Cadmean Victory

Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets.
So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine
--Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (1992)

"Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog.
Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh!
There's so little hope for advancement."
--Snoopy
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The White House threatens to veto the current Iraq funding bill, saying the "add-ons for veterans and the unemployed were unacceptable." Compassionate conservatism at work for you.

In a budget proposal of $195 billion, $162.5 billion was allocated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, enough to keep them funded into 2009.

Our own North Florida Representative Allen Boyd (D), Vietnam vet and Combat Infantry Badge-holder, is a leader of the "Blue Dog coalition," a group of conservative House democrats objecting to --

"the creation of a program that would guarantee veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan a year of in-state college tuition for each year served in the war zones. The Blue Dogs said the House had not found any additional money, through spending cuts or tax increases, to pay for the program, a violation of pay-as-you-go rules imposed by House Democrats in early 2007 ("Blue Dog Democrats Join GOP in Opposing War Bill.")

So these Blue Dog Democrats, Republican in all but name alone, cannot see fit to fund a meager proposal like 1 year war zone service = 1 year college? If four years in a combat zone is what it takes to earn a college degree, Ranger wouldn't want to go to school that badly.

The Blue Dogs have qualms about extending education benefits due to lack of funds, but they have no such qualms about financing the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) in Iraq and Afghanistan with deficit spending.

The message is loud and clear: deficit spending and emergency funding for phony, feel-good elective wars is automatically enacted, while anything favoring veterans once repatriated is hard-fought and hard-won, if won at all.

Why must veterans issues be so politicized? Have the veterans not earned their place at the federal feed trough? Ranger believes they have. Moreover, their needs should take priority over those of Iraq and Afghanistan.

If we want a better, more competitive society, we need a better-educated citizenry. That was the great success at home following WWII -- the veterans who availed themselves of the GI Bill upon their return, contributing to their society rather than proving a burden upon it. We need that same vision today.

Spend our deficit dollars on veterans; we know they are faithful and true Americans. The Afghanis and Iraqis have done nothing to earn our respect or our dollars.

For shame Allen Boyd and any other veteran legislator who denies education benefits in favor of continuance of these wasteful hostilities.

The Blue Dogs may tout their fiscal responsibility, but they are morally bankrupt.