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Statement
of Lane Evans Opposition to H.Con.Res.
83, the Conference Report Mr. Chairman, I rise today
in opposition to the House-Senate Conference Report on H.Con.Res. 83, the
Budget for fiscal year 2002. Last
week, after excluding Democrats from any meaningful participation in the
“conference”, House leadership tried to ram this resolution down our
throats. Fortunately, they failed
because they couldn’t even make the entire bill available for Members’
consideration. Upon closer
inspection it’s easy to see why they believed their bill couldn’t bear
the light of day. The information we have been
able to review to date indicates that, in FY 2002, the conferees approved
significantly lower funding for veterans programs than the funding level
passed earlier by either the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs or in
the House Budget Resolution. Under
the leadership of the Veterans’ Affairs Chairman, Chris Smith, the House
managed to almost double the President’s meager request for
discretionary spending for the Nation’s veterans, but that effort now
appears to have been for naught. Unfortunately, the
Republican leadership has not kept the promises it made to America’s
veterans. After applauding
themselves on the funding increases for veterans programs, my Republican
colleagues realized that realistically, their numbers just didn’t add
up. They will tell you they’ll fix the harm they’ve
done to veterans’ programs with emergency spending, but if that’s the
case why don’t they just do it right in this resolution?
Ultimately, they were not able to reconcile their promises to
America’s veterans with the giant tax cuts they’ve promised to the
wealthiest of America’s taxpayers. The joint resolution will
eliminate the gains made for veterans’ programs in the House and Senate
resolutions for fiscal year 2002. The
House added $730 million to the President’s request for veterans’
programs, while the Senate passed two separate resolutions that would have
added about $1.7 billion to the Bush request of about a $1 billion
increase for veterans’ program. So
now we’re “back to Bush” and that is bad news for America’s
Veterans. Veterans’ groups agree
that the Bush budget is inadequate. In
a press release this February, The American Legion said “The Bush
Administration’s Fiscal Year 2002 budget for the Department of
Veterans’ Affairs is not good enough…Frankly, this budget is
insufficient to fulfill the campaign promises George W. Bush made….” In a letter to the Senate
from four major veterans’ service organizations: AMVETS, Paralyzed
Veterans of America, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American
Veterans, the increase recommended by the Bush Administration was
described as an “amount [that] would not even cover the costs of
mandated salary increases and the effects of inflation.” I will vote against this
inadequate funding resolution for veterans.
The American people need to understand the effect of this overblown
tax cut. Our veterans will
pay the price. |