Tom Harkin: “This amendment I offered basically transfers $329 million from the Department of Defense to the Veterans Affairs'…”

“This amendment I offered basically transfers $329 million from the Department of Defense to the Veterans Affairs' medical account. The veterans' needs are very clear. We have a declining population, they say, of veterans, so why do they need that much money? That may be true for World War II vets. But now we have the Vietnam vets coming on board. Plus, our vets are living longer and are sicker than the general population. Plus, we have the problems with medical inflation. Yesterday, during the debate, mention was made that the veterans account got more than a 12-percent increase from last year. I checked that out. That was based on a Washington Post article regarding the VA- HUD appropriations. But when I looked at the total budget account for Veterans Affairs, from 1997 to 1998, there was less than a 1-percent increase in Veterans Affairs. That is for the total veterans budget. There was even less than that in the medical account budget for our veterans. What my amendment seeks to do is to put some money into the veterans' benefits in the medical account.”