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A showdown in Washington is taking place over a $21 billion dollar comprehensive veteran’s bill which would greatly expand health, education, and other benefits for the roughly 22 million veterans and their families.

Both sides are playing election year politics as each side wants to be seen as championing veteran’s issues.

Many Republicans consider the bill to be overly expensive and provide too many new benefits into an already dysfunctional and broken system.

Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, top Republican on the Veterans panel, stated it was irresponsible ‘‘to talk about dumping more people on a broken system, to talk about asking those who’ve already waited so long to wait longer because of our actions.’’

Republicans have been disingenuous on this subject by wrapping this bill around other issues such as additional sanctions on Iran.  They just need to focus on the merits of the bill not on amendments unrelated to veteran’s issues.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), refusal to bring any amendments related to this bill to a vote or discuss is pandering to election year politics.      

Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who introduced the legislation, said his bill is “important not just for the veterans but for the tens of millions of people who support our veterans.”

“My hope is that every member [here] will address the needs of veterans with the respect it deserves,” Sanders said. “Clearly, it’s not a perfect bill … but I hope the issues brought forth [by opponents] deal with veterans’ issues, and not ones that are not germane or relevant.”

The bill dramatically expands the list of new and expanded VA programs and policies, it further extend advance funding for all VA operations. The bill also renews the Vow to Hire Hero’s Act, which helps veterans transition into the workforce.

Included in the bill will extend to all veterans of past conflicts the veterans caregiver act, which will provide funding for family members to care for disabled Post 9/11 veterans.    

The bill authored by Sen. Sanders, would be mostly paid for by funding left unspent from the end of the war in Iraq, and the continued draw down of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Republican counter that these saving were dubious at best as the conflicts were already winding down and there were no real impetus to spend the money anyway.

There are numerous benefits in this bill, which would provide added relief to those that had served this nation so honorably in both war and peace, but has anyone asked how this new bill would impact the current VA system?  $21 billion dollars is a lot of money to spend on a broken and dysfunctional system!

One only has to remember the promises made with regard to the Affordable Care Act? The VA even before the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan began the agency had a dubious track record of meeting veterans demand.

Too often Washington’s solution to a problem is to spend money, but to spend $21 billion dollars on a broken system will not solve the problem it will only exasperate the challenges currently faced by the VA. 

Both sides need to quit playing election year politics and truly come up with a bi-partisan comprehensive much needed overhaul of the VA; veterans deserve it, but so do the taxpayers[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]