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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 17, 2007

President Urged to Stand Up for Veterans

WASHINGTON—The Disabled American Veterans is urging President Bush to stand up for veterans and sign a 2008 omnibus appropriations bill that provides a much-needed increase in funding for veterans health care and other programs and services. Lawmakers designated the extra $3.7 billion above the President’s budget request for veterans as “contingent emergency” funding, which means the President has to send Congress a formal budget request by Jan. 18 for the additional money to be available.

“Failure to provide adequate funding would make a bad situation even worse, as the Department of Veterans Affairs struggles to meet the needs of our brave men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and millions of others from previous wars,” said DAV Washington Headquarters Executive Director David W. Gorman.

“Because of chronic budget shortages, VA hospitals and clinics have cut back on crucial services to the men and women who have put their lives on the line for our nation,” Gorman said. “Some VA facilities have been unable to fill critical vacancies for professional health care providers and have had to delay necessary appointments, especially in the mental health area.”

Gorman highly praised congressional leaders for their steadfast support of discretionary funding levels, which for the first time, were in line with recommendations in The Independent Budget authored by the DAV and other veterans service organizations. “This much-needed funding increase, the largest in the 77-year history of the VA, will allow the agency to better meet the needs of the men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as all veterans who have served in the past,” he said.

In a Dec. 17 letter to President Bush, Gorman said the proposed funding level, which is $3.7 billion above the President’s original budget request for the VA, “is crucial to meeting the needs of this nation’s veterans, especially those returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as identified by the DAV and other veterans service organizations. Among other things, these funds would enable the VA to provide timely access to its top-quality health care, improve mental health counseling and treatment, hire additional claims adjudicators, and support long-neglected maintenance and construction projects.”

Gorman’s letter to the President noted that the entire veterans community and a strong bipartisan majority in both the House and Senate support the proposed increase in funding for veterans programs and services. “Therefore, we urge that you emend your initial budget request to allow the proposed $3.7 billion increase in VA funding without offsets in other domestic spending,” he told the President.

The 1.3 million-member Disabled American Veterans, a non-profit organization founded in 1920 and chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1932, represents this nation’s disabled veterans. It is dedicated to a single purpose: building better lives for our nation’s disabled veterans and their families. For more information, visit the organization’s Web site www.dav.org.

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Larry Scott  --

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