Veterans groups blast proposed Tea Party cuts - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times
A proposal to cut $4.5 billion from Veterans Affairs Department health programs to reduce government spending has earned a quick, sharp rebuke from major veterans groups.
Proposed by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., the freeze in veterans health care funding — along with a cut in disability compensation for veterans also receiving Social Security disability benefits — are part of a $400 billion package of spending cuts that the Tea Party leader says could be enacted to avoid increasing the $14.3 trillion cap on government borrowing.
Disabled American Veterans called Bachmann’s ideas “ill-advised,” “nothing short of heartless” and “wrong-headed.”
Veterans of Foreign Wars said she was “totally out of step with America’s commitment to our veterans.”
Veterans for Common Sense said they were “outraged” that her proposal “would leave veterans twisting in the wind.”
“It is unconscionable that while our nation is at war, someone would even think of forcing our wounded warriors to sacrifice even more than they already have,” said David Gorman of the DAV. “Their injuries and disabilities were the result of their service to the nation, and our nation must not shirk its responsibilities toward them. How do you tell a veteran who has lost a limb that he or she has not sacrificed enough? Yet Rep. Bachmann wants to do just that.”