Georgia honors fallen soldiers on Memorial Day
May 23, 2008 at 11:22 am by Andisheh Nouraee in Scene & Herd
STATE CEREMONY FOR FALLEN SOLDIERS: 24 fellow members of Spc. Tracy Smith’s National Guard brigade have died in Iraq. (Photo by Joeff Davis)
On a day when presumptive presidential nominees McCain and Obama sparred over veteran’s benefits, Gov. Sonny Perdue hosted a somber pre-Memorial Day service at Mount Paran Church of God to honor the 137 Georgians who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001.
So many family members of fallen Georgia troops were in attendance that, when they were asked to stand, half the church stood up. Keynote speaker Retired Army Lt. Gen Russel Honoré said the best way to honor soldiers, sailors and Marines is expanding veterans’ benefits.
Not long after the ceremony, a veto-proof Senate majority (including Obama and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, but not including McCain) defied President Bush by voting to greatly expand benefits for veterans of the nation’s current wars.
(Additional reporting by Joeff Davis)
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May 23rd, 2008 at 1:18 pm
It must be fun to pretend to be a reporter. Why don’t you tell the whole story? Explain WHY the bill was vetoed. Even if you don’t agree with the reason, one exists. You are only slightly more guilty than the “reporter” in the linked NYT article. Read between the lines. Politicians love to stuff pork into bill such as ones that contain veterans benefits, and then scream when it gets vetoed that Republicans are against veterans. You should know by now that life is not that simple. How about some unbiased reporting? Consider that the bill was ladened with additional funds and special domestic projects. Consider that the bill required the new benefits, without explaining how to pay for them. The farm bill was vetoed, too. I suppose next you will be reporting that the President hates farmers.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:22 pm
That same NYT article states:
“The bill won broad support with an assortment of domestic policy items, including a moratorium on Bush administration rules that would cut Medicaid payments to the states”
A “cut” to Medicaid payments? I get so tired of the sound bites. The WSJ this week described the moratorium as the government actually preventing fraud by the states. That is not a cut. You see, the Fed agrees to pay 1/2 of medicaid costs to the states. The states overbill medicaid, send 1/2 of the bill to the Feds to get more than half, and then keep all of the refund for the overpayment. The Feds stopped that process. It is called Fraud. The NYT calls it a cut. Nice reporting job there, CL.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:09 pm
To have to listen to right-wingers suddenly get the ‘fiscal responsiblity’ bug after almost eight years of their combined horseshit is galling.
It seems that Republicans just like to start wars, not end them or pay for those who fight in them.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Emoting may be an immediate and fun reaction, but it is so tiring. Where is the discussion, the logical debate, anymore? Doen’t anyone else think that it is impossible to have a conversation about politics, say at a cocktail party or neighborhood meeting? When did we lose the ability to debate, without all of the bitter insults?
In any case, this article would be much more interesting and closer to a work of journalism if it considered why one party might have voted for this bill and another against it. Is it really that cut and dry- Should we all just believe that Republicans hate veterans and that the Dems love them? Or, were there other reasons to veto the bill and if so, what were they? Could another factor be that this is an election year and thus one party chose to use the veterans as a tool to get other legislation passed?
It would be so refreshing to just read a discussion about a bill on its merits. That is, the pros and cons. Details, man.
BTW, the republicans have historically been the party of small government and fiscal responsibility. That is part of the charter anyway. I think that many people pine for a return to those ideas.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
The federal budget was not McCain’s primary concern.
McCain supported a competing bill that offered fewer benefits because he was concerned that offering very generous benefits to one-time enlistees would encourage people to quit after one-term.
Here’s a statement from McCain’s web site:
“The most important difference between our two approaches is that Senator Webb offers veterans who served one enlistment the same benefits as those offered veterans who have re-enlisted several times.”
The whole thing is here: http://www.johnmccain.com/informing/news/PressReleases/3f5be019-fc4f-444b-8151-0d36de79a10a.htm
Proponents of the bill that passed say that Iraq war vets deserve a benefits package comparable to what returning WW2 vets got.
The big lie in the NYTimes story to me is the Webb quote about it not being political.
It is political and it should be political. Republicans and Democrats alike should run like hell from the Bush Administration’s mishandling of vets.
Simply put, Bush & Co. didn’t think the war was going to last, so they didn’t budget plan. The benefits plans in place prior to 9/11 did not assume a long-lasting war.