Clinton champions veterans

While Obama was coddling union thugs – a group he knows he can’t anger, Clinton was promising to take care of veterans (Associated Press/Yahoo link);

Campaigning in North Carolina, a state with strong military ties, Clinton emphasized her plans to improve life for veterans and said she wants to bring troops home from Iraq “as responsibly and quickly as we can.”

Yeah, we already know how the Clintons care for veterans. Her husband balanced the year-over-year budget on the backs of veterans. 65 year-old veterans, who had been promised free military health care in exchange for their for their service were kicked out of the military health system and onto Medicare. Much has been made of the poor service during the Clinton era from the Veterans Administration – in fact people try to pawn the poor VA facilities off on President Bush, but they give Clinton a pass. The truth is that VA facilities are very much improved during President Bush’s administration.

Factcheck.org reported that in 2004, spending on veterans had already increased 27%;

…funding for veterans is going up twice as fast under Bush as it did under Clinton. And the number of veterans getting health benefits is going up 25% under Bush’s budgets. That’s hardly a cut.

Newsbusters‘ Noel Shepard quoted the Office of Management and Budget’s report to compare the Bush and Clinton years;

According to the Office of Management and Budget, Veterans Affairs received $45 billion under former President Clinton’s final budget as compared to $72 billion in fiscal 2007’s which was created prior to the Democrat Congressional takeover. That’s a 60 percent increase in six years.

By contrast, under Clinton, the VA budget went from $35 billion in FY 1993 to $45 billion in FY 2001, a 29 percent increase in eight years.

If she was such an influence in her husband’s administration as she claims, why didn’t she stop him from gutting the military and the military health care system?

Category: Politics