"While the big proposals on climate change and health care took center stage in the dog-and-pony show..."

I'd find it a lot easier to get behind your causes if you weren't so darned dismissive of everyone else's. I know you're fighting a good and important fight but you're not on a single issue Web site here and really if your cause weren't so darned good, you'd be at risk of alienating some of your most natural supporters.

Stabenow tried to do the VA solidly in her proposed Amendment 1937 to Department Of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006. It would have extended VA Health Care benefits to all Veterans, and came front-loaded at the beginning of each Fiscal Year with VA funding for both discretionary and mandatory purposes. It was shot down on procedural grounds, because it would have caused an allocation by the appropriations committee in excess of their FY limit. Larry Craig claimed that although veterans were entitled, it just wouldn't do for Congress to start up another entitlement program to pay for it. Contemporary Conservatism's Wide-Stanced equivocations:

While all veterans are entitled, should we start a new entitlement program, one that is now out of control, that we cannot monitor on a yearly basis as we do through the appropriating process and the authorizing process? The Senator is proposing a new entitlement program. But she is also saying something else. She is not saying those who served is the baseline of the formula. She is saying those who are entitled. And there is a very real difference between those who are entitled and eligible versus those who seek service because of need. We pay for those who seek service based on their eligibility. We do not create a new entitlement program.

Ask yourselves, do you want to create a new entitlement program or do you want to do what we are doing now, providing the necessary resources on an annual basis to meet the needs of America's veterans?

I ask Members to vote no. Do not waive the Budget Act. Do not create a new entitlement program and basically take it out of the hands of the Congress and put it in the hands of the VA. That is not what I think our veterans would want us to do.

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(disclosure: the linked to website in this comment is mine, as is the mark-up to HTML)

I'm amazed that you can still work with either side of the aisle on The Hill on this issue; respect you for your tolerance, patience and stamina. I wouldn't describe my path into the Army as beginning with my signing on the dotted line. My birthday was drawn as lucky-number 004 in the lottery draft, yet I freely swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, serving one tour as a chopper doc in SE Asia. It was my coming of age during that time, witnessing the futility that was Vietnam, The Democrats in Chicago, 1968, Nixon upon my return in 1972, and observing how both sides of the political bipolarity pirouette in satin shoes elevated way up on their toes around vets, that are significant reasons for my utter lack of respect for either party. The half-truths, mistruths and outright lies come from the whole length on that linear model.

The Left has never disrespected the soldier, it instead levels a preponderance of scorn at Military Institutions, its traditions and symbols, without even a dim understanding of duty to sworn oaths, and how this serves as a foundation for for possessing personal honour throughout the darkness ever falling, still intact on the return home. The left will also take advantage of the Vet who wants to speak out loudly in dissent before the fog has cleared. Still they will take in the soldier ravaged with the war sickness, providing shelter without asking or expecting anything in return.

The Right goes over the top with their overt Yankee Doodle wrapped up in Red White and Blue expressions, will lie prostrate at the feet of the Joint Chiefs. They loudly sing songs of the patriot as other people's sons, siblings and spouses march over the event horizon, whilst they secret their progeny off behind walls, halls and in towers that reek of elephants' death, supporting their children's campaigns for office in the campus chapter of College Republicans. Yet woe to the soldier, who upon their return, speaks of the evils, the unnecessary deaths, and lies by our elected officials. The Right will hound them til the end of their days.

Liberals gush sugary cough syrupy after-tasting compassion, attempting through empathy to understand. Most mean well with their expressions of limp-wristed hand-wringing self-doubt, even when lightly tainted with assuagement for the tinges of guilt they feel about not being there with. Only miscreants and imbeciles are uplifted in war, but liberals feel hurt when they fail to elicit words that paint a realistic portrait, not comprehending that the desire not to bring hell into their house, is a factor for it being shoved deeper and deeper inside.

Conservatives derive great pleasure from rolling down their vehicle's window at a highway offramp so they can loudly insult the homeless vet begging, whose acute war sickness left them dysfunctional within our modern world. Conservative employers often won't look a war veteran in the eye, when reading about past service on an employment application, fretting about sanity, as they devise a plan to diplomatically decline hiring. They ceaselessly shriek harpishly about "their money" being wasted on a VA so vastly underfunded, it cannot even fulfill the promises made to vets who marched off to war a long time ago.

They all suck in their own way.

Despite of recession, veterans should receive the due amount. I know that recession tighten the government fund. Proper spending in government budget is a must during bad times. If we will exceed to the allocated amount we will encounter the budget deficit, remember if there is some extra allocation for the government funding it should be to the economic stabilization program. We have to consider the fact that it will just ignore it, economy will not get any better. Businesses will be at stake. It's harder to get personal loans for projects if you need them, as the credit market is shot. You won't think of payday loans that often if you cut back on your spending.