Obama supports advance funding for VA

[unhappycamper]

Obama supports advance funding for VA
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Nov 12, 2008 16:48:01 EST

President-elect Barack Obama promised days before the Nov. 4 election that his administration would support the idea of approving veterans’ funding one year in advance in an effort to avoid disruptions in critical programs.

His pledge, made in an Oct. 28 letter to the American Federation of Government Employees, puts him on record as supporting what a coalition of veterans organizations sees as the answer to a perennial problem: funding for veterans programs that comes in fits and starts — and, in the process, diminishing the quality of health care.

“First and foremost, the way our nation provides funding for VA health care must be reformed,” Obama says in the letter. “My administration will recommend passage of advance appropriation legislation for the 2010 appropriations cycle, instead of yearly continuing resolutions that lead to delays in hiring and facility construction. I will also work to fully fund veterans care.”

Nine veterans’ groups, united in what they call the Partnership for Veterans Health Care Budget Reform, have been calling for reform because only twice in the last 14 years — and only three times in the last 20 — has the Veterans Affairs Department budget been approved by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1. This has been one of the years when the budget passed on time.

The nine groups proposed that Congress pass a budget for veterans programs a full year ahead of time, which would mean that in 2009 lawmakers would need to pass both a fiscal 2010 budget and a fiscal 2011 budget. Obama’s letter indicates support for that idea.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/11/military_advancefunding_veteransaffairs_111208w/%2e