Dean's Folly, Continued (More Howard Dean Demagoguery and Lying)

Howard Dean and the boys might have just lost one of their favorite anti-Bush lines on the stump -- "He can't even find Saddam Hussein" -- but not to worry. Dean still has another biting criticism of Bush national-security policy echoed by other Democratic candidates as well -- that President Bush has supposedly slashed veterans off of their benefits and cut combat pay. As it happens, these charges have as much merit as the can't-find-Saddam taunt in the wake of the dictator getting pulled from a hole.

Dean has said of Bush routinely on the campaign trail: "One night, Friday night -- he hoped the media wouldn't notice -- he announced that combat pay was being cut because 'mission accomplished.' One day last January he went to a Veterans Administration hospital and said that veterans deserve the best pay, the best health care that money could buy. That was the day after he cut 164,000 veterans off their health-care benefits. This president doesn't get that the defense of the United States depends on the men and women he sent to Iraq and depends on the veterans who came home."

In today's free-spending Washington, the charge that anyone is being cut off from anything or that any spending is being reduced has, shall we say, an inherent implausibility. Indeed, no one is being cut off from their veterans benefits.

Here's the background: For 80 years, the rule was that the VA would take care of veterans with medical problems related to their military service or veterans without the means to purchase their own health care. In the mid-1990s, Congress decided to open the VA health care to all veterans, prompting a flood of new entrants into the system. Today, the VA treats a million more patients than it did three years ago, for a total of about 5 million. This sure doesn't sound like cutting veterans off benefits, but maybe they reckon such things differently in Vermont.

Dean's charge does have a wisp of a connection to reality. Because the VA system was overwhelmed by a flood of new patients -- many of them relatively well-off -- it established a new rule saying that veterans with no medical problems relating to their service and an income above a certain threshold are not eligible for VA care. The rule affects an estimated 164,000 people. These are Dean's 164,000 veterans "cut off" from benefits. But they can't be cut off from benefits, because they never received them. The VA grandfathered in everyone already receiving care to make sure no one would be cut off.

The idea that the Bush administration is somehow stingy with the VA is simply absurd. The VA budget has increased by about a third, going from $48 billion a year to $64 billion a year. This year, the VA will provide educational assistance to more than 400,000 people, and guarantee home loans of another 300,000 people, with the total value of about $40 billion. If Dean thinks this is ungenerous, what would be his alternative -- giving veterans lifetime everything-for-free cards?

Dean's combat-pay charge is just as deceptive. The Pentagon earlier this year opposed extending recent Bush-instituted increases in "imminent-danger pay" and "family-separation allowances." It wanted to maintain the current pay of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but through different means. This was all rendered moot when Bush signed into law in November a bill preserving the imminent-danger and family-separation pay increases. So no cut in combat pay had been proposed or took place, but Dean goes his merry way, charging otherwise.

There's a lesson here about the recklessness of Dean and the other Democratic candidates who ape his anti-Bush rhetoric. But that these charges are presented by Dean as a telling critique of Bush national-security policy also demonstrates a certain lack of seriousness about foreign policy. Dean seems to imply that we are going to wage the war on terror with really, really generous veterans health-care benefits. Yeah, right -- and we can't find Saddam Hussein.

Rich Lowry is editor of National Review, a Townhall.com member group, and author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.

This guy is turning into Clinton-lite when it comes to lying. But then, Clinton basically made lying an acceptable strategy in Democratic politics over the last decade. Heck, every politician lies. But when you have to lie and distort facts on an ongoing basis to get people to vote for you as Dean does, you have to ask yourself whether your claims that Bush needs to be replaced really have any merit. But then I guess it's expecting too much of Dean to be introspective and patriotic enough to think to himself, "Geez, if I have to lie about him to get people to vote against him, maybe I'm trying to overturn a guy who really is a good president and good for the nation."

From one of my previous posts:

Bush actually INCREASED the imminent danger pay in April for the first time in more than a decade, from $150 a month to $225. The "family separation allowances" was also increased from $100 a month to $250. He also expanded the Combat zone income tax exclusion. Even when they were discussing a supposed "cut", it was not really a cut, just a return to the old figure previously paid, as the increase was a temporary measure provided until the supplementary bill could be passed, which it was.

Here is what was included in a recent supplemental bill, note that the bold section states that they will be covered through Oct 2004:

¶ Combat zone income tax exclusion: Not paying the IRS income tax can save thousands of dollars. Those who benefit the most are in the government’s highest tax category: unmarried members without dependents or mortgages.

¶ Family Separation Allowance: For servicemembers with families, this helps pay the added housing expenses resulting from enforced separation. In April, Congress enacted a temporary increase, to $250 per month from $100 per month.

¶ Imminent Danger Pay: All servicemembers deployed to Iraq qualify for $225 per month in danger pay, which was boosted from $150 per month by Congress in April. Servicemembers get a month’s worth of this pay even if they were assigned to a designated area for just a single day.

¶ Hardship Duty Pay: All military personnel in Iraq get $100 per month.

¶ Hazardous Duty Incentive Pay: This generally is paid at a rate of $150 per month to officers and enlisted members whose orders require them to participate in “frequent and regular” duties considered unusually arduous or hazardous. The pay is prorated, meaning someone who works less than a month would get $3.33 per day. The pay comes in several categories, such as Crew Member Flight Pay, Non-crew Member Flight Pay, Parachute Duty Pay (“jump pay”), Demolition Duty Pay, Toxic Fuels (or Propellants) Duty Pay, Dangerous Viruses (or Bacteria) Lab Duty Pay, and Chemical Munitions Pay.

The boosts approved in April for Family Separation Allowance and Imminent Danger Pay, which were retroactive to October 2002, expire Oct. 30. But both pays are funded through the end of fiscal 2004 — October 2004 — in the Iraq supplemental bill now making its way through Congress. [Note: the bill was passed]

While lawmakers are arguing about portions of the supplemental bill related to civilian Iraqi development, no one has contested the military request, which accounts for the lion’s share. Meanwhile, if for some reason the supplemental bill does not pass, congressional authorizers may choose to include the pays in their 2004 defense budget as well, a pay and benefits official said Friday.

Stars and Stripes - October 20, 2003 Article

This is the same crap we hear every election year. A "cut" to a Democrat is anyone (GOP) who refuses to acqueise(sp) to the democrat's demands of increased spending. Just about every government program continues to at "least" grow by 4% (faster than the private sector, at large), but because Republicans refuse to give in to the Democrats demands of 10, 12 and even 14% increases in spending, the libs call it a cut. They did this with Gingrich over Medicare, SS and the School Lunch Programs in 1995-96...and they continue to do it every election year.

What's even more disengenious, is that if tax-cuts are also on the table, the Democrats claim that Republicans are cutting social programs at the expense of giving tax cuts to their rich freinds...when one has nothing to do with the other. What's interesting is that since Bush has gone off the reservation with his huge spending blls (Medicare, Education, Farm Bill, etc) and taken away some of these issuse for Democrats, they are now pretending to care about VA cuts.

The irony is, it is Democrats who have historically looked at national security and the DoD as this inconvenient government/entitlement program that could always live with less. They've really confused the concept of "PROVIDE for the common defense and PROMOTE the general welfare." They really see the military as this evil obstacle that consumes so much of their vote-buying revenue...and keeps them from creating more dependence on government.

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