GOP Sen. Ron Johnson: It costs too much to fund the VA

From Daily Kos:

The war on terror started on September 11, 2001. Congressional leadership has had almost 13 years to build up the VA with enough staff and facilities to care for the wounded from two wars. After news broke that the VA was failing our veterans, the Senate finally began to act. A bill was brought to the Senate floor that would allow the VA to contract with private medical facilities, enabling veterans facing long waits to get quicker treatment. The VA would also be able to use $500 million from its current budget to hire more medical staff. While I do not agree with allowing veterans to go to private medical facilities, this bill was a good start. The organization clearly needs more doctors, more nurses, more staff, more facilities. Only three senators voted against this bill. Of those three, one of them is my senator, Ron Johnson (R-WI).

Sen. Johnson said that he couldn’t support the bill because of its cost—$35 billion the first two years and $50 billion per year after that, according to a preliminary estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

More here.

As with other important social services, we do, in fact, have the money. We always have the money. America is an amazingly, overwhelmingly, drastically wealthy nation. We have the money to do all kinds of things without sending the nation to the poorhouse. All we have to do is take it, in taxes from the insanely rich, or from corporate welfare and crony capitalist tax breaks, whatever. The money's there.

It's just a straight up lie to claim that we can't pay for the Veteran's Administration.

But, you know, even if one could convincingly make the assertion that we don't have enough money to pay for the VA, it just wouldn't matter. It would still be a top, maybe THE top, priority to FIND the money. Because this country fucking OWES veterans.

We send them into harm's way, we send them to throw their bodies into the line of fire for us, for this country. We owe them everything. I mean, this has nothing to do with whether one agrees with the conflict in which our soldiers fight. I think Iraq/Afghanistan was over-the-top stupidity, myself. But all these men and women went because they were ordered to do so. Because they love this country so much that they're willing to sacrifice themselves for it. We must treasure this level of dedication.

It's a no-brainer. We take care of our veterans. Period. So fuck this Senator Johnson guy. Fuck him HARD. Supporting the troops fucking means supporting the troops. For life.

Fucking asshole.

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