Eligible Veterans to receive one-time payment of $250.00 by June 30, 2009

VA Department of Veterans Affairs
Office of Public Affairs
Media Relations
Washington, DC 20420
(202) 461-7600
www.va.gov
News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 25, 2009

VA Begins Stimulus Payments to Veterans Recipients of Some VA Benefits Will Receive $250

WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has requested the Department of the Treasury to make $250 payments to eligible Veterans as part of President Obama’s recovery plan. The first payments were sent Monday, June 22. All payments will be distributed by June 30.

As part of the recovery plan, VA is making one-time payments of $250 to eligible Veterans and survivors to offset the effects of the current economy. VA estimates $500 million in payments will be made to approximately 1.9 million Veterans and eligible beneficiaries as part of this measure.

To be eligible for the payment, VA beneficiaries must have received VA’s compensation, pension, dependency and indemnity compensation (DIC), or spina bifida benefits at any time between November 2008 and January 2009. Also, beneficiaries must reside within the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa or the U.S. Virgin Islands.

No application is necessary. VA used its existing payment records to determine eligibility for the $250 payment. Beneficiaries will receive their payments the same way they receive their monthly VA benefits — either by direct deposit or in the mail.

This payment is not countable in determining eligibility for VA pension or Parents’ DIC. The law allows one $250 payment per person. The payment is tax-free. VA beneficiaries who also receive benefits from the Social Security Administration or Railroad Retirement Board will be paid through those agencies, and will therefore not receive the payment from VA.

VA will spend more than $1.4 billion as part of President Obama’s economic recovery plan to improve services to America’s Veterans. VA’s Internet site – www.va.gov/recovery – provides current information about VA’s work to deliver its portion of recovery act funds to benefit Veterans.

ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS’ SERVICES CO-HOSTS STATE’S FIRST MILITARY WOMEN’S CONFERENCE

(PHOENIX) – Today, nearly 14-percent of America’s servicemembers are women yet services for women veterans are not sufficient to stem a rising number of homeless women veterans on our cities streets.

That will be among the issues taken up by the first Arizona Military Women’s Conference being held Friday, June 26th to Saturday, June 27th at the Radisson Phoenix City Center Hotel in downtown Phoenix.
The event is co-hosted by the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services.

The conference is designed to informing women servicemembers and veterans of the programs and services available to them and to help create a support system designed for the special needs of female veterans.

On Saturday evening, at 7 p.m., June 27th, there will be a special tribute to the women who have fallen in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Please contact Joan Sisco of Veterans First at (602) 841.7663 or Gabe Forsberg of the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services at (602) 234.8431 for more information about this unique and needed event.

EVENT: Arizona Military Women’s Conference
DATE AND TIME: Friday, June 26, 2009, 8 a.m. to Saturday, June 27, 2009, 9 p.m.
LOCATION: Radisson Phoenix City Center Hotel
3600 N. 2nd Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona 85013

House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Contruction and VA passes draft FY10 funding bill

CQ TODAY PRINT EDITION – APPROPRIATIONS: MILITARY CONSTRUCTION-VA
June 16, 2009 – 1:33 p.m.
Subcommittee Approves Spending Increases for Veterans’ Programs
By Matthew M. Johnson, CQ Staff

A House Appropriations subcommittee approved a draft bill Tuesday totaling $132.3 billion to fund the Veterans Affairs Department, military construction projects and other programs in fiscal 2010.

About $78 billion of that total would be discretionary spending, which is nearly 7 percent more than enacted in fiscal 2009 and $239 million more than the White House requested. About $54.4 billion would be mandatory spending. The Military Construction-VA Appropriations Subcommittee approved the bill by voice vote.

The discretionary total is about $1.4 billion more than the $76.5 billion allocation the subcommittee received last week from the full Appropriations Committee. The increase was to accommodate additional military construction activities in Afghanistan. The full committee is expected to formally approve the increase before sending the bill to the House floor.

The bill is scheduled for committee action June 24 and for floor action in early July.

About $109 billion of the overall total would go to the VA, which is 15 percent more than the amount appropriated for fiscal 2009 () and equal to President Obama’s budget request. Of that amount, $53 billion would be discretionary spending, about 11 percent more than fiscal 2009 levels.

The Veterans’ Benefits Administration, which pays out financial assistance, would receive a total of $56 billion, about 19 percent more than it received in fiscal 2009 and the same level as the president’s request.
Subcommittee Chairman Chet Edwards, D-Texas, stressed the need to hire more veterans’ claims processors.

“Knowing that veterans who have served our nation and answered Uncle Sam’s call when called, they should not have to wait six, eight, 10 and 12 months to get their earned benefits,” he said.

Accounts for the Veterans’ Health Administration, which runs the veterans’ hospital system and other programs, would receive $45.1 billion, roughly 11 percent more than fiscal 2009 levels and matching Obama’s request.

The legislation would also include money for veterans’ health programs in fiscal 2011, a move that would put the politically sensitive programs on a two-year budget cycle, making their funding more predictable.

In effect, appropriators would end up writing two budgets for the VA this year – one to provide fiscal 2010 funding for the whole department and the other to provide fiscal 2011 funding for just VA health programs.

The fiscal 2011 total for those accounts would be $48.2 billion, about 8 percent higher than what the bill would give them for fiscal 2010.

Edwards said the actuarial numbers that the VA provided for fiscal 2011 spending were nearly identical to figures the committee had estimated for the bill.

The advance funding figures attempt to compensate for an anticipated 4.4 percent rate of inflation for health care, as well as an expected increase in the number of veterans who seek treatment at VA facilities, Edwards said.

The portion of the bill dealing with the Defense Department – primarily for military construction projects, family housing, and base realignment and closure – would decrease by 7 percent in fiscal 2010, to a total of $23.3 billion. That would still be $317.7 million more than the administration requested.

Some defense-related accounts would grow, including military construction, which would increase to $12.9 billion, a 4 percent boost from fiscal 2009 totals. The White House requested $12.7 billion.

Family housing projects would take a hit, receiving the administration’s request of $2 billion – a 38 percent drop from fiscal 2009 levels.

Funding for projects related to the 2005 round of base realignments and closures would decline by 15 percent, for a total of $7.5 billion, the same amount requested by the administration.

Source: CQ Today Print Edition
Round-the-clock coverage of news from Capitol Hill.
© 2009 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Do any of you think the Draft would ever be re-instated? How would Americans react to such an action of our Government?

The first Military draft was  ordered by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 during the Civil War. In the Union it was legal for a draftee to buy his way out of the military service for the substantial sum of  $300. Draftess could also send substitutes in their places.

Since then the United States has used conscription in World War l, World War ll, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.  WWll had the largest number of draftees with 11,535,ooo (61% of all troops who served during the war) Of nearly 18 million men examined for induction, about 36% were rejected as physically or mentally unfit for service.  Contrary to rumor, most, nearly 70%  enlisted in the Vietnam era. The Psyciatric casualty rate in combat for WWll veterans was 26%;  in Vietnam it was 3%. However it rose to about 30%  five years after the war.

In 1981, the United States Supreme Court ruled that women do not have to register for the military draft because they are specifically excluded from combat, the Congress has the power to establish a male-only draft. The Department of Defense maintains that to this day, women are not serving in combat.  I take  issue with this stance, as I have attended tons of workshops with  women who drove trucks in convoys that were steeped in combat.

How do you feel about the possibility of a Draft, as we are a little short on personel?