Here's how House Republicans support the troops in a time of war: by demoting and embarrassing the leading advocate for soldiers on Capitol Hill.
The crackdown on GOP moderates continued last week as the House leadership ousted Representative Chris Smith as chairman of the Committee on Veterans Affairs for his tireless advocacy of veterans rights. Smith--like House Ethics Chairman Joel Hefley--did his job a little too well.
Smith served on the Vets Committee since arriving in Congress twenty-four years ago and became its chairman in 2001, angering the GOP top brass with his opposition to stingy VA budgets and ability to pass bills across bipartisan lines. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay--who wanted Smith punished two years ago--got his wish when House Speaker Dennis Hastert inserted GOP poodle Steve Buyer as Chairman and took the unprecedented step of throwing Smith off the Vets Committee. (Ironically, Smith is also a major figure in the anti-choice movement.)
Under a rule change adopted in 1995, Hastert can remove any committee chairman he deems incompetent or disloyal--now code words for bucking conservative conformity. During his four-year tenure, Smith authored twenty-two bills benefiting veterans: increasing veteran education funding through the GI bill by 46 percent, allocating $1 billion for homeless vets and $1.4 billion for expanded healthcare programs, and providing an extra $100 million in benefits for surviving spouses.
"It's almost as if no good deed goes unpunished," Smith told the Trenton Times. "In Baghdad, when somebody's bleeding, they're not Democrat or Republican. This is one committee that should have nothing to do with politics." Even Republican operative Bob Novak put fury to paper in a column yesterday. "The extraordinary purge buttressed the growing impression of arrogance as Republicans enter their second decade of power in the House," Novak wrote.
A top Republican aide justified his party's brutish behavior by praising Smith's replacement, the fiscally hawkish Buyer, as someone who'll be able to "tell the veterans groups, 'Enough is enough.'"
Abused and misused troops should throw those words back in the GOP leadership's face.
BLOG | Posted 01/11/2005 @ 09:36am
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
thenation.com
By now, it should be obvious that the "pro-defense" party doesn't give a damn about our troops, least of all veterans.
House Republicans ousted fellow conservative Chris Smith as chairman of the Committee on Veterans Affairs for his tireless advocacy of veterans rights. Current Chairman Steve Buyer was promoted, in the words of one Republican aide, "to tell the veterans groups, 'Enough is enough.'"
Senate Republicans have repeatedly voted down funding increases for vets to keep pace with inflation and meet rising needs.
The Bush Administration tried to add an enrollment fee and double the prescription co-payment for VA health care.
And now the VA admits it is $1 billion short on health care funding for this year alone.
After months of dodging Congressional questioning, VA undersecretary for health Jonathan Perlin finally gave the House VA Committee an unexpectedly honest answer last week. It turns out the $1.6 billion spending increase promised last year has been a matter of accounting trickery, achieved by shifting money from one account to another, and cutting almost $1 billion for medical administration, facilities and prosthetic research.
After the testimony, irate Republican Senator Larry Craig joined his Democratic colleague Patty Murray in demanding emergency funds from the Bush Administration. "We're going to pound them like hell 'till we get them," Craig said of VA hearings scheduled this week. "Then we'll make some judgments."
Before Senate Republicans voted down Murray's plan to adequately pay for VA health care, for the second time in two months last April, VA Secretary Jim Nicholson promised the Senate he had the resources required. "I can assure you that VA does not need emergency supplemental funds in FY2005 to continue to provide the timely, quality service that is always our goal," Nicholson wrote in a letter to Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison. The understaffed hospitals, lengthy waits, red tape and frequent complains seemed to be a figment of the Democratic imagination.
At a time when VA funding is 25 percent lower than it was 5 years ago, Murray's amendment would've provided badly needed funds for mental health treatment, new veterans and local clinics. Instead, the $80 billion supplemental for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the $2.6 trillion Senate Budget Resolution for 2006 denies full quality treatment to returning and current vets. The 13,000 soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan since March 2003, 30 percent of whom return with post traumatic stress disorder or other psychological problems, can't even get a little help from their Republican friends.
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their country." A lefty named George Washington said that in 1789.
BLOG | Posted 06/28/2005 @ 1:03pm
Supporting Which Troops?
thenation.com |
