[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 20]
[House]
[Pages 27478-27479]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          REPUBLICANS SEND WRONG MESSAGE TO AMERICA'S VETERANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, with Veteran's Day nearing, I am 
ashamed, frankly, of how little this House of Representatives has done 
for the men and women who have served our country. There has been lots 
of talk, good talk, especially in the early days of November, but not 
much real action. In honor of our veterans, the men and women who are 
risking their lives today, tonight, and tomorrow in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, the many who have lost and continue to lose their good 
health and even their lives, our message should reflect our admiration 
for their commitment. It does not.
  In July, House Republican leadership, through a procedural maneuver, 
struck down an attempt to restore $1.8 billion, just to restore $1.8 
billion in veterans health care funding when they forced the House to 
vote on a bill with inadequate funding for veterans' health. Democrats 
and veterans' groups opposed the bill and demanded that the Republican 
leadership restore funding to the Veterans Administration. Now, it 
appears the VA-HUD appropriations bill will come out of conference $500 
million short of the VA funding level that we demanded and the 
Republicans promised in their budget resolution.
  What kind of Veteran's Day message is that sending?

[[Page 27479]]

  In light of the inadequacy of the majority's VA spending bill, 
Democrats fought for consideration of other solutions that would make 
up for those shortfalls that Republicans offered. Over 200 Democrats 
signed a discharge petition offered by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Marshall) that would force the House to consider legislation to 
eliminate the discriminatory disabled veterans tax. Responding, 
finally, to this pressure, Republican leaders offered a proposal that 
would only reach 50 percent of those veterans unfairly affected by this 
tax. Because this proposal would be phased in over 10 years, reduction 
of the tax would be very small in the early years of the proposal and 
veterans would not even receive their full benefits. This is the best 
Republicans could offer: Veterans would not receive their full benefits 
until 2014, 11 years away.
  This so-called solution pits one group of veterans against another 
group of veterans, hardly something we should do any time, but 
especially something we should not do in wartime. That is some message.
  Democrats have offered a legislative package that does the right 
thing. Our proposal increases veterans' health care over the next 10 
years by $10 billion. It would end the disabled veterans' tax and pay 
veterans $500 a month if their disability claim has been left pending 
for longer than 6 months. It would give $1,000 bonuses for those 
soldiers returning home from Iraq and from Afghanistan. It would make 
military pay increases permanent for those in imminent danger and away 
from their families.
  The Republicans have offered so much less; in fact, they have taken 
away. As soon as President Bush took office, he raised the copay at 
veterans' clinics across the country by 350 percent, from $2 to $7 per 
veteran per prescription drug per month. He has since proposed to raise 
that to $15, from $2 to $7 to $15; in effect, slashing the drug benefit 
that veterans have deservedly gotten in this country.
  The President and Republicans have also cut education benefits.

                              {time}  1945

  Why are they cutting education benefits to veterans? Why are they 
cutting prescription drug benefits to veterans? The answer is simple. 
It is to make room for the Republican tax cut. The tax cut, everyone 
knows that by now, the tax cut, that if you are a millionaire you get 
$93,000 tax savings. Half of the people in my district in Ohio, 
northeast Ohio, in Akron and Lorain, Northridge, half of them get zero. 
Half the people in my State get zero while the ``leave no millionaire 
behind'' tax cut from the President goes forward, making it not just 
unfair in terms of the taxes that the wealthy get benefits from in a 
tax cut, and the middle class and working families do not, but also 
that is why he has cut veterans benefits, that is why the President has 
cut education benefits.
  This was all topped off, Mr. Speaker, by the actions early this fall 
where almost 200 Members of Congress on the Republican side voted for a 
$3,500, in fact, pay increase for themselves and voted against a $1,500 
pay increase for our troops overseas. That is the height of hypocrisy. 
We do tax cuts for millionaires, we do pay increases for ourselves, 
then we turn around, my friends on the other side of the aisle, and do 
not vote for a pay increase for our young men and women in uniform.
  Our young men and women were sent to Iraq on the promise that when 
they returned to this country, this country would care for them. Unless 
the Republican majority considers proposals that fully meet the needs 
of veterans, as my colleagues and I have tried to do, they are breaking 
that covenant.

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