Supporting the Troops | Republican Style

Bush says he will veto a 3.5%(only 3.5%) pay increase for our troops dying every week in his war in Iraq. He'll also veto a survivor's benefit for families of slain soldiers. Here's more from Kos:

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"Supporting" the Troops

The Democratic House has included two provisions in its version of the defense authorization bill for 2008 that would give troops a 3.5 percent pay raise as well as increasing the level of benefits for survivors of slain soldiers and civilians employees. The Bush administration's reaction?

Bush budget officials said the administration "strongly opposes" both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases "unnecessary."

And from Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org:
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Bush Opposes More Money for Troops and Survivors - Explain That!

The president just vetoed legislation so he would be able to send more troops into the middle of the Iraqi religious civil war - without end, mind you - but is against increasing benefits to the spouses of those lost, or a pay increase to those who are serving? If there's a more fitting definition of 'outrage,' I'd love to see it.

I doubt I even need to go into this further to get the point across about how shameless this is, but for the hell of it, I will.

Forty dollars a month might seem like chump change to millionaires like the president and vice president, but for a mom of a young kid who just lost her husband in Iraq, that $480 a year means some school clothes and supplies, a few trips to the grocery store, and some health insurance copays. Believe me, even with the current benefits that get paid out by the Department of Defense and insurance that many troops buy into, those who lose spouses in Iraq aren't sleeping in mounds of cash. The increase proposed by Democrats will mean a hell of a lot. At VoteVets.org, we've heard absolute horror stories on the type of cutbacks that widows and widowers have had to make because the government doesn't provide enough to those who lose a loved one in war.
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