Urgent message from the DAV

[Gimpy]

Please see below an urgent message from the Disabled American Veterans asking that you contact your representatives in Congress concerning the budget proposal now before Congress and coming up for a vote.

Thanks,

Gimp

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From : "Lisa Bogle" Add to Address Book
Subject : House Budget Resolution
To: dav_list@mailmanager.net
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 13:52:26 -0500 (EST)





House Budget Resolution, H. Con. Res. 393 Take Action!

Please Contact Your Representative Today !

Debate on the House budget resolution, H. Con. Res. 393, is scheduled to begin Wednesday, March 24, 2004.

For discretionary veterans? programs, primarily veterans? medical care, H. Con. Res. 393 would provide $2.7 billion below the amount recommended by The Independent Budget, formulated by the DAV, AMVETS, PVA, and VFW, and $1.1 billion below the minimum amount determined necessary by the House Veterans? Affairs Committee.

With the funding level that would be provided by H. Con. Res. 393, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would be forced to reduce medical care services to veterans just to meet inflationary costs, such as increases in employee wages. As a consequence of inadequate funding, VA would be required to delay medical care for some veterans and deny it altogether for others.

The House budget resolution would shortchange veterans? medical care at the same time it includes plans for tax cuts costing more than a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. Also, the budget resolution is part of a greater plan to reduce spending on veterans? medical care in the years 2006 through 2007; freeze spending on veterans? benefit programs, such as disability compensation; and possibly even impose reductions in benefit programs.

As stated by DAV National Commander Alan W. Bowers in a letter to all House members, ?To the veterans of this Nation, it is incomprehensible that our Government cannot afford to fund their medical care and benefit programs at a time it can afford generous tax cuts costing hundreds of billions of dollars more.?

Tell your House member he or she must vote against this ill-advised budget plan. Contact your House member by telephone, fax, or e-mail today to urge him or her to oppose and vote against H. Con. Res. 393. If you prefer, you may send a prepared e-mail message by visiting the DAV web site.

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[exlrrp]

Originally posted by Gimpy Please see below an urgent message from the Disabled American Veterans asking that you contact your representatives in Congress concerning the budget proposal now before Congress and coming up for a vote.

Thanks,

Gimp

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To the veterans of this Nation, it is incomprehensible that our Government cannot afford to fund their medical care and benefit programs at a time it can afford generous tax cuts costing hundreds of billions of dollars more.? [/color]

Gimpy
Well, thats what we get with a one party system thats weighted so obviously towards the wealthy. George W Bush could care less about veterans benefits because he'll never collect them.
All this while theyre running the hugest deficits ever and thats not counting the costs of the war in Iraq!! Hows that for some smoke and mirrors?
Look at the bright side, Chuck Grassley's (R--IA) getting $50 million dollar for an EnviroDome in Iowa courtesy of the federal taxpayers.
I thought Republicans were supposed to cut spending and balance the biudget!!?? Thats what they always said they'd do if elected but with them in power spending increase tops 13%$ and and the budget--Oooomigod! Now they say they'll cut the deficit by 50% if theyre actually elected for real this time but thats still Really Awful seeing as how they started with the biggest budget surplus in history.
"Republicans know what to do with a budget surplus!" GWBush, 2000. Turn it into the biggest deficit in history is what he had in mind, I guess.

James Worth

[Gimpy]

We got SCREWED again by the Republicans! This is becoming SOP for these jerks!

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CONGRESS PASSES @$2 TRILLION BUDGET

AP Wire Services
By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Republicans muscled a $2.41 trillion budget through the House on Thursday that sets up a clash over a Senate-passed plan to make it harder for Congress to approve President Bush (news - web sites)'s tax cuts.


The House measure largely embraces Bush's budget proposal, but recasts it in acknowledgment of the record federal deficits that Republicans worry may haunt them in November's elections. The GOP plan pinches Bush's tax reductions and spending proposals and accelerates his goal of halving deficits in five years.

But taking a stand for a Republican priority, the House budget ignores efforts by Democrats and moderate GOP lawmakers to make it harder for Congress to enact future tax cuts without paying for them. The Senate included such a plan in the budget it approved two weeks ago, over the opposition of the White House and its own Republican leadership.

After overcoming disaffection by some GOP deficit hawks and veterans advocates , majority Republicans pushed their fiscal outline for 2005 through the House by a mostly party-line vote of 215-212.

Republicans said the public wants government to spend federal dollars more wisely without turning to tax increases.
"We're going nowhere but up," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, the plan's main author, who cited the rapid economic growth of recent months. "Quit blaming tax cuts for all the problems in the world," said Nussle, R-Iowa.

Democrats chastised the GOP for repeatedly pushing tax cuts through Congress even as the four-year string of annual surpluses that preceded Bush's presidency evolved into record deficits now approaching $500 billion.


For Democrats, that budget gap has become a political surrogate for the lack of jobs afflicting the U.S. economy.
"If the current plan we've been under for three years is such a huge success, why are we broke?" said Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark. "Why are there no jobs? Why are we going deeper and deeper in debt?"

Earlier, the House rejected three Democratic alternatives that would have erased already enacted tax cuts for the richest Americans and plowed the money into deficit reduction and programs for schools, veterans' health care and others .

A budget by the Congressional Black Caucus (news - web sites) was defeated 302-119; one by conservative Democrats lost 243-183. A proposal by Democratic leaders that claimed to reach balance by 2012 fell short by 232-194.

Also turned aside 309-116 was a plan by conservative Republicans that mapped sharper spending cuts and quicker deficit reduction than the main GOP plan.

Congress' budget does not become law, but sets limits on tax and spending bills to follow.
Its enactment also provides procedural protections that could make it easier for the Senate to approve tax cuts this year and for the House to avoid a direct vote on a needed ? but politically embarrassing for Republicans ? increase in the government's $7.4 trillion debt limit.

The budget the Senate approved earlier this month requires future tax cuts or benefit expansions to be paid for with tax increases or spending cuts.

House leaders, adamant about protecting future tax reductions, omitted similar language from their budget. This angered deficit-hawk Republicans, who want the process to at least apply to expenditures. Top Republicans have talked about a House vote this spring on a separate bill requiring spending cuts to pay for any benefit increases.

Some Republicans also complained that the budget lacked enough money for veterans. It proposes $30.7 billion for veterans' services, mostly for health care. That is $1.2 billion more than Bush proposed but short of what some lawmakers wanted by an additional $1.2 billion.

Underscoring the growing Republican concern over the political price they may pay for deficits, the House plan claims to cut this year's projected $477 billion deficit in half by 2008, a year earlier than Bush claimed to do the same.

Even so, the smallest deficit over the budget's five-year projections would be $234 billion. Like the similar plans by Bush and the Senate, much of the reductions come not from specific budget savings but from assuming that a growing economy will produce more federal revenue.

The House plan pares Bush's proposed $181 billion in five-year tax cuts to $138 billion, but ignores his call to make permanent tax reductions expiring at the end of the decade. It also slices 0.5 percent off his planned 10 percent boost for anti-terrorism programs at home.

While it provides the full 7 percent increase Bush wanted for defense, to $418 billion, it holds domestic agencies to $369 billion, the same as last year and $1.3 billion less than Bush sought.

It proposes $13 billion in five-year savings from benefit programs that could include Medicaid. While that is a relatively small figure, it puts Republicans in the position of advocating savings from politically sensitive programs.

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[exlrrp]

Originally posted by Gimpy We got SCREWED again by the Republicans! This is becoming SOP for these jerks!

[all that stuff]


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Gimp, ol budderooski, its coming to a sad place but I mean: could it be more blatant what theyre doing? I mean never in my lifetime has government been so weighted to scratch the backs of wealthy special intersts. Every single cabinet member, other than Powell possibly, is a representative of special intersts. They started with 52 of the presidential staff from ENRON!!
I mean behold the man himself: GWBs top priority when he got in was LOWER TAXES, nothing said about security at all.. This is certainly what he did, terrorism control was no where on the radar screen untill 9/11.
See, this is where the Condoleeza Rice thing thats happening today is apropos. Do you know that untll 911 She DID NOT know who AL Qaeda was?? Spent the day going: "Well who IS AL Qaeda anyway?" Not good for The National Security Advisor who's been on the job 8 months already, no sirree, indicates a definte cluelessness that would have gotten a white person fired.
Looks like what hapopened was that they were not going to listen to the outging Clinton administration AT ALL! No they had another terrorist in their sites and his initials were Saddam Hussein. Rice has a real problem with her line:" Who could ever imagine that people would crash an airplane into a building??" among many others. OOPS!! they told her about it. She's asked for the commission to allow her to testify privately. You can just bet it'll make her look real bad out in public, not liking working the talk show circuit unopposed--if she looked good, their wouldn't be any of this "Seperation of Govt Poopola", she'd be in there this minute testifying if it would make her look good. Even Kean said the administration shot themselves in the foot by not making her testify--I can hardly wait to see what theyre going to say heheh. I thought this was the administration that was supposed to bring honesty to government--then why is a Supreme Court Justice going hunting with Cheney who's case he's working on?
Well, she'd been told of the possibility by Clarke and the CIA and there are witnesses to that.Theyre trying to nail Clarke for his inconsistencies while they throw the old smoke and mirrors over Condie Lee. Thats what she gets for backtracking over affirmative administration to suck up to rich people, now thats a nasty thought, I probably shouldn't have said it. Put that one down to the Old Me.


As to their scragging veterans benefits in favor of taxbreaks for the wealthy meanwhile running up HUGE, impossible deficits:
Thats all part of the plan to effectively cut the knees out of government and shift the burden of taxes onto the middle class.Think about it: If George W Bush has his way, income earned with investment (like his)won't be taxed while income earned from wages will.
Heheheh well, that will be good but only for people like George Bush and Cheney and other hugely wealthy individuals like my humble self who still have a few investments that so far have survived the Bush Recession--I won't wind up paying ANY taxes at all (I lowball my rental income) and thanks to my pension, THEY PAY ME!! There's a happy end to the Vietnam War if I ever heard one, Gimp.
But for wage earners, its like: so too bad because they gain a larger share of the tax burden with every tax cut slanted towards the wealthy. Although my mutuals sure have taken a beating, thanks to its directors engaging in the same kind of acts GWB did--like lending himself money and dumping his Harken stocks before they tanked publically, and then not filing properly. The man has never run a business at a profit and that includes the US Government. Thats really disappointing for the party that likes to think of itself as the best for business, with a record like that I doubt if the majority of Americans will vote for them this tiime either.
[Bush/Chehey bumpersnicker: This Time ELECT Us!!].
And re: taxes and deficits:
We're on the same page here aren't we, Gimp? There IS no effective taxcut with a deficit because the the money in deficit is spent ANYWAY!! Thats right: its cumulative: Its the same as if it was taxed, a tax by another name but NOW WE'RE PAYING INTEREST ON IT!! Any taxcut anybody got that was less than their share of the budget over run, LOST!! And guess what: rich people aren't going to help you pay it off if their tax breaks are made permanent!

The whole thing about scragging Veterans bennies are about Government run by wealthy people with no concerne for the non wealthy. Wealthy people don't use theiir veterans benefits, they don't need to.
and Bush's military record--suspended from flying his last year+ !! imagine that!!--sorry as it is, makes him look like Sgt York compared to the rest of his administration other than Powell!! Nobody there has to worry abnout veterans benefits. theyre scragging em just as tons of Iraq vets are getting unloaded on the population.

Good to see you back, Gimp, ol bud and to have a pleasant conversation with you. When I go to other places sometimes it feels so "Evil Ogre And His Henchman"vibey. I hope things are going good for you, congrats on the new grandchild.
Stay in what you like to do!

James

[BLUEHAWK]

Nobody got screwed by Republicans...

[frisco-kid]

What was originally posted as an informative message, I'm sure, has degenerated into an US AGAINST THEM political pissing contest. Continue this on the POLITICAL DEBATE forum where it belongs.

THANKS, GUYS.