No big surprise here, just more compassionate conservatism in action. From the AP:

After a $4 billion increase sought for next year, the Bush budget would turn current trends on their head, even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing rapidly — by more than 10 percent in many years. White House budget documents assume that the veterans’ medical services budget — up 83 percent since Bush took office and winning a big increase in Bush’s proposed 2008 budget — can absorb a 2 percent cut the following year and remain essentially frozen for three years in a row after that.

The proposed cuts are unrealistic in light of recent VA budget trends, sowing suspicion that the White House is simply making them up to make its long-term deficit figures look better, critics say.

And it sounds like there’s a lot of smoke-and-mirrors in the name of a balanced budget, as well:

“Either the administration is willingly proposing massive cuts in VA health care,” said Rep. Chet Edwards of Texas, chairman of the panel overseeing the VA’s budget, “or its promise of a balanced budget by 2012 is based on completely unrealistic assumptions.”

Edwards said that a more realistic estimate of veterans costs is $16 billion higher than the Bush estimate for 2012.

In fact, even the White House doesn’t seem serious about the numbers. It says the long-term budget numbers don’t represent actual administration policies. Similar cuts assumed in earlier budgets have been reversed.

Par for the course, I guess. As more and more young men and women come back from Bush’s little war of choice, unable to cope with the traumas they’ve had to deal with, this is the support they’re getting.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, which means it’s time for the V-Day Movement once again.

I learned about the V-Day Movement from my daughter-in-law, who’s an actress and V-Day activist, so, Leney, this post is for you.

V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual slavery.

There are V-Day events all over the world, including here in Vermont.

The Vagina Monologues is also being presented at Montpelier’s own Lost Nation Theater.

Meanwhile, in Florida, a theater presenting the Vagina Monologues has succumbed to pressure and changed their sign, so that they’re now advertising the Hoo-Ha Monologues.

I guess some people are a little more willing to have their eyes opened than others.

I was a draftee during the Vietnam era and a strong supporter of VVAW and the Winter Soldier Organization when I came back (from Korea, as luck would have it) and I never thought I would get to this position, but I am starting to think we should reinstate the draft.  I HATED the time I served, and used to say that the only reason I might re-enlist was to keep my hatred of the US Army from becoming stale.

Here’s why: 
1. A standing professional army is a temptation to use it.  Advancement in peacetime is slow and hard; you need a war every now and then to get promoted.
2. Professional soldiers want to try out all those toys, and I suspect you could track the incidence of war against the depreciation rates of weapons systems and find a close correlation.
3. The defense companies need a periodic war to use up old stuff and manufacture new  stuff, so there is a ready made industrial policy constituency that favors war.  Plus, a lot of retired colonels and generals work for those companies.
4.  As Michael Moore showed us in Fahrenheit 9/11, the recruiters lie to and mislead the poor kids who enlist, and they wind up as cannon fodder.Professional armies breed dishonest recruitment.
5.  Professional armies breed an “us” and “them” mentality that was well-ilustrated by Jack Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men.”  A professional military becomes an exclusive group with its own culture, separated from the general population.

So I would cut back to a small core professional military, capable of maintaining readiness, quick response and training of recruits when called upon.  Saves a lot of money, too.

Now the case for the draft.

1.  A citizen army is a powerful check on the eagerness of government to initiate wars. I doubt that Iraq would have happened if GWB had to call on average American families to sacrifice their sons and daughters for a lie.
2.  A citizen army pretty much ensures that a war must be supported by the people.  The Vietnam War was ended by the people turning against it, and resistance began as an anti-draft movement.
3.  A citizen army is democratic.  In the barracks I mingled with people from all over the country, all races, creeds and religions,and all economic classes. We were all equal before the base barber and I learned a lot about diversity, tolerance and understanding.
4.  Student deferments kept a lot of kids in school, and even though there were class and racial discrimination involved in that process, the overall impact on America was probably positive.

So there you are…