years. Had Hussein been developing and stockpiling WMD, there would have been a finite window of time to stop him. One single WMD used in a western city could kill an unimaginable number of people all at once - conceivably a million in some scenarios.
2. We cannot invade NK because they already have the bomb and could kill on a collosal scale the minute we started an invasion. In fact, we invaded Iraq to prevent Hussein from achieving this near invulnerability.
3. Iran has many factors pro and con invasion. It is a much more complex situation. But to name just one factor, we have not been trying to get Iran to live up to a promise to disarm for a dozen years.

au1929 wrote:

I should add that Bush has the blood of those people on his hands. I wonder if that keeps him awake at night. Nah! not the macho man.

So, then, you think that FDR should have lain awake all night racked with guilt about WW 2? The deaths in a war are always tragic, particularly of non-combatants, but the deaths that would be caused by one single WMD being used are probably unimaginably higher.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Brandon,

You like to act as if your assumptions are, in fact, facts.

and this

Quote:
As for allowing Al Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup, that would only indicate mismanagement if you could first gauge the extent to which they have been damaged by our efforts and show that it is not substantial, and also demonstrate that preventing them from regrouping would not have been very hard.

Is absolute Bullsh*t. You know as well as I do that you can't look at this from an accounting point of view. How about we look at how many people were killed by terrorism in 2003 and 2004?

If they are still blowing people up; if we have not caught their leader, who we SWORE to track down; if we are spending a VAST MAJORITY of our military budget on something else; then we have not taken the appropriate steps to solving the problem. Simple as that.

Cycloptichorn

Unless.....the problem is actually a difficult one. In that case failure to have already achieved all desired results does not prove any particular level of competence. I guess you are assuming that no problem is just inherently difficult enough to take time. The war on terror has not been going on very long compared to many other historical conflicts. Seems like stopping a world wide assault on the west by Islamic fundamentalists would be hard.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

How do you show evidence that you've destroyed something? After all, it's destroyed. There's not supposed to be a ton of evidence left.

Cycloptichorn

Duh.....film yourself destroying it, preserve some of the remnants, etc., etc., etc.

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Not that it has much to do with The Military, but as the "Tax Cuts For The Rich" shibboleth was mentioned, lets just take a look at some facts inconvenient to that silly claim:

Quote:

News Release

August 5, 2004

Helped by Tax Cuts, Business Owners Producing Lion's Share of Income Tax RevenueThe report looked at the business income declared by high-income people on their individual tax returns, mostly on Schedules C, E and F of the 1040. The income reported on these schedules is business income, and the business owners who file most of these schedules also pay themselves regular salaries out of their businesses. Added all together, this business income could amount to as much as 65 percent of all the income earned by the top one percent of earners ($317,000 and up in 2004).

The report concludes that 55 percent of all income taxes in 2004 will be paid by business owners. High-income business owners ($200,000 or more) will pay most of that 37.4 percent of all income taxes. (emphasis added by timber}

Importance for Political Debate
The most frequently criticized provision of the Bush tax cuts is the cut in the top federal income tax rate from 39.6% to 35%. To the assertion that the President and Congress gave wealthy people too much tax relief, the Administration has generally responded that high-income people invested those funds in the economy, creating jobs and fueling the recovery.
The new Tax Foundation study provides a measure of support for that thesis, suggesting that cuts in business income are the most likely kind of tax cuts to lead to job creation.

Indeed, Sen. Kerry has proposed a series of tax credits for small businesses to stimulate job creation. The owners of these small businesses are often the same people who would pay more taxes if the cut in the top income tax rate, the so-called "tax cut for the rich," were repealed.

Who Are the Rich?
The study identified the occupational and industrial categories associated with the top one percent of American earners. They are not concentrated in just a few sectors of the economy but instead of spread out in a representative sampling of the economy at large. Approximately 13 percent of these high-income people were associated with finance, insurance and real estate; 9 percent with law, accounting and public relations; and 8 percent with the manufacture of durable goods. Approximately 14 percent were retired.

Why Does So Much Business Income Appear on Individual Income Tax Returns?
The rapid increase in business income reported on individual tax returns can be traced to laws that have persuaded businesses to organize themselves as S-Corporations, Limited Liability Corporations, sole proprietorships and partnerships, instead of as regular C-Corporations that report their profits to the IRS on corporate income tax returns. Many regular C-Corporations have even jumped through the administrative hoops necessary to convert to S-Corporations.

These firms are mostly small businesses, and they report their profits on the individual tax returns of the business owners. As a result, tax cuts not only help them personally but enable their businesses to grow.

Special Report No. 131 is the latest report in the Foundation's series "Putting a Face on America's Tax Returns," which uses the Foundation's Individual Income Tax Model and Matched IRS/Census Database to analyze tax return data.

The Tax Foundation has monitored tax policy at the federal, state and local levels since 1937. Best known for its annual calculation of Tax Freedom Day®, the Tax Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization.

###

View the full report here (PDF)

http://www.able2know.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10156/Tax%20Dist%20Chart.jpg

Damn, I wish I used Preview more ... cut down on a lotta spelling, link and format correcting time Embarrassed

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Quote:

AU wrote
Quote:

As to the costs involved in providing the promised benefits to veterans. If there is enough money to give large tax cuts to the wealthy
...
Brandon wrote
Your allegation was that the tax cut was for the wealthy. Aside from repeating the statement, how have you demonstrated it? The tax cut is not really that far from a flat percentage back across the different brackets. How is this for the wealthy?

My allegation was not that the tax cuts were for the wealthy. However, within those tax a fair amount of the money went to the wealthy. If they could afford to cut tax for the wealthy One would think that surely they should be able to find funds for the veterans.

Turn about is fair play. If you as you can ask me to prove he was AWOL. Why is it improper for me to ask you to prove he wasn't? The evidence is inconclusive in either case. OH! I forgot you are a republican a paragon of truth and integrity. Bull Crap.
Brandon wrote

Quote:

What lie did he base the preemptive attack upon.

Need I really say it WMD's.

au1929 wrote:
[

Quote:

QUOTE]And all he succeeded in doing is Kill almost 1000 American service people, Grievously wounding 26000 more as well killing and wounding thousands of Iraqis. Men women and children. In addition he squandered billions of dollars basically looting the treasury and putting us under staggering debt for many years to come.

Brandon wrote
Are you saying that all wars are inherently improper? Most of them fit this kind of description. [/QUOTE]

I am saying that the killing is unwarranted because this war was unwarranted

Brandon wrote

Quote:

1. Based on the totality of the history with Iraq, at the time of invasion, there was significant probability that Iraq still had WMD and WMD programs. We had been trying to negotiate this for a dozen years. Had Hussein been developing and stockpiling WMD, there would have been a finite window of time to stop him. One single WMD used in a western city could kill an unimaginable number of people all at once - conceivably a million in some scenarios.

At the time of the Invasion the inspectors were in Iraq looking for these supposed WMD's. That is what the UN was asking for and that is what they were getting. There is and was no justification for the invasion. Except that Cowboy George that great and knowledgeable military tactician wanted it.
Brandon wrote

Quote:

2. We cannot invade NK because they already have the bomb and could kill on a colossal scale the minute we started an invasion. In fact, we invaded Iraq to prevent Hussein from achieving this near invulnerability.

Right you are we can't attack an enemy that can fight back. So I guess it is OK if they drop a bomb on one of our cities. PS. I am not advocating that we attck N. Korea
Brandon wrote

Quote:

3. Iran has many factors pro and con invasion. It is a much more complex situation. But to name just one factor, we have not been trying to get Iran to live up to a promise to disarm for a dozen years.

OH, so it is time of defiance that counts. Iran has basically told Bush and the US to screw itself. But that is OK because it was only for a short period of time. By the way how long is to long.

I should note that we the US in working on new tactical nuclear weapons all the while insisting that others should not posses them. Does that meet with your approval?
Brandon wrote

Quote:

So, then, you think that FDR should have lain awake all night racked with guilt about WW 2? The deaths in a war are always tragic, particularly of non-combatants, but the deaths that would be caused by one single WMD being used are probably unimaginably higher.

I would not doubt that Roosevelt was more disturbed over the deaths of our servicemen that Bush is. And one must remember that WW2 was a war of necesity not choice.

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au wrote:

... At the time of the Invasion the inspectors were in Iraq looking for these supposed WMD's. That is what the UN was asking for and that is what they were getting ...

That neither is accurate as regards the mandate of UNMOVIC nor of its findings:

Quote:

UNSCR 1441

... Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,

1. Decides that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions, including resolution 687 (1991), in particular through Iraq's failure to cooperate with United Nations inspectors and the IAEA, and to complete the actions required under paragraphs 8 to 13 of resolution 687 (1991);

2. Decides, while acknowledging paragraph 1 above, to afford Iraq, by this resolution, a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council; and accordingly decides to set up an enhanced inspection regime with the aim of bringing to full and verified completion the disarmament process established by resolution 687 (1991) and subsequent resolutions of the Council;

3. Decides that, in order to begin to comply with its disarmament obligations, in addition to submitting the required biannual declarations, the Government of Iraq shall provide to UNMOVIC, the IAEA, and the Council, not later than 30 days from the date of this resolution, a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles and dispersal systems designed for use on aircraft, including any holdings and precise locations of such weapons, components, sub-components, stocks of agents, and related material and equipment, the locations and work of its research, development and production facilities, as well as all other chemical, biological, and nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material; ...

UNMOVIC, as USCOM before it, was charged only and specifically with overseeing Iraqi compliance with demands as set forth in UNSCR 687 to freely and fully cooperate in the matter of Iraqi verification of self-divestiture of proscribed assets and capabilities. Neither UNSCOM nor UNMOVIC were charged to find anything beyond or apart from Iraq's full compliance with demands for verification of divestiture. What was found was continued and continuing Iraqi evasion, duplicity, obstructionism, and defiance of the demands of The UN.

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Why Would Any Military Person Suppoert Bush?

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