Many Americans have been hard hit by the GOP's fiscal policies, but few places provide as much hard evidence for the turn in fortunes as the Congressional budget, where victims of our nation's wars and trade agreements continue to be underfunded.
For instance, while Congress has set aside over $1.5 trillion for emergency spending on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars over the last 15 years, no such contingencies have been made for spending on the veterans of those wars, which is considered a "non-defense" need and therefore still subject to the spending caps pushed through by Congressional Republicans in 2011. David Rogers reports:
Indeed, VA medical costs have more than doubled over the past decade, as the aging Vietnam generation converges with the younger Iraq-Afghanistan vets entering the system. The rapid growth far exceeds the pace of inflation. And under the budget caps, this leaves less money on the table for other “non-defense” needs — among them worker training and assistance.
In other words, even very modest increases in spending on veterans have taken money away from other budgetary needs, like training programs that could have helped American workers adapt to the new markets ushered in by trade agreements. For example, if you compare President George W. Bush's non-defense spending allotment in 2006 to President Obama's a decade later, it seems as if Obama has an extra $32 billion to work with.
But what’s overlooked in these calculations is the impact of VA’s rapid growth in this same 2006-2016 period.
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/HUrDmZvood8/-Congressional-budget-reveals-the-GOP-s-protracted-war-on-American-vets-and-workers
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