Systematic Abuse of Veterans

Veterans' needs are reportedly $16 billion greater than President Bush projects for 2012.

The proposals for the 2008 budget have proven one thing — the need of the Administration to balance the budget is being placed on the backs of our wounded veterans, including those who will be returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to a February 13th AP article, "Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing rapidly — by more than 10 percent in many years — White House budget documents assume consecutive cutbacks in 2009 and 2010 and a freeze thereafter."

The systematic abuse and starvation of the Veterans Administration is not new. The current Bush Administration and its Congressional sycophants have knowingly deserted our veterans since the day George W. Bush took office.

We know that the population of South Texas is disproportionately represented in the military and among the injured, that aging veterans have retired to South Texas, that the poor and Hispanic population have stepped forward to fight Pres. Bush's war of choice where others have not. They are returning more seriously injured than ever before, surviving injuries previously killing soldiers in other conflicts.

Speak to a veteran and those who recruited him with the promise of medical and dental care for military personnel and their families. The promise has been broken. Most recruiters are now shocked by the denial of benefits to the vets they recruited. Texas veterans are second only to Florida veterans in being denied their veterans benefits. And these numbers are underreported, since many vets needing hospital care, particularly in South Texas, have given up, with no safety net of other medical care available.

Look at a map of Texas and draw a horizontal line through San Antonio. Veterans below the line know they've no place to go. Above and below the line know they face long waits, cutbacks or closure of key services, and an exclusionary system which denies benefits to a huge segment of the medically-needy. The rules denying benefits harm the individual, the system and our economy. Injured and homeless veterans, unemployable without medical care, exposed to hazardous materials as never before, with latent disease brewing combined with unfair cutoffs to file for assistance prior to the appearance of disease, and an extraordinarily high incidence (25 percent) of post traumatic stress disorder, cannot retake their productive place in society. The state of Texas has not assumed the burden placed on it by the federal government which has turned its back on Texas.

Sadly, the junior senator from Texas is pleased with the Bush budget proposal. Senator Cornyn released the following statement on February 5, 2007, "The President’s budget lays out a blueprint to fund the nation’s top priorities and balance the federal budget by 2012 ... ensur[ing] appropriate funding for America’s most pressing needs, while holding the line on non-security spending..."
Senator Cornyn is wrong.

One of our nation's top priorities should be to fully fund the VA and financially acknowledge that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will require us to spend adequately on veterans' medical costs to take care of the brave men and women who have served and those who, we pray, will return safely.

The responsibility lies with the state-wide elected officials of Texas, beginning with our two Republican senators who boast of their near perfect voting records in lock step with the Bush administration, systematically starving military and veterans affairs, praising the Administration’s warped priorities. These two senators further boast of their standing as members of "Republican leadership", forces which have taken us to war, diverted moneys from care and protection of our service people, and deny benefits to the men and women who risked all.

They have systematically voted against the amendments and policies needed to honor Abraham Lincoln's pledge "to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan."

The two republican senators of Texas sit comfortably by, with their own special health care plans and pensions, and deny to those who risked their lives and their surviving widows, widowers and orphans the necessities of life.

Just as this nation requires true health care reform, we must reform our treatment of veterans with:

1. A G.I. Bill of Rights for the 21st Century
2. Assured funding system for the Veterans Administration
3. Building a VA Hospital south of San Antonio
4. Reforming the outrageous, arbitrary rules banning veterans from coverage
they've earned
5. Guaranteed briefings to soldiers, teaching them their rights, upon discharge
6. Screening for exposure to dangerous substances, including depleted uranium
7. Ending the "widow’s tax" and disability pension offsets, which now require forfeiture of earned benefits, and reform the system of death benefits and combat disability related compensation
8. Instituting long-called-for reforms with staffing and administrative problems in the VA
9. Eliminating the unfair, unscrupulous lending, bankruptcy, homestead practices which target our military personnel and veterans
10. Speaking and voting against Senators Cornyn and Hutchison who will not honor their promises and who've deserted the soldiers who have stood by us.

Long before my opponent in the 2006 U.S. Senate campaign announced for reelection in summer 2005, I called for a hospital to be built south of San Antonio, and the links below are a few examples of my other consistent stands for veterans. I also encourage you to visit my website at www.radnofsky.com and click on the news section to read more of my statements and press releases on veterans.

June 24, 2005
Veterans Affairs Funding
http://www.radnofsky.com/press_release.php?items_id=41

July 18, 2005
BAR vs. KBH on service members: Don’t Turn Your Back
http://www.radnofsky.com/press_release.php?items_id=39

February 15, 2006
Prepared Remarks on Veterans Affairs
http://www.radnofsky.com/press_release.php?items_id=522

August 9, 2006
Radnofsky: Veterans Affairs Deserve Our Attention
http://www.radnofsky.com/press_release.php?items_id=947

November 3, 2006
Radnofsky Statement to G.I. Forum and America’s Last Patrol: Stand By Those Who Stood By Us.
http://www.radnofsky.com/press_release.php?items_id=1214