Democrats Demand an End to Empty Rhetoric When President Bush Addresses VFW Convention

As President Bush prepares to address the 108th annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City tomorrow, Democrats today called on the President to offer more than the same empty rhetoric and broken promises on the issues that matter to America's veterans and military families. Despite years of promises, on President Bush's watch the Administration has allowed conditions at VA hospitals and medical centers like Walter Reed to deteriorate to appalling levels, has failed to accurately project the cost of treating thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and has jeopardized the personal financial information of America's 26.5 million veterans. Worse, the President's budget proposals have consistently shortchanged the VA, with his 2008 budget including a two percent cut.

By contrast, Democrats in Congress have kept their promise to make taking care of our veterans and military families a top priority by giving our fighting forces a hard-earned and well-deserved pay raise, passing the largest increase in veterans' health care funding in our nation's history, and working to force President Bush to change course in Iraq. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and DNC Veterans and Military Families Council Chairman Don Fowler today issued the following statement:

"Every year, President Bush and representatives from his Administration head to the VFW convention to shower convention-goers with empty platitudes about standing up for our veterans, but when they return to Washington their actions never match their rhetoric. It is not enough for the President to talk about improving health care and benefits for veterans and military families. Veterans confronting traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder, mental health care issues, long backlogs and waiting lists, and a host of other challenges deserve resources, not rhetoric. That's why Democrats are fighting to fully fund veterans' health care services, end backlogs for veterans seeking care, and fix VA hospitals and medical centers. The time has come for President Bush and the Bush Republicans in Washington to join Democrats in making veterans issues a true priority, not a talking point."

While Democrats Stand Up for America's Veterans and Military Families...

Democrats Pass Largest Increase In Veterans Health Care In History. Democrats passed the Fiscal Year 2008 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill [H.R. 2642], which includes the largest increase in veterans healthcare in history. It increases funding for veteran's health care by $4.4 billion, which will allow the VA to treat more than 5.8 million veterans, including more than 260,000 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It includes $600 million in new funding for mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and $66 million more for medical and prosthetic research. To eliminate the 400,000 benefits claim backlog, H.R. 2642 provides $1.6 billion in funding to hire enough 1,100 new claims processors for the VA system. [Office of Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, Release, 6/18/07]

2007 Emergency Supplemental Adds $1.8 Billion in VA Funding. The 2007 Emergency Supplemental bill allocates nearly $1.8 billion in funds to the VA, not requested by the President, to accommodate the increasing number of new veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, improve mental health and readjustment counseling services, and fund new polytrauma centers for the severely injured. These funds are critical to ensuring that the VA has the capacity to care for the increasing number of veterans who suffer from traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. [DPC Fact Sheet, 6/21/07]

Democrats Add $3.5 Billion in Veterans Funding to Bush FY 2008 Budget. The Senate's 2008 Budget Resolution allocated $43.1 billion for veterans, which is an increase of $3.5 billion over the President's request. This amount represents 98 percent of the funding level requested in the Independent Budget, a plan developed by four leading veterans' service organizations. The resolution also rejected the President's proposal to impose new fees and higher co-payments on certain veterans, which, according to veterans' service organizations, would have driven an estimated 200,000 veterans to leave the system and discouraged more than one million veterans from enrolling in VA health care. [DPC Fact Sheet, 6/21/07]

Democrats Pass Wounded Warriors Bill. Senate Democrats passed the Wounded Warriors Act, which provides resources to address:

• The substandard facilities at Walter Reed and other military hospitals;
• The lack of seamless transition when medical care for troops is transferred from the Department of Defense to the Veterans Administration, which often leads to diminished care;
• The inadequacy of severance pay to help those who have sacrificed so much already support their families while they recover;
• The need to improve sharing of medical records between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs;
• The inadequate care and treatment for traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by authorizing $50 million for improved diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation; and
• The challenges facing wounded troops whose health insurance programs, like the Tricare program for retired veterans, have allowed gaps in coverage and medical treatment.

...The Bush Administration Fails Our Veterans

Acting Surgeon General Admits Medical Care For Wounded Troops Lacking. "As troops come home from Iraq and Afghanistan, there aren't enough nurses and mental health specialists to meet their needs. That assessment today from the Army's acting Surgeon General, Gale Pollock. She was given the job after Kevin Kiley was forced to resign amid the scandal over poor treatment of the wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Pollock told a House Armed Services subcommittee the original war plans didn't take into consideration how long the fighting would last. And she said 'we have not been able to do the hiring' of needed personnel." [AP, 3/27/07]

Veterans' Administration Not Ready And Did Not Plan To Handle Flood Of Returning Iraq War Vets. "A NEWSWEEK investigation focused not on one facility but on the services of the Department of Veterans Affairs, a 235,000-person bureaucracy that provides medical care to a much larger number of servicemen and women from the time they're released from the military, and doles out their disability payments. Our reporting paints a grim portrait of an overloaded bureaucracy cluttered with red tape; veterans having to wait weeks or months for mental-health care and other appointments; families sliding into debt as VA case managers study disability claims over many months, and the seriously wounded requiring help from outside experts just to understand the VA's arcane system of rights and benefits… as the number of veterans continues to grow, critics worry the VA is in a state of denial. In a broad sense, the situation at the VA seems to mirror the overall lack of planning for the war. 'We know the VA doesn't have the capacity to process a large number of disability claims at the same time,' says Linda Bilmes, a Harvard public-finance professor. … She projects that at least 700,000 veterans from the global war on terror (GWOT) will flood the system in the coming years." [Newsweek, 3/5/07]

Bush's 2008 Budget Proposes 2 Percent Cut For Vets. "This failure to prepare to treat the wounded is of a piece with the conduct of the Iraq war itself, when civilian policymakers launched a war with inadequate troop strength and then failed to provide enough security forces to maintain the peace once fighting ended. In other words, a disastrous mistake from beginning to end - all at the expense of the brave men and women in the armed forces. To top off the charade of empathy, the latest budget estimate from the Bush administration proposes a 2 percent budget cut for the VA in the 2008-'09 budget year and freezing the budget at that level for the next three years. Coming at a time when VA medical services are breaking down under the strain of Iraq War casualties, reducing the agency's budget is a cynical mockery of the public facade of concern for returning veterans. 'Support Our Troops,' indeed. A more accurate slogan for this administration would be 'Ignore Our Troops.'" [Bradenton Herald, Editorial, 3/1/07]

Veterans Administration Falling Behind In Providing Disability Benefits. "The Department of Veterans Affairs is falling behind in its efforts to provide prompt disability benefits for veterans nationwide, as its backlog of cases continues to grow, new reports show. In fact, the department's performance slipped in the past year even though its workload was lower than anticipated. … In testifying to Congress in February that the VA was 'focused on delivering timely and accurate benefits,' Secretary Nicholson and other VA officials said the department expected to receive 910,126 new claims and complete a decision on 838,566. Instead, the VA received far fewer claims - 806,382 - and it produced a decision on 774,378, or 8 percent fewer than expected, VA data show. As productivity dropped, the VA's closely watched backlog of claims went up, and has continued to rise since the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. It now tops 400,000." [McClatchy, 12/1/06]

Walk-In Veterans' Treatment Centers Can't Keep Up With Caseload. "A network of community-based walk-in veterans' treatment centers is under increasing pressure as more and more former troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have come looking for help. A report to be issued Thursday from the House Veterans Affairs Committee's Democratic staff says that nearly a third of all Vet Centers have seen the demand rise for outreach and other services. … It found that the number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have sought help for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) doubled - from nearly 4,500 to more than 9,000 - from October 2005 through June 2006. The number of veterans with other types of possible mental health and readjustment problems also doubled, and in some cases tripled, the report said. Half of the Vet Centers sampled reported that their expanding caseloads have affected their ability to treat their current clientele. 'The administration's failure to increase staffing and other resources for Vet Centers has put their capacity to meet the needs of veterans and their families at risk,' the report said." [McClatchy, 10/18/06]