UPDATE:
According to Daily Kos, now that the Veterans of Foreign Wars are fighting back, Bachmann is backing down on her $4.5 billion “suggested” cuts in veterans benefits:
“One point on my discussion list was a $4.5 billion proposal that would affect payments made to our veterans,” Bachmann said in a statement. “That has received a lot of attention and I have decided that it should be removed from consideration.”
Daily Kos has some choice words for Bachmann’s budget cutting tactics. I will call her decision “wise.”
Read more here
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Some will call this just another Bachmann Derangement Syndrome (BDS) story. So be it.
As a matter of fact, for their benefit, I will go ahead and even provide the warning:
B.D.S. ALERT
Now that we have dispensed with the niceties, let’s get down to brass tacks.
At a time when our nation is at war, when our servicemen and women are suffering injuries and the most horrible disabilities and when our returning veterans are suffering at home, along comes Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn, and introduces a plan to cut $4.5 billion from the Department of Veterans Affairs and calls on Congress to freeze Department of Veterans Affairs health care spending and reduce disability compensation.
The congresswoman recommends the cuts as a way to offset Social Security disability insurance payments and says her plan is intended to spark discussion.
Well, Congresswoman, Veterans of Foreign Wars Commander-in-Chief Richard Eubank has this ‘discussion’ for you: “The day this nation can’t afford to take care of her veterans is the day this nation should quit creating them.”
He discusses it a little more: “No way, no how, will we let this proposal get any traction in Congress…There are certain things you do not do when our nation is at war, and at the top of that list is not caring for our wounded and disabled servicemen and women when they return home.”
And some more ‘discussion’ from Eubank:
I want the congresswoman to join us in a tour of the Minneapolis VA Medical Center and Poly Trauma Center the next time she’s in her home district to witness firsthand the great work the VA does every day to heal their wounds and ease their pain…Then I want her to look those disabled veterans in the eye and tell them their service and sacrifice is too expensive for the nation to bear.
Today, the military newspaper Stars and Stripes joined in the discussion.
Reacting to Bachmann’s proposal that would cap increases in VA health care spending and reduce disability compensation to veterans receiving Social Security disability payments, the Stripes quotes AMVETS’s acting legislative director Christina Roof having the following discussion:
The benefits are totally unrelated and it’s unfair to strip our disabled veterans of the entitlements they earned in service to our nation…We also believe it is not the time to discuss freezing funding levels when we are at war on multiple fronts. Our nation cannot afford to shirk its responsibilities to our veterans by balancing the budget on their backs.
I wonder if Bachmann has been listening to the discussions she “sparked.”
I hope she has.
If it sounds like I have a good dose of BDS, yes, I do—and for darn good reasons.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.