Speaking of budgeting priorities, here is one that needs to be examined and taken care of:
The Department of Veterans Affairs told Congress that its health care costs grew faster than expected and left a $1 billion hole in its budget this year, lawmakers said Thursday.
House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer, the Republican from Indiana, said the department can meet this year’s health care costs by drawing on spare funds and money from other operations, including building construction.
But next year’s health care budget falls well over $1 billion short, said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.
I blame the bunnies. Or maybe midgets.
over it
A little bit more poking around on the subject and I found this:
from:
(sorry about the long link…I tried to tinyurl it but it would not let me) :(
Disgusting. I did not know about this. Color me naive I guess.
over it
Boy am I confused. The link showed up on the preview. I will try to post it one more time. If it does not work…it is from the Washington Post(search veteran shortfall).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/23/AR2005062301888.html
-my apologies again for the long link-
Rick
Better funding this operation, than numerous others Congress has seen fit to subsidize.
If the descriptions are accurate, then the admin and the GOP controlled Congress are committing a grievous affront, especially to their (our) own better instincts.
They could even shift the money from other DoD operations, like military bands, and base/post newspaper and public affairs frippery. That doesn’t come near one billion dollars, I’m sure, but it’s a “sacrifice” worthy of the cause.
Maybe those indulgences, so far removed from the “fighting tip,” should be the ones holding bake sales.
Cordially…
Kimmitt
Color me naive I guess.
This is an ongoing issue; Dems are solid on things like the VA hospitals, while Republicans tend to kind of forget about vets once they’re done serving.
Kimmitt
Please excuse my imprecise language above: The recent crop of Democratic legislators vis a vis the recent crop of Republican legislators is what I should have said.
Rick
I don’t know what I was smoking, but *now* I recall another waste of tax dollars that could be redirected to the VA, rehab and disability benefits–the damned quagmire of the “war on drugs.”
The conventional wisdome on the right is that if you want a whole lot less of something, tax it white and regulate it to tears. If the laws would lighten up on pot, we’d collect enough in sales taxes of fix up the veterans.
Cordially…
Jimmy Jazz
Rick: we’ve found something to agree on. Let’s give the Tom Slick cheer and wait for the old people to die so we can implement this (and gay marriage, which has a similar intergenerational divide).
::cues up Cypress Hill::
Just kidding about the “old people dying” bit. =)
p.lukasiak
As much as I would enjoy exploiting this issue for partisan advantage, I really would prefer it if the GOP would get with the program and stop screwing around with Veteran’s health care, even if it means losing one of my talking points about how Dems “support the troops” and the GOP does not.
This simply should not be a partisan issue…and since the GOP controls the agenda in both houses of Congress, they need to get busy immediately — because if they don’t people like me will exploit it to the hilt.
brenda
Vets aren’t in the plan and the plan, as you’ll recall, is to shrink the government down to something small enough to drown in a bathtub. That means that you run up spending, nothing like a little war to do that, and cut taxes. Eliminate block grants to the states and then blame them for over spending. Throw people off of state funded health care so that they flood medicare. Between deficit spending and massive tax cuts it will allow you to justify cutting social spending. which has been a goal of these people for like.. forever.
That’s the plan, has been all along. Conscious and deliberate. It’s what they said they’d do and they’ve kept their word. What I don’t understand is why everyone acts so surprized.
Ben
You think it’s bad after reading the CNN article. Wait till you read Al Kamen’s column in today (monday’s) WaPo:
“”Dr. Perlin” — that’s Jonathan B. Perlin , undersecretary for health, who revealed the $1 billion shortfall after being grilled by committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) — “and I cannot stress the importance of this enough,” she said. “We are asking that you give this your highest priority. We will continue to ask for daily updates on the status until we are assured that all of our facilities have a current picture [of VA Secretary Jim Nicholson] displayed.”
This should be front page news.
Ben
You think it’s bad after reading the CNN article. Wait till you read Al Kamen’s column in today (monday’s) WaPo:
“”Dr. Perlin” — that’s Jonathan B. Perlin , undersecretary for health, who revealed the $1 billion shortfall after being grilled by committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) — “and I cannot stress the importance of this enough,” she said. “We are asking that you give this your highest priority. We will continue to ask for daily updates on the status until we are assured that all of our facilities have a current picture [of VA Secretary Jim Nicholson] displayed.”
This should be front page news.
Ben
You think it’s bad after reading the CNN article. Wait till you read Al Kamen’s column in today (monday’s) WaPo:
“”Dr. Perlin” — that’s Jonathan B. Perlin , undersecretary for health, who revealed the $1 billion shortfall after being grilled by committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) — “and I cannot stress the importance of this enough,” she said. “We are asking that you give this your highest priority. We will continue to ask for daily updates on the status until we are assured that all of our facilities have a current picture [of VA Secretary Jim Nicholson] displayed.”
Rest Here
This should be front page news.
Anderson
So at what point does the administration become just plain evil? Do we need tape of Bush crushing kittens with his bootheels? What, exactly?
metalgrid
Couldn’t they, you know, use some of those misplaced/lost billions and divert it to this?
brenda
So when the displaying a picture of VA Secretary Jim Nicholson is a number one priority what does that tell you? It tells me that everything is fine and running smoothly. No problems here. And we can assume that this was planned out ahead of time, thumbs up!
Gee Dubya and Co. aren’t evil. The people who put them there, people like Randal Terry are. No, GW believes in a vastly reduced government and the VA is just one part of what to them is a bloated cancer they intend to cut out. They’ve always said this was what they intended to do. Now they are doing it. They won the election so what’s the problem?
Yeah, a lot of people will be hurt, no doubt about it. But it’s not like this was a big secret.
Sojourner
Same thing with all those fetuses. They grow up to be babies and then the right-wingers don’t care about them.