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Senate
Won’t Add Veterans’ Health Funds to Supplemental By
Rick Maze, Times staff writer MARINE
CORPS TIMES By two 54-46 votes, the Senate
blocked efforts Tuesday to add money for veterans’ health care to
the 2005 supplemental appropriations bill.
Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, both members of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, sought to add $1.9 billion to the $80.6 billion wartime emergency supplemental appropriations bill to cover costs of treating returning combat veterans for war-related injuries and to cover shortfalls in funding for VA programs. The Bush administration sought no VA money as part of its supplemental funding request, and none was included in the version of the bill passed by the House in March. Murray, however, said funding for veterans is critical because wounded service members will be seeking treatment from already underfunded facilities. “The VA is not prepared to deal with soldiers coming home,” she said. “It is an emergency today. If we don’t deal with it, it will be a crisis tomorrow.” Their amendment would have provided $1.975 billion to the VA, with $525 million earmarked for mental health programs, $610 million provided specifically for the treatment of veterans wounded in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, and $840 million evenly divided between VA regions. The amendment was blocked by a parliamentary motion from Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., Senate Appropriations Committee chairman, who said the funding is not really an emergency need. The Senate voted in support of Cochran’s position, and then voted again when Murray tried to get the amendment approved even if the funding was not characterized as an emergency. The outcome was the same, with 54 senators voting to block funding and 46 voting to provide it. “The administration has not asked for these funds,” Cochran said in explaining the rejection of the amendment. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, the Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman, and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who heads the appropriations subcommittee overseeing the VA budget, said they share Murray’s concerns about veterans funding but see no need to provide emergency funding for that purpose. Lawmakers will have another opportunity later this year to decide whether to increase the 2006 VA budget, they said. As proof that there is no emergency, Cochran noted that the amendment specifically would have allowed the extra funding to be available to the VA not just through the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30, but also into the new fiscal year. |