1115.org

Our president who art divorced from both reality and truthfulness, expressed both those aspects of his character during his radio address on Saturday, when he addressed the defense spending bill recently passed by the Senate and now due to be taken up by the House. The bill, you may recall, includes a 3.9% pay raise for soldiers, as well as the Webb/Hagel expansion of the GI Bill. Both those provisions are vehemently opposed by the White House.

So here’s what your President said on Saturday to those who are still listening to him:

Our men and women in uniform and their families deserve better than this. Around the world, our troops are taking on dangerous missions with skill and determination…. Each day, the men and women of our Armed Forces risk their lives to make sure their fellow citizens are safer. They serve with courage and honor. They’ve earned the respect of all Americans. And they deserve the full support of Congress. … Congress should pass a responsible funding bill that gives our men and women in uniform the resources they need — and the support they have earned.

Even casual Bush-watchers will hardly be surprised at this point in his presidency to find that “deserve better” apparently means “deserve less”. Our men and women in uniform deserve unending lip service (which is why Dana Perino loves to tell us about Bush’s “strong commitment to strengthening and expanding support for America’s service members and their families”), but they plainly don’t deserve more generous education benefits. After World War II, the G.I. Bill helped send a generation of U.S. veterans to college by paying all their college expenses. Today, for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the GI Bill doesn’t even begin to cover college costs. And that’s how Bush wants to keep it. One of these days, in a weak moment, Perino might let it slip whether Bush thinks today’s veterans don’t need an expanded G.I. Bill, or don’t deserve it, or whether they just haven’t earned it.

Our brave men and women in uniform, whom Bush honors and supports with empty words every chance he gets, also don’t need or deserve or haven’t earned a pay increase that will keep their salaries increasing just at the current rate of inflation.

The bill includes a section to raise the pay for the soldiers by 3.9 percent – an increase of 0.5 percent over the Bush administration’s request. In a “Statement of Administration Policy” released [on May 22], the White House asserts that it “strongly opposes” the pay increase authorized by Congress…. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that the 0.5 percent increase in troop pay would mean spending just an extra $324 million in 2009:

At the same time it is strongly opposing a slight increase in pay for the troops, the Bush administration is asking for hundreds of billions more for war. To put it in all in context, the White House wants $165 billion to continue fighting the Iraq and Afghanistan wars this year, but refuses to spend 0.2 percent of that amount ($324 million) to provide the troops a slight pay raise.

Let’s put the size of the extra pay raise that George Bush strongly opposes in its proper perspective. One, at $165 billion per year, one day’s funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is $452 million. Two, the inflation rate has exceeded 3.9% for every single month in 2008 so far.

Perhaps George Bush thinks — to the extent that he can be said to think at all — that, in an economy where so many hard-working Americans find their wages declining in real terms, it’s irresponsible to give our brave and valiant men and women in uniform a pay raise that helps them keep pace with inflation?