I just heard a 78 year old WW2 veteran on Limbaugh’s program who said that his prescription cost through the VA during the 90s was $32 dollars a month. Under Bush it has gone up to over $90, and the new budget calls for this man to pay even more. Cuts to VA benefits are described in just about every article that’s been written on the President’s budget for next year. My question is, when is the press going to point this out and start asking how such a thing could ever be justified?
I’m so sick and tired of blatant hypocrisy going unchecked in this country. The other night before the super bowl we cheered veterans from past wars, and earlier in the season we celebrated the memory and sacrifice of Pat Tillman. There isn’t a single opportunity to shower our troops with praise that goes unused when it comes to our elected leaders and talking heads. They eat it up. The chance for a public figure to gush over what the troops have sacrificed for this country is a giant hot fudge sundae that none of them can resist, yet the lack of outrage over raising health care costs on these beloved political mealtickets tells me that it’s all a load of opportunistic crap and has been for decades in this country.
Any public official or talking head who’s leveraged a ‘support our troops’ spiel to promote themselves and hasn’t come out against VA budget cuts is a traitor to this country and everything it stands for. In the business world little people bear the burden when things don’t go right, but that’s life. We all have to wake up and go to work. Only a minuscule few of us volunteer to fight the war, and when one of these individuals perishes for our nation’s interests it’s a tragedy.
This reality is pumped for all it’s worth when convenient. Newspapers run stories that act as tributes to the sacrifice and the tragedy of that sacrifice ending up in death all the time. Money is made off of the story of the soldier, whether they come back alive or not. For the media it’s an easy buck.
What’s utterly despicable though was the Limbaugh replacement host asking the question, “Aren’t you thankful the government subsidized your prescription costs for all these years?” After the caller hangs up he then tells us that he’s also against the cutting of VA benefits. He characterized this man’s complaint while he was on the line as if he should be grateful for getting anything, then only after the call ended did he concede that the veteran shouldn’t have to pay more for anything. He couldn’t even provide this veteran the courtesy of an honest conversation on the subject, yet once it’s over there’s no hesitation whatsoever before uses the very cuts the man was complaining about to express his support for the troops. I’ve had enough. There should be no more opportunity for people like this to have it both ways.
It’s time all these folks who capitalize on our warfighters for profit give back. The media, our politicians and most notably President Bush, have been running up debt on the spilled blood of these heroes for years now. As a former soldier, I’ve been calling for payments on this loan for quite a while. After this budget proposal, I’m sending it to a collection agency.