Chet Edwards For Congress

March 1, 2006
Editorial: Buildup, letdown

Waco Tribune Herald
By Editorial staff | Tribune-Herald

This sounds too familiar for Waco, and for people who work in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

It's called getting built up to be let down. In the case of Waco's VA hospital, it has translated into millions of dollars spent modernizing two buildings, when at almost the moment of their opening the VA unveiled something else: designs to shut the hospital down.

In the case of new numbers from the White House, it's an increase in spending for the next budget cycle, after which budget writers apparently intend to reverse course dramatically over three subsequent years.

A few days ago President Bush released his fiscal 2007 budget, which showed an 11 percent increase for the VA. That's substantial considering that the same budget would cut or freeze a host of other domestic programs.

But any sense of euphoria for supporters of veterans services was doused with cold water this week with an analysis of subsequent years' budgets. They would impose dramatic cuts, effectively negating what the White House proposes for next year.

As Waco Congressman Chet Edwards said, “Either the administration is proposing gutting VA health care over the next five years or it is not serious about its own budget,” he said.

The latter reference is to suspicions that the proposals aren't real. They are written to show progress in cutting the federal budget, but only on paper.

Were either suspicion true it would be alarming. But the most troubling prospect would be if the Bush White House were serious about dramatically cutting veterans services a year from now at the very time that young men and women are coming home from battle.

The White House says it makes spending decisions one year at a time. Maybe that's the problem. For years, the short-sightedness of budget writers - with eyes on the next election cycle - is what has dug this nation into a deep hole of debt.

Should the VA absorb its share of budget cutting to deal with that? It depends on what is needed from the VA.

If demands are increasing, and it's likely they will be, the federal government's obligation is to meet them.
It needs to be pointed out that the portion of the federal budget that's truly discretionary isn't large, if one puts military spending off the table.

The VA is one of those things precariously in reach of budget cutters. Veterans benefits aren't entitlements. They are at budget-cutters' mercy.

If cutting veterans services at a time of high demand is what Bush needs to cut taxes, then it's the tax cuts that should go.