10thzodiac
11-28-06, 06:52 PM
http://capwiz.com/military/issues/alert/?alertid=9180581&type=CO
send a letter to your public officials (http://capwiz.com/military/issues/alert/?alertid=9180581&type=CO#1).
10thzodiac
11-28-06, 10:29 PM
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width=408 align=center border=0><TBODY align=left><TR><TD class=xc_sectionheader>Confirmation</TD></TR><TR><TD>
Your e-mail message was sent to:
</TD></TR><TR><TD>http://images.capwiz.com/img/bull.gif Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) </TD></TR><TR><TD>http://images.capwiz.com/img/bull.gif Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) </TD></TR><TR><TD>http://images.capwiz.com/img/bull.gif Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-IL 5th) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
yellowwing
11-29-06, 12:00 AM
VFW boss miffed over delay in vets’ funding bill
By Rick Maze
Navy Times, November 22, 2006 (http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2376186.php)
The possibility that Congress will leave town next week without finishing a veterans funding bill has the commander of the nation’s largest group of combat veterans “furious.”
Gary Kurpius, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, is reacting to the possibility that Congress will recess for the year without passing government funding bills, including a $94.3 billion military quality-of-life and veterans’ appropriations bill.
That bill, HR 5385, includes $77.9 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs and $16.3 for military construction, increases of $8.8 billion for veterans and $2.2 billion for construction over the 2006 budget.
The fate of the bill is uncertain after three Republican senators — Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Jeff Sessions of Alabama — blocked a normally routine process of appointing Senate negotiators to meet with the House of Representatives to prepare a compromise bill.
Their objection is not aimed at the funding in the bill for veterans or construction but at fears that House and Senate appropriators will pile nine other unfinished appropriations bills onto the military and veterans legislation to create one large omnibus measure.
DeMint’s spokesman, Wesley Denton, said the senator “agrees that Congress should enact funding for veterans and military construction needs as soon as possible. Sadly, appropriators would rather funnel scarce resources to pet pork projects than pass a clean bill that takes care of veterans and is fair to taxpayers.”
Kurpius accuses the three senators of hurting veterans in a political game and called the holdup on the bill “nothing short of pure partisan politics and sheer arrogance.”
He believes the move is aimed at increasing difficulties for Democrats who will take over Congress in January because they would be stuck completing the unfinished business of the current Congress.
“There are 351,000 veterans in Oklahoma, 412,000 in South Carolina and 422,000 in Alabama who are going to be directly impacted by their senators who have put politics above their constituency,” said Kurpius, a Vietnam veteran from Anchorage, Alaska. “These three senators obviously forgot that it is the will of the people that keeps them in office, not their political party.”
In the absence of regular appropriation bills, the usual practice would be for Congress to approve a temporary budget, known as a continuing resolution, which allows spending to continue at current levels.
Only two federal agencies — the Defense and Homeland Security departments — have received funding for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. The defense funding bill did not include money for construction and expenses related to base closings, which are included as part of the separate military quality-of-life and VA measure.
“Our war is against an enemy that wants to destroy everything American; it is not a war between Republicans and Democrats,” Kurpius said. “Our elected officials need to pass the budget and do the jobs they were elected to do. Supporting our veterans and those who serve in uniform are nonpartisan, nonnegotiable issues.”