Is Bush seriousabout such cuts inhis own budget, orisn’t he?
Veterans Face Consecutive Cuts In Bush BudgetBy Cliff Montgomery – Feb. 13th, 2007The Bush Administration plans to cut funding for America‘s already strapped Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system two years from now–even as badly wounded troops return home from Iraq, the war this president started for no good reason.Critics say Bush is using the cuts to fulfill his newfound desire to balance the budget by 2012. We say, “newfound”, because his budget concerns only seemed to kick in the November day that Democrats won control of both houses of Congress.To be fair, the Bush budget does seek a veterans’ care increase for next year; but the dollars fall after that.The budget for veterans’ medical care is currently funded at $35.6 billion, and would rise to $39.6 billion in 2008 under Bush’s budget. That’s about a 9 percent increase. But the Bush budget calls for a cut to $38.8 billion in 2009, and would hover around that level through 2012, even though the cost of veterans’ medical care has been growing rapidly–by more than 10 percent in recent years.Stated simply, these proposed cuts are unrealistic in light of recent VA budget trends. The veterans’ care budget has risen every year for two decades, and a whopping 83 percent in the six years since Bush took office. Such realities sow suspicion in many that the White House numbers are simply made up, a rather shady effort to make its long-term deficit figures appear better than they really are.”Either the administration is willingly proposing massive cuts in VA health care, or its promise of a balanced budget by 2012 is based on completely unrealistic assumptions,” said Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX), chairman of the panel overseeing the VA budget.Edwards added that a more realistic estimate of veterans health costs is $16 billion higher than the Bush estimate for 2012.Critics like Edwards may be on to something. According to an Associated Press (AP) article on this matter, “even the White House doesn’t seem serious about the numbers,” saying that “the long-term budget numbers don’t represent actual administration policies.”The AP article adds, “similar cuts assumed in earlier budgets have been reversed.”According to Bush’s budget office spokesman Sean Kevelighan, the cuts, “don’t reflect any policy decisions. We’ll revisit them when we do the budgets [to come].”Even in the slim chance that this promise is another in a long line of “stretched truths” from this White House, any ideas of VA budget cuts are dead on arrival. The number of ill or injured vets coming into the VA health care system has been rising by about 5 percent every year since the start of the second Iraq War in 2003.Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans currently represent almost 5 percent of the VA’s entire patient caseload. Many are returning home with grave injuries requiring costly care, such as traumatic brain injuries.And the VA expects to treat about 5.8 million patients next year, including 263,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.The White House budget office, however, appears to assume that the VA health care budget can absorb a 2 percent cut in 2009, and mystically remain all but frozen for three years in a row after that.Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), gave AP a simple retort to the Bush budget projections: “It’s implausible.”But perhaps no one should be surprised by the figures. The Bush Administration made virtually identical projections last year: a big increase for the first year of its budget projections, and veterans’ care cuts for every year thereafter. Now, the White House estimate for 2008 is more than $4 billion higher than Bush’s projections from last year.To add to the budget questions, the VA has been known to offer its own mistaken short-term estimates. Two years ago, Congress discovered the VA had underestimated the number of veterans–including those from Iraq and Afghanistan–who were seeking care, as well as the final cost of treatment and long-term care. It quickly passed an emergency $1.5 billion infusion for VA health programs for 2005, and added $2.7 billion to Bush’s 2006 budget request.The administration’s proposed cuts come even as the number of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is expected to increase by 26 percent next year. And that’s not all; Bush also is assuming that domestic spending will increase at a paltry 1 percent each year–even as he calls for his costly “corporate welfare” budget cuts to be made permanent.If your head is swirling by all these opposing budget needs and requests, don’t worry; so is every one else’s. You may do best to take an aspirin or two, and remember that thinking has never been this president’s strong suit.
