Posted on 07/28/2003 7:32:04 AM PDT by Brian S
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - President Bush and his Republican Party are facing a political backlash from an unlikely group - retired veterans.
Normally Republican, many retired veterans are mad that Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress are blocking remedies to two problems with health and pension benefits. They say they feel particularly betrayed by Bush, who appealed to them in his 2000 campaign, and who vowed on the eve of his inauguration that "promises made to our veterans will be promises kept."
"He pats us on the back with his speeches and stabs us in the back with his actions," said Charles A. Carter of Shawnee, Okla., a retired Navy senior chief petty officer. "I will vote non-Republican in a heart beat if it continues as is."
"I feel betrayed," said Raymond C. Oden Jr., a retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant now living in Abilene, Texas.
Many veterans say they will not vote for Bush or any Republican in 2004 and are considering voting for a Democrat for the first time. Others say they will sit out the election, angry with Bush and Republicans but unwilling to support Democrats, whom they say are no better at keeping promises to veterans. Some say they will still support Bush and his party despite their ire.
While there are no recent polls to measure veterans' political leanings, any significant erosion of support for Bush and Republicans could hurt in a close election. It could be particularly troublesome in states such as Florida that are politically divided and crowded with military retirees.
Registered Republican James Cook, who retired to Fort Walton Beach, Fla., after 24 years in the Air Force, said he is abandoning a party that he said abandoned him. "Bush is a liar," he said. "The Republicans in Congress, with very few exceptions, are gutless party lapdogs who listen to what puts money in their own pockets or what will get them re-elected."
Veterans have two gripes.
One is a longstanding complaint that some disabled vets, in effect, have to pay their own disability benefits out of their retirement pay through a law they call the Disabled Veterans Tax.
Since 1891, anyone retiring after a full military career has had their retirement pay reduced dollar for dollar for any Veterans Administration checks they get for a permanent service-related disability. However, a veteran who served a two-or-four-year tour does not have a similar reduction in Social Security or private pension.
A majority of members of Congress, from both parties, wants to change the law. A House proposal by Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga., has 345 co-sponsors.
But it would cost as much as $5 billion a year to expand payments to 670,000 disabled veterans, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld earlier this month told lawmakers that the president would veto any bill including the change.
The proposal is stuck in committee. A recent effort to bring it to the full House of Representatives failed, in part because only one Republican signed the petition.
"The cost is exorbitant. And we are dealing with a limited budget," said Harald Stavenas, a spokesman for the House Armed Services Committee.
The second complaint is over medical care. After decades of promising free medical care for life to anyone who served for 20 years, the government in the 1990s abandoned the promise in favor of a new system called Tricare. The Tricare system provides medical care, but requires veterans to pay a deductible and does not cover dental, hearing or vision care.
A group of military retirees challenged the government in a class-action lawsuit, won a first round, then were seriously disappointed when Bush allowed the government to appeal. Government won the next legal round.
"I voted for the president because of the promises," said Floyd Sears, a retired Air Force master sergeant in Biloxi, Miss. "But as far as I can tell, he has done nothing. In fact, his actions have been detrimental to the veterans and retired veterans. I'm very disappointed about the broken promise on medical care."
Stavenas said House and Senate negotiators were working this week on proposals to address the veterans' two specific complaints. He added that Congress has increased spending for veterans' benefits, including a 5 percent increase next year for the Veterans Health Administration.
Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said: "The Bush administration and the Republican Congress have taken and will continue to take steps to enhance benefits for our veterans."
Not all military retirees will vote against Republicans, of course. Some, like retired Air Force Lt. Col. Gene DiBartolo of Tampa, will vote for Bush again gladly.
Though he believes his fellow veterans have a just complaint, he said the government simply cannot "do everything."
As for Bush, he said, "he has restored honor and dignity to this nation ...
"It would take a lot more than this issue to dissuade me from my support of this man."
Read Sell Out by David Shippers! The question should be, which one really opened the flood gates, and how?
Even the fact that After 9/11 Bush didn't close the borders.
But, your following commentary, ignores an extremely important point. One that I think people miss all the time.
(Nothing is ever that simple)
So, President Bush should have just closed the borders. That is what YOU would do?
Really?
Then please, first outline all the political, industrial, and economical ramifications of doing so, including loss of business revenue, and which companies would likely suffer most. Then make sure you tell everyone just exactly what will happen, and that it is YOUR DECISION.
Go ahead.
And we are in charge of telling them what we do and don't want, or else we won't reelect them. I keep stating this, but no one wants to acknowledge it. IT IS OUR FAULT, and not President Bush's.
I even believe that the whole thing is a statement used out of context to what is going on with the bill. No one seems interested in knowing if there is any other reason for the President wanting to veto it, other than, because he's a meany wants the veterans to suffer.
exodus - Which President would you consider has the worse record on border control, the one who had no reason to control the border (Clinton), or the one fighting a war caused by enemies slipping through our border to kill Americans?
David Shippers is one of my Heros.
I don't have his book, but I've heard a lot about how the Republicans in the Senate refused to follow up on the good work done in the House.
He outlines(with fact) the Clinton/Gore/Dorothy Meisner connection on immigration!
112 years of history have nothing to do with the fact that Bush says he will veto any increase of veteran's benefits today.
You show me where President Bush says he will veto any increase of veteran's benefits.
I read in the article that he would veto that bill. I am going to find the original plus more sources before I determine my opinion of what is going on with this.
No I was answering your rhetorical question to exodus.
Some of your statements, I find I can agree with, or at least understand your position. Even the fact that After 9/11 Bush didn't close the borders. But, your following commentary, ignores an extremely important point. One that I think people miss all the time. (Nothing is ever that simple)
The political ramification is that Vicente Fox wouldn't be Bush's special friend anymore. There would be no industrial ramifications at all. Economically, smuggling would be almost completely destroyed, and the prices of those smuggled goods would go through the roof.
What you've said makes sense only if you assume that a large part of our commerce avoids posted border crossings. Making sure that every person coming into our country goes through a checkpoint instead of slinking though the woods and desert would not hurt our economy.
And if it did hurt our economy? Isn't everyone telling me "We Are At War?"
If we're not in danger from immigrants, why do we have to put up with the restrctions on our freedom legislated by the Patriot Act?
Our citizens are a serious danger to their own country, but even after 9-11, illegal aliens are harmless?
Instead of just taking the sentences that make Bush look bad, I read from beginning to end, and you know what? I get a different story.
First off, by vetoing the bill, President Bush is not denying anyone anything (that they haven't had for 212 years).
Further on in the article, they state just what President Bush is doing to help the veterans.
It is one thing to not have read the article, and be ignorant of what is going on.
It is something else to have read it, tell others to read it, and to have only read and remembered the parts that support your side of the issue. I think that is called having BLINDERS ON
All the arguements about Bush denying veterans their rightful benefits are hogwash.
What BUSH did promise the Veterans is being done in smaller pieces and more efficient ways.
Don't suppose the line in the article about how the cost of that BILL was ridiculous and not anywhere within reason or budget considerations meant anything to you.
You didn't mention that in your remarks.
Yes, the source Knight-Ridder probably says it all. Just another liberal example of selective, biased journalism.
Turns out that , apparently, most have not read the whole article, or are ignoring most of it's contents.
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