Department of Virginia

VFW Urges Congress to Immediately Pass DOD, VA Budgets

Posted at 10:52 AM on Thursday, October 18, 2007 by Virginia A/Q

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18, 2007--The national commander of America's largest organization of combat veterans is urging Congress to immediately pass two key funding packages so that the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs can begin bringing the recommendations made by a pair of wounded veterans' benefits commissions into reality.

"The two most important issues in America today are the war and the care of our wounded veterans," said George Lisicki, a Vietnam veteran from Carteret, N.J., who leads the 2.3 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. and its Auxiliaries.

"But Congress has yet to pass any fiscal year 2008 funding bill, to include the VA's, which Congress has touted as the largest VA budget increase in history," he said. "You can't brag about something until you finish the job, and that means consolidating the two House and Senate versions into one bill for the president's signature."

This marks the eighth consecutive year the VA started a new fiscal year without an on-time budget. The federal government's new fiscal year began Oct. 1.

The VFW wants the DOD and VA budgets passed so that some of recommendations made by the two commissions – the Veterans' Disability Benefits Commission and the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors – can be accomplished without the need to seek additional appropriations.

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