Republicans support our veterans more than any group ever could.

If I read it right, it takes the cap off executive compensation. What does paying executives more have to do with bringing healthcare to vets who need it?

 

Typical Pork bill that Washington spews out. They attach some "emotion" on the edges to get support. Its disgusting...

 

The VA, like any other health care entity, needs to attract doctors and nurses and therapists to work for them. That provision allows them to do sign-on bonuses outside the GSA payscale (which btw for healthcare is far less than private sector in major metro markets even with COLA, VA scale pays well relative to market only in low cost of living states).

I guess that technically isn’t related to “burn pits” specifically, but if the VA is going to be studying this problem and offering specialized treatment for those effected you know it doesn’t all happen by magic, right? It needs to be funded, facilities and people put in place? Sounds like you guys think instead of putting money into the structure of providing healthcare or studying the problem in depth (bill also calls for epidemiological studies and allows them to lease space at Universities as needed), that instead we should just give vets a few hundred bucks compensation and call it a day.

It seems to me you guys must not know what a “pork project” is. A pork project would be throwing in some random airport terminal or bridge to nowhere, or building a VA far out in the sticks because some Senator needed his vote bought. Can you read this bill and show us that?

 

It must have been hell for Jon Stewart to be funny when he was working. He hung two 50 pound weights from the corners of his mouth the day he retired.

 

Having an unrelated budget expansion of $400 billion isn’t chump change. I can’t speak to the merits of the additional funding but that is a lot of money.

Stewart seemed unhinged. I agree these vets should be taken care of but why attach an additional unrelated $400 billion of additional discretionary spending?

 

In response to the vote Fox ramps up coverage of

 

Well there’s nothing comedic about this situation. If there was I’m sure he could rise to the occasion.

 

Look, I totally agree with the outrage on the flip-flop voting by certain Con Senators. The issues with “service connected” healthcare for Vets always bothered me. It should just be available to all that served. It’s bs that the service connection issue forces many vets into difficult healthcare choices or lack of options.

What I am looking to understand is what caused the flip-flop. Yeah, assholes and political calculus. Toomey is complaining about $400b in a “budget trick” and how these funds are being used to provide the benefits to those Vets that are impacted.

I would have expected the CBO scoring I posted in a later link to be more transparent — it was not easy to follow how the money would be spent. The resourcing is vague. After finally finding Toomey’s verbal description, I am not so worried about the VA expenses.

Toomey’s description makes it sound like he would vote yes with the fix.

 

Here's Stewart on newsmax talking about the hypocrisy of the "slushfund" pretext.

 

As some on the left are quick to point out about certain posters, just check the source.

Its always the same story. Bills with junk in them and use emotion to pressure votes.

Just write a clean bill with an intended purpose. It's not that hard.

Both sides do it and its bad for America.

 

Why must you constantly associate people with 'sides'? Is someone 'on the left' more credible than the right? Or are you appealing to hypocrisy? Would it have equally impactful to say "as some are quick to point out..."?

Is it your goal to maintain division on this forum?

 

This is one thing I very much dislike in our legislative process. It should be a rule that a bill can only address one topic, or there needs to be line item veto available for each item in the bill.

These extra things get stuffed in the bill and everybody reacts mainly to the title of the bill or its main purpose. If someone votes no because of the hidden stuff they’re labeled with all kinds of pejorative names because of the bill’s main purpose.

 

What junk is in this bill? Can you be specific? Thanks

 

So the guy giving the rant in the first video is THE Jon Stewart? I didn’t recognize him at all.

 

See my post #28. If it is clear… what is the $280B versus the additional $400B that he is concerned about? Assume for argument sake, 85 Senate votes agreed on the $280B of additional spending. What is the $400B?