Help me collect data for my next LTTE-Chronic poor treatment and funding cuts for Vets

[w8liftinglady]

I have quite a few resources,but would appreciate any resources you might have.I plan to show pure republican disregard for our troops,and want it well-resourced and undeniable.Thanks in advance

[Solo_in_MD]

1. It s scarcely just a republican problem. VA has been chronically underfunded for a generation

[w8liftinglady]

3. It has become markedly worse since 1994.

[flamin lib]

2. try this compilation:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/flamin%20lib

[flamin lib]

4. also try this:

Mr. Bush promises to balance the budget by 2012. Bill Clinton did it by growing the economy, increasing tax revenues from the wealthy and making some domestic programs more efficient. How’s Bush going to do it? Cut spending, primarily in programs for the poor and elderly but he hasn't forgotten the troops. You know, the troops we are all supposed to support. The ones who are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan maimed and damaged both physically and mentally. Bush’s budget projections call for a 2% increase in VA spending for 2008, a decrease in 2009 and 2010 with a freeze after that. That’s just about the time the Depleted Uranium illnesses will be kicking in for 80% of the soldiers currently serving in the Middle East.

So how’s the VA doing these days? The cost of Veteran’s care rose 2% a year for the 20 years prior to Bush’s appointment to the White House in 2001. Since then it has risen 83%. In 2005 Congress had to add an emergency $1.5 Billion to Bush’s budget and another $2.7 Billion in 2006. Most of that was for prosthetic limbs that the Pentagon underestimated the need for. The budget for 2007 is estimated to be $4 Billion short. Rep. Chet Edwards (D TX), chairman of the panel overseeing the VA budget, estimates that Bush’s 2012 budget is $16 Billion short. The money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan that created these veterans is approaching $1 Trillion. The current budget for Veteran’s care is $36 Billion.

What does $36 Billion buy? Not enough. Ask James Schulze whose son sought treatment for PTSD at the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota. He confessed to admitting that he felt suicidal but was told there were 26 veterans in front of him for one of the 12 beds in the psychiatric ward. Four days later at the age of 25 Jonathan Schulze, awarded two purple hearts, husband, father and son hung himself.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070212/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_budget_veterans;_ylt=AvvDmiAxkaJieaxLBOZ0xWayFz4D Bush’s budget
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/02/11/told_to_wait_a_marine_dies/ Marine dies

[w8liftinglady]

5. thanks!

[w8liftinglady]

6. kicking