It can't be posted enough: these 41 Senators just blocked veterans' benefits

[JayhawkSD]

81. We have too many knees jerking in this nation

Knee jerk support for anything is not support. It is jingoism and tribalism.

If he/she has a "D" after his/her name vote for him/her.
If it is "for the troops" vote for it.
If it is "liberal" it is good and must be supported.

Don't pay any attention to what it actually is. Don't pay any attention to what it actually does. Just salute and go with the flow based on the label which is applied to it. This bill is labeled as "for the troops" and is therefor good and holy and must be supported.

But does this bill really "support the troops" as it claims to do? No, it does not. Men and women who have been in harm's way in defense of their country are waiting for unconscionable lengths of time for health care at overburdened VA facilities. Do we help them by adding more people to those waiting lists? People who, while they have worn the uniform, have never been in harm's way? Do we help the people who have risked their lives on the field of battle by making them wait longer for the health care that they need? We do not. We do a disservice to the VA system and to the people it is trying to serve by extending eligibility to yet more people.

In the news today we hear that 60 people died while waiting for medical treatment at the VA medical facility in Phoenix. Why were they kept waiting? Because that facility is overburdened and has a long waiting list. Does this bill help our veterans by adding more people to that waiting list and making the wait times for health care even longer? Like hell it does.

As to your monetary point, yes, it does bug me that there is money for wars, and I oppose that spending as well. And I oppose that abuse and mistreatment of our military. If we actually "supported the troops" we would not send them on repeated combat tours in wars that do not serve the national interest. But spending money on wars does not justify spending money on anything else, any more than it was at one time sensible to say that we could send a man to the moon but could not build a decent mouse trap. One thing had nothing to do with the other, and one expenditure has nothing to do with any other expenditure.

Both sides sat down in December and established a budget upon which the government would operate. It was mutually agreed. Neither side objected to it, and neither side was forced to accept it. Part of that budget was how much money was agreement on how much money the VA would need to do its job. Now, just four months later, they want to spend more. How many more bills, how many more times, will they want to spend more? Where does it stop? What is a budget for if they just keep writing more checks?