{"id":243,"date":"2004-06-02T18:09:34","date_gmt":"2004-06-02T16:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meisterplanet.com\/journal\/?p=243"},"modified":"2004-06-02T18:09:34","modified_gmt":"2004-06-02T16:09:34","slug":"how-not-to-spend-memorial-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.meisterplanet.com\/journal\/2004\/06\/02\/how-not-to-spend-memorial-day\/","title":{"rendered":"How NOT to spend Memorial Day . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

President Bush spent the Memorial Day weekend thanking the nations veterans for their service, saying we acknowledge the debt [we owe them] by showing our respect and gratitude.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

… except this was mere hours after the Bush administration had announced new plans to cut $1 billion from the Veterans Administrations budget in a second term if it gets reelected2<\/sup>. The Administration has already tried to close several VA hospitals throughout the country3<\/sup> in moves that have been criticized by veterans groups nationwide4<\/sup>. Recently 164,000 veterans have been cut off from their existing prescription drug coverage by the White House5<\/sup>, and the President has threatened to veto6<\/sup> any bill that would allow veterans to receive both the military pension promised as well as any disability compensation they are entitled to.<\/p>\n

Definitely not the best way to show your thanks to those whove served in uniform on this day.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Presidential Weekly Radio Address Speech, WhiteHouse.gov, 05\/29\/04.<\/li>\n
  2. “Democrats rip Bush’s outline for cuts in domestic programs,” Palm Beach Post, 5\/28\/04.<\/li>\n
  3. “VA Seeks Major Hospital Overhaul,” CBS News, 8\/05\/03.<\/li>\n
  4. “President Bush’s Veterans’ Budget Called Woefully Inadequate and Inexcusable,” Senate Democratic Policy Committee, 2\/12\/04.<\/li>\n
  5. “VA Cuts Some Veterans’ Access to Health Care,” Washington Post, 1\/17\/03.<\/li>\n
  6. “Bush Threatens Veto of Defense Bill,” Washington Post, 10\/7\/02, p.A02.<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    President Bush spent the Memorial Day weekend thanking the nations veterans for their service, saying we acknowledge the debt [we owe them] by showing our respect and gratitude.1 … except this was mere hours after the Bush administration had announced new plans to cut $1 billion from the Veterans Administrations budget in a second term … Continue reading “How NOT to spend Memorial Day . . .”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meisterplanet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meisterplanet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meisterplanet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meisterplanet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meisterplanet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.meisterplanet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meisterplanet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meisterplanet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meisterplanet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}