Webloggin » Same Old Pig

An excellent article printed in the WSJ by Republican Congressman Jim DeMint details Obama’s real record and experience with earmarks.

Over $100 million delivered to IL last year
Has requested nearly $1 billion since 2005
Spent on bike paths, and International Peace Museum (which is currently featuring a guy who takes hallucinogenic drugs and talks to plants), a sports stadium and a visitor center.

Obama talks about wanting to help veterans all the time but on his website, the only ideas he has for veterans is growing the government, spending more money to “fully” fund the VA, and hiring more government employees to work at the VA.

By his own admission though, the VA isn’t doing its job. In this press release on Obama’s site where in May of 2006 he and Dick Durbin (D-IL) amended a bill that decided the VA messed up and shortchanged veterans in IL by paying lower disability than anywhere else in the country. The only thing this amendment seems to have done is force the VA to send 62,000 letters to vets. These letters explain they have the right to appeal their disability claims in an easier and more efficient way. The site posts a website where veterans should go to get this information www.va.gov/specialoutreach but the link doesn’t work.

Barak Obama’s big accomplishment here was spending $2,604 of taxpayer money in postage to notify veterans that the government screwed up. When I tried to contact the VA online to ask a question about the Special Outreach amendment passed by Senator Obama and I got this message,

NOTE: Our inquiry system will be down and unavailable because of maintenance starting Friday evening, September 12th and continuing through the weekend. Our site will be back up Monday morning, September 15th. We apologize for any inconvenience during this maintenance period.

Then I tried to call but found there are no phone directories for contacting the VA directly. Perhaps Senator Obama wants to help veterans get in shape by jumping through hoops?

Obama’s only solution to the problems at the VA is to throw more of our money at it. You can put lipstick on a government bureaucracy and call it “change”, but it’s still the same old pig.

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