Anger as Republicans block bill to help military veterans exposed to toxins

[gipper]

This is part of where this conflict is coming from.

Answer this question for the forum.

How much money is enough money. Is any amount ever enough?

'At What Point Does VA Become Adequately Funded?' Republicans Question Record Budget Request​

'At What Point Does VA Become Adequately Funded?' Republicans Question Record Budget Request

In 2000, the Department of Veterans Affairs' budget was $47 billion; this year, it is $240 billion.

www.military.com

"Republican lawmakers are concerned about the Department of Veterans Affairs' ballooning budget and question the agency's need for yet another huge funding boost, given it has already received $36 billion in pandemic supplements.

The VA is the second-largest federal agency and a complex organization. Its budget has expanded significantly since 9/11. In 2000, the agency's budget was $47 billion; this year, it is $240 billion. With that funding, it provides health care to nine million patients, administers the GI Bill, and facilitates a popular home loan program for veterans.

Between 2020 and 2021, the department's budget jumped 12%, soaring past any other federal agency's rate of growth, including the Defense Department.

Most of the spending can be attributed to an aging population of veterans from 20th-century wars, on top of an influx of a new generation of post-9/11 veterans.

In an interview with Military.com, Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., the top Republican on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, acknowledged the difficult balance of paying off America's war tab and providing veteran care, while also holding the VA accountable and making sure every dollar is tracked.

"We gave them a blank check," Bost said about the pandemic relief money. "That's not the best way to handle taxpayer dollars. None of it has oversight."



. . . and why are you against tracking those expenditures?

The kooky partisan Ds in this thread seem to think vets had zero HC funding prior to this bill. Proof partisans are dupes.

 

[Lesh]

No, the bill passed, because this nation has a sacred view of America's veteran's. They are second only to the children and the elderly, you don't use them as a political football in the media, which ever party is seen as hurting them? Is royally screwed.

But that isn't the point here.

The party in power has no problem casting the other party as hurting vulnerable groups, just so it can spend more of the taxpayer largess, to please corporate contractors that provide services to the nation. The question is, how much of the budget, and these laws being passed, is actually going to serve these groups.

It's all politics, and these partisan groups have no problem deceiving the public about the reality of these legislative priorities.

Nice try at limiting the damage. FAIL.

You idiots could have kept your mouths shut but you didn’t

You proceeded to prove what dishonest Kool aid drinking cultist your are and in the process prove to everyone that your “support for the troops” is empty rhetoric

Good job. People needed to see the REAL. Republican Party

 

[Lesh]

The kooky partisan Ds in this thread seem to think vets had zero HC funding prior to this bill. Proof partisans are dupes.

Nope. Not even close.

Your lack of knowledge here is epic.

Vets were dying of untreated cancers etc because they had to jump through hoops to prove that it was service related.

This eliminates that and funds the increased cost of dealing with all those issues

 

[MisterBeale]

Nice try at limiting the damage. FAIL.

You idiots could have kept your mouths shut but you didn’t

You proceeded to prove what dishonest Kool aid drinking cultist your are and in the process prove to everyone that your “support for the troops” is empty rhetoric

Good job. People needed to see the REAL. Republican Party

Sorry the truth bothers you so.

You are funny when you get triggered.

 

[Rambunctious]

Gaslighting again.

We don't gas light... that's a leftist thing because libs can't be honest....

 

[Rambunctious]

I already explained what he lied about. He invented a problem with the bill. His amendment wasn’t going to change anything about where the money would go, it would make it so that care would be rationed when the budget ran out, make it far easier to cut, and make it easier to use as political leverage for unrelated budgetary battles in the future.

His amendment wasn’t about helping veterans. It was a lot helping politics and he was using a lie (which you believed) to try to get his way.

He exposed a problem....

 

[Marener]

He exposed a problem....

He fabricated a problem.

 

[Lesh]

Sorry the truth bothers you so.

You are funny when you get triggered.

There has been NO truth by any right wingers anywhere in this thread

 

[Rambunctious]

There has been NO truth by any right wingers anywhere in this thread

You wouldn't know the truth if it hit you on the face... libs live inside of a big lie.....

 

[gipper]

Nope. Not even close.

Your lack of knowledge here is epic.

Vets were dying of untreated cancers etc because they had to jump through hoops to prove that it was service related.

This eliminates that and funds the increased cost of dealing with all those issues

Okay that’s good.

I’m sorry you think I want vets to die.

 

[Lesh]

Okay that’s good.

I’m sorry you think I want vets to die.

I'm sorry you don't care about them

 

[gipper]

I'm sorry you don't care about them

See? I know you so well.

 

[Flash]

The real anger of the American people is because the Democrat filth were trying to use the health of our Veterans as a mechanism to raid the Treasury for their Leftest greed.

 

[Lesh]

See? I know you so well.

We’re beginning to know you… and it ain’t good

 

[Lesh]

The real anger of the American people is because the Democrat filth were trying to use the health of our Veterans as a mechanism to raid the Treasury for their Leftest greed.

Nope. Stop lying

 

[Winston]

He fabricated a problem.

Yes, Toomey fabricated a problem. But he drew the short straw, since he voted for impeachment of Trump, and since he is not running for another term, his Republican comrades delegated the task of "fabricating a problem" to him.

I mean twenty plus senators and their staff failed to see the problem back in June when the bill passed overwelmingly. In fact, that the spending was classified as mandatory because it is standard practice with heath care financing, across all federal platforms. Republicans got pissed that Manchin finally came to an agreement on a watered down BBB bill and Biden was going to be able to deliver at least some what of a legislative accomplishment. The very next morning Toomey filed his amendment. Jordan spoke out and said no Republicans should be working on any bipartisan bills. And the bill came back to the Senate, with two very minor changes and neither having anything to do with how the spending was classified, over twenty Republican senators changed their votes, marching in lockstep with their almighty leader, McConnell because, well they don't have balls big enough to speak for themselves or vote for their constituents.

They thought it would work. The made a full court press Sunday on all the Sunday news shows. They tweeted, they posted on Facebook. And they lied, bald-faced lies about last minute changes in classification of spending or claims about shifting funds. They completely distorted the differences between mandatory and discretionary spending. And honestly, if enough Americans were as stupid and gullible as the moron Trumpbots on this board, they would have gotten away with it. The fact that they were more than willing to throw countless Vets under the bus in the process should never be forgotten.

But by Monday morning it was evident, their ruse didn't work. I mean look, when a simple ass redneck living in the sticks at the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains can check out the Congressional Record, post and print the two different versions of the bill, and lucidly explain the difference between mandatory and discretionary spending, well it is safe to say that thousands, hundreds of thousands, including Jon Stewart, could do the same. While the right wing media continued to attempt to beat the dead horse, Veterans associations, the current secretary of the VA, and countless other, non-political individuals, countered with truth.

I got to give it to Schumer here. He was more than gracious. He allowed votes on Toomey's amendments, and Blackburn's too. He gave them an out. Now they can attempt to continue to perpetuate their lies and claim they gave it the "old college try". If it were me, I would have told them to piss off, no votes on the amendment, they can go on record as supporting those Vets or not, period. You know McConnell would have done exactly that.

All the amendments failed. The bill passed exactly as it was last week. Nothing, absolutely nothing, changed. The only thing that changed was the fact that Republicans realized they had underestimated the sheer ignorance of the American electorate. Got to admit, that is surprising, but comforting as well. What is important here is that the Republicans are like the emperor with no clothes. Their political manipulation, Vets be damned, has been completely revealed. It should never be forgotten.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

If you ignored what I posted, you can say that Bill is a unicorn. But, the facts tell a different story.
And now I know why the VFW was pushing as hard as it was in this thread.
Dig deep enough and the facts do see the light of the day..
I'm not a liar, and you're a bit gullible.

So you did a lot of work to find something wrong with it to justify the childish behavior of your heroes. And you are proud of this?

It passed anyway. They saw what a spanking they got for acting like little bitches.

 

[Seymour Flops]

A rare moment of honesty from a Republican

And his own son is a Vet exposed to this.

Shameful

My son doesn't want the kind of country that Dems and their Rep enablers are trying to turn ours into.

My son gets that money is not really unlimited, no matter what the print-and-spend crowd thinks.

This I know for sure: You have no idea how that 400 Billion would help vets. You haven't asked what needs it would meet, nor how those needs have met filled up to now. You may run off to the googler to find out, but you don't know as you read this. You never gave it a thought.

Jon Stewart told you that Republicans are being mean to vets, I assume with some bad words mixed in to sound like a big boy, and that's all you it took for you to run with it.

I'll give you a chance to show some amount of concern for vets: Take down that flag on your avatar of one of the most corrupt countries in the world, to which the left seems determined to send American blood and treasure, and replace it with this one that they fought under:

And not ironically! No anthropomorphic flag with a whip in its hand whipping a border crosser, or any of that horse shit.

I'll wait . . .

 

[Seymour Flops]

I guess the Senate Democrats that voted for the original bill along with the Republicans must have hated vets also.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I guess the Senate Democrats that voted for the original bill along with the Republicans must have hated vets also.

Well your guess makes no sense on any level.