The Republican majority on the House Budget Committee has just rammed through a resolution that would cut $844 million from veterans' medical care for next year. (Yet somehow, the robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul Republicans have already come up with $900 million handy to give to Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton and a few other big Republican sugar daddies for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.)
Over the next ten years, the Republican changes would cut $24.7 billion — billions with a "b" — for veterans' medical care, disability compensation and other benefits. In other words: at the very moment men and women in the armed forces are being sent into military action, the Republicans back home are cutting their current and future benefits — including payments to their families, should they be killed in action. "Is there no shame?" asks Edward Heath, national commander of the Disabled American Veterans. Stewart Nusbaumer of Veterans Against the Iraq War observes that everyone, even those who oppose the war, supports the troops at time of need — everyone save House Republicans. These cuts are far from the first slap at veterans in the maniacal drive to extend tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, people whose sons don't generally serve in the military. Veterans groups have a webpage through which one can thank the Republican Speaker of the House for his fine support of our troops.
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