We've been there. It IS very cool.

I'd go in a second. (Ralphie and I have also been watching the Italian 6 hour epic 'Best of Youth' and I must must must go to Italy and Sicily, too.)
:)

I'm sure Prudence has many sources, but a quick search led to this and this and this.

Of course, it was a bit of a challenge sorting through all the 'Veteran's for Peace' and 'Veteran's Against the Iraq war' sites...

At a time when we are at war and incurring casualites, not to mention that there are numerous vets from other wars that still need care, of course a decrease would be considered a cut- there is a shortfall regardless of what you call it.

Admittedly, I have not clicked your links. I have mentioned this before, but as a brief reminder, during the Carter years, something called "baseline budgeting" was started. Every year, an automatic 10% increase was required when submitting your budget for whatever. This was for a few reasons, primarily so that spineless politicians could automatically increase their spending.

If the news was presented as "Veteren's affairs gets a 5% budget increase", that's good news. However, with baseline budgeting, the story is "Veteren's affairs cut by 5%", because the amount increasing only went up 5% instead of the automatic 10% is was supposed to get.

VA may very well be underfunded (though I suspect that it is more about waste and top heavy spending with the money not getting where it needs to), but I doubt it has been cut (meaning a real cut of actual dollars).

Well, as Prudence pointed out- the vets know the score, and they keep score. Our state has a very high vet ratio per capita, and our hospitals are a train-wreck.

If so, that is a tragedy and a travesty of justice. Sadly, though, I don't doubt it.

As wife to one disabled vet and daughter-in-law to another, I see the letters they have been getting regularly in the past two years telling them what is no longer covered. And, of course, since my father-in-law's Gulf War Syndrome doesn't really exist, he has difficulty getting care.

As for other, more ordinary evidence - I don't have any off the top of my head. I will note that the cuts-were-in-the-increase argument cuts both ways. If the actual increases don't keep pace with inflation, and if the number of incoming people exceeds the number of people that conveniently drop dead, then the individual service level goes down. Like when my employer tells me that I'm getting $50 more per month this year in salary, but I'll be paying $200 more a month in mandatory, can't-opt-out health insurance. I don't care what the machinations behind the scenes are - bottom line is I get less.

And the politician who's made the biggest name for herself in the state for VA stuff is a democrat. Not my favorite democrat, mind you, but a democrat nonetheless.

Does anyone remember that story from a few months ago where budget proposals were released showing the deficit shrinking, and then people panicked because there were big cuts to the VA, which was followed by news that they weren't really cutting VA funds, it was just where they cut money in the proposal to make the deficit look smaller? I was trying to find that to follow to some other things, and now I can't find it.

Oh, additional note - BT now gets all his medical care through his empolyee benefits. When they can, when they have options, they're more than happen to pursue those and forgo any VA treatment.

Looking at the obvious mishandling of the VA and the substandard treatment your relatives receive, and the fact that they prefer the options through the employer benefits, it completely reinforces in my mind that government sponsored health care is a really, really bad idea.

Never mind - found the article.

Now, I have no idea if there was follow-up on this and it's totally bogus or what, but this discusses a recent budget proposal that talks in terms of numbers - funded 24.5B this year, increasing to 27.7B next year, and then decreasing to under 27B the following 4 years. I don't know if they're making it up to make the budget look better, assuming we'll be done with the guns and the blowing things up by then, or what.

Sorry - my research efforts are focused elsewhere at the moment. (Although if the subject of excluding "other suspect" evidence comes up, I'm ready!)