Monday, August 18, 2008

Contrary To Popular Belief, McCain Does Not Support Veterans

I'm not quite sure what world John McCain lives in, but as the Washington Post's Sally Quinn wrote today in her article Worlds Apart, I wish I were living in it. Either that, or how can I go about getting the same drugs he's getting. Just this weekend McCain stated that no one supports veterans more than he does. However, as Brian Beutler pointed out back in May:

"During a March 2005 Senate budget debate, McCain voted to kill an amendment that would have "increase[d] veterans medical care by $2.8 billion in 2006." That amendment lacked an assured funding stream, but lest one mistake this incident for a maverick's stance against budget-busting, there's more. Just a year later McCain voted against an amendment that would have "increase[d] Veterans medical services funding by $1.5 billion in FY 2007 to be paid for by
closing corporate tax loopholes." Two days after it failed, he voted to kill "an assured stream of funding for veterans' health care that [would] take into account the annual changes in the veterans' population and inflation to be paid for by restoring the pre-2001 top rate for income over $1 million, closing corporate tax loopholes and delaying tax cuts for the wealthy." That amendment died quietly, forty-six to fifty-four.
In September 2006 McCain voted to table an amendment to a Defense appropriations bill that would have prevented the department from contracting out support services at Walter Reed. The amendment was indeed tabled--by a vote of fifty to forty-eight, the sort of margin a true veterans' senator might have been able to flip if he really cared about veterans' healthcare."

So there you have it folks. Such a maverick that he votes against the interests and care of some our our bravest men and women.