GOP Scrambles to Fill Veterans' Shortfall

Saturday July 16, 2005 8:16 PM
AP Photo WX103
By SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Fellow Republicans warned House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay more than a year ago that the government would come up short - by at least $750 million - for veterans' health care. The leaders' response: Fire the messengers.

Now that the Bush administration has acknowledged a shortfall of at least $1.2 billion, embarrassed Republicans are scrambling to fill the gap. Meanwhile, Democrats portray the problem as another example of the GOP and the White House taking a shortsighted approach to the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and criticize their commitment to the troops.

New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, as chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, had told the House GOP leadership that the Veterans Affairs Department needed at least $2.5 billion more in its budget. The Senate passed a bill with that increase; the House's bill was $750 million short.

Smith and 30 other Republicans wrote to their leaders in March 2004 to make the point that lawmakers who were not the usual outspoken advocates for veterans were troubled by the move. Failure to come up with the additional $2.5 billion, they contended, could mean higher co-payments and ``rationing of health care services, leading to long waiting times or other equally unacceptable reductions in services to veterans.''

Still, the House ignored them.

Smith was rebuked by several Republicans for sounding the spending alarm, and House leaders yanked his chairmanship in January. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn., lost his chairmanship of the VA health subcommittee, and Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., is no longer on the committee. They too had signed the letters to Hastert, R-Ill., and DeLay, R-Texas.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Smith refused to blame House leaders or discuss his firing.

``I'm not doing any of this 'I told you so' nonsense,'' he said. ``Now that we're here, let's just get it right.''

Ben Porritt, a spokesman for DeLay, said that a year ago ``we didn't see any indication that there was going to be a shortfall.'' He said House leaders will ``make sure that every veteran will receive the coverage they need.''

Hastert's office did not respond to a request for comment.

The White House first told Congress that it could handle this year's shortage by shifting money from other programs. A chagrined Jim Nicholson, the VA secretary and former national Republican chairman, then acknowledged last month that his department still was $975 million short.

The House voted almost immediately to give it to him.>>>>continued

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