Sen. Tom Coburn stands by effort to delay bill for disabled vets

[sabra]

Source: newsOK

WASHINGTON — Sen. Tom Coburn continued Monday to block a bill providing new health care services for veterans, despite strong backing of the bill from veterans two days before the national holiday in their honor.

Coburn, who is single-handedly preventing the bill from passing the Senate, said Monday that the bill would add an estimated $3.7 billion to the deficit over five years and that lawmakers had made no effort to find corresponding cuts in other programs. Moreover, he said, the bill’s assistance for caregivers for disabled vets only applies to veterans from the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

...

But Coburn said he has offered a number of programs that could be cut to help pay for the new benefits — including subsidies to cotton producers who store their crops under a federal loan program and subsidies to air carriers who provide service to some small communities.

Coburn said veterans had shown great courage in their jobs defending the country and that lawmakers should show courage in their jobs by cutting some old programs to pay for new ones, rather than passing the debt on to future generations.

"There’s no question we do want to do the right things for our veterans,” Coburn said. "But there has to come a time when we are forced to make the hard choices.”



Read more: http://www.newsok.com/sen.-tom-coburn-stands-by-effort-to-delay-bill-for-disabled-vets/article/3416008?custom_click=pod_headline_oklahoma-state-capitol-news

[Betty]

1. why don't we find corresponding cuts

to pay for these fucking wars??? Wars that are creating soldiers who will need extensive health care for the rest of their lives????

[sinkingfeeling]

2. I suggest we take $600 million a year from the defense budget.

[rfranklin]

5. Remove any federal spending from Coburn's state...

You have to play the game seriously.

[Roland99]

7. That would only be 0.08% of the "on the books" budget for Defense.

[Winterblues]

11. Which would be just about the six hundred million dollars asked for.

:shrug:

[nykym]

3. He should be asked to

drop the earmark for his Office of Unborn Children's Health.

[Bitwit1234]

4. Got an idea

Dip into cheney's war chest and bush's money to pay for this. Cheney made a pot full off his trickle down effect from his no bid contracts, which jacked up the cost of the war. You see, Halliburton, Bechtol, KBR his take alone would almost cover the whole bill.

Then start on all the republicans in congress who aided and abetted bush in spending all that money to cover tax rebates and cuts for big business.

Bet we should send a letter to Coburn and ask him how much he can kick in.

[Submariner]

6. Just another republican draft-dodging coward screwing the veterans

nothing new here. Typical chickenhawk repuke ploy.

[ej510]

8. Yet alot veterans vote for this douche.

[Bigmack]

9. I agree with Coburn....

It's time to stop babying those vets! They should have ducked those bullets... seen those IEDs in time .... avoided all that PTSD nonsense. If they had any patriotism at all, they simply would have fucking died rather than just hang around and cost us money.

Deep, dark, Marine Corps Birthday :sarcasm: intended.

[NoodleyAppendage]

10. When Coburn comes up for re-election, Dems should run an ad of him kicking a wheelchair bound vet.

Seriously. His actions on this should be magnified in attack ads that highlight what his actions have wrought. If I were structuring the ads, I would find out how many caregivers committed suicide as a result of Coburn denying passage of this bill and then run their faces silently on the screen with trailing text denoting who they were and their age.

J

[groundloop]

12. President Obama's Veteran's Day speech

would be a great opportunity to embarrass the hell out of Coburn. I'd love to see the President call him out and make sure everyone knows what this idiot is up to.

[TomCADem]

13. Sheesh, Heck Of A Way For Coburn To Celebrate Veteran's Day

Amazing.

[Vinca]

14. I hope the folks at the VFW, who often vote Republican,

are aware of Colburn's refusal to support them. What a rat bastard.