After seeing the issue of sponsorship and corporate ad placement featured on the Colbert Report last night, it was doubly nauseating to see this headline via time.com. Instead of helping out homeless vets, we're ramping up our advertisements to kids to join the Army. [Army and National Guard sponsor Nascar]
Unfortunately, in the recent round of intense budget cuts in Congress, this small funding for the homeless-shelter project was slashed, along with a total of $75 million in homeless-veteran benefits. As both a veteran and an American, I don't believe that veterans' programs should ever be isolated from budget cuts. After all, if the nation is hurting, it is we veterans who have sacrificed and will sacrifice first to protect her. But when I turn the pages of the budget to find a $7.4 million guaranteed commitment to fund a U.S. Army NASCAR sponsorship — and $20 million more from the National Guard to do the same — my blood begins to boil.
Read more: http://www.time.com/...
This is truly shameful. What happened to "support the troops" ? We weren't allowed to protest the misadventure in Iraq because of the existence of an empty slogan: "support the troops".
Meanwhile, Rethuglicans didn't hesitate to accuse Dems of wanting to cut off paychecks for the 'troops' during this recent govt shutdown debate.
**UPDATE:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
That is a story from two months ago, in which a Democrat in Minnesota proposed we cut NASCAR Sponsorship. She received "threats", according to this TPM story.
Harper said he found it "ironic" that McCollum's amendment, which he said is the exact kind of government waste-cutting the new Republican majority has championed, is riling up NASCAR fans to the point of calling McCollum's office.
"We've heard innumerable times that the Republicans were elected to send a message from the people that we should stop spending money," he said. "And yet the people who sent that message want us to spend $7 million for a sticker on a NASCAR."
update 2:
Obama and General Eric Shinseski announced a major push on this policy in 2009. Progress was made! Take a look at what teabaggers want to cut: [DoD link]
Shinseki has become even more forward-leaning on the issue, vowing to achieve those aims a year ahead of schedule.
“As the president has said, ‘We’re not going to be satisfied until every veteran who has fought for America has a home in America,’” he told the Marine Corps League in February. “If you wonder what I will be working on for the next several years, this is it. We will end veteran homelessness in 2014.”
Also last month, Shinseki told the Disabled American Veterans that major progress has been made. The number of homeless veterans has dropped from about 195,000 six years ago to about 76,000, he reported. VA is working to bring that figure below 59,000 by the end of June 2012, and ultimately, to zero.
VA’s fiscal 2012 budget request includes $939 million – up more than $140 million from last year -- for programs to support this mission and build on progress made.
A comprehensive review is under way to identify vacant or underused buildings in VA’s inventory that could house homeless and at-risk veterans and their families, Shinseki told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee earlier this month.
Read More