|
Write to me at;
williamgast@wesupportthevets.com
meet me in St Louis Mr. President July 24,2003
The pressure is on July 18,2003
This week's progress May27,2003
Define Hypocrisy June 12,2003
where are they now? June 15,2003
Promises made, promises kept? June 2,2003
87
Billion for Irawq
|
|
October 10,2003
87
Billion for Iraq and not a dime for Disabled veterans of America
By Bill Gast
Editor of Supportthevets.com
The
house appropriation committee voted 47-14 to provide the 87
billion dollar request for Iraq this last week. At Bush's
request, the Senate will most likely obediently follow and
approve. It required less than three weeks to discuss-debate and
scrub and clean the request in committee. The same committee that
had decided that HR303 would cost too much , self consciously
removed such items as 153 million for new trash trucks and nine
million to devise a postal code system Thus, they shaved the
request down to a mere 87 billion. I thought it was for over a
period of perhaps one Iraqi's lifetime but it is only for the
first year. The people that will decide on where this will be
disbursed are members of the controversial Iraq Stabilization
Group (ISG) I say controversial because SECDEF Rumsfeld is
miffed because he says he wasn't invited to the organizing
meeting by National Security Advisor C. Rice. As a matter of fact
when asked by a reporter in Germany he retorted " I said I don't
know. Isn't that clear? You don't understand English? I was not
there for the backgrounding." The following week when asked in a
new conference if he had not been briefed on the new group, Mr.
Personality replied tartly, "That's true." It is difficult to
perceive that Congressional members of that committee can spend
87 billion dollars on a foreign country after considering it for
such a short time and have not been able to find the funds for
retired disabled veterans in the last eighteen years. Maybe they
have no concept of what it takes to place 87 billion in our
treasury for them to use?
$87,000,000,000. That is 10 to the 12th. One thousand Millions.
One million is a thousand thousands or 10 to the 6th in English
speaking countries.
It is estimated that there are now six billion people on this
planet. That would be a bill to every man, woman, child and baby
of $14.50 (USD) each.( Due and payable this year). The entire
U.S. deficit is approximately five hundred billion as I write
this article. The House appropriations committee just committed a
sum equal to ( hmmm, a" percentage" that my hand calculator
cannot even come up with )- a large percentage of our total U.S.
deficit and they can't make a decision to include disabled
veterans with less than twenty years service into the
"compromise" program being debated.?
Our STV writer Patrick Garcia has an article published here this
week on what happens when the electorate has had enough and takes
action. His ( Patrick's) viewpoint is that when angry people
unite behind a common, considered injustice, partisan politics
are set aside. They become innovative and at the same time
aggressive to right the wrong and a movement begin to take
place. Who would want to be the congressperson or Senator (that
just signed for this appropriation) standing before a Veterans
Day crowd this November and have to answer why they thought a
disabled veteran should wait over a period of ten years for their
full retirement pay?
This same vocal group is beginning to also ask where the offset
taken from their retirement funds are? The Military Retirement
fund (MTF) is suspect of being raided and they are looking for
answers.
If you have ever been in Washington D.C when the group of
veterans known as "Rolling Thunder"" comes riding in on their
HD's to pay their respects to their buddies at the wall, you have
an idea what the picture would be like if they came for another
reason. I certainly would not want to be the one to tell them
there are no funds left-we used it to build a sewer line in
Baghdad.
-30-
Bill Gast
TOP BACK
TO FRONT PAGE |