VA HEALTH CARE
• Ensure a sufficient VA budget that properly
fills the health care demands of all veterans.
• Establish sufficient, predictable
and timely VA funding.
• Ensure unique health care and benefits
challenges of OEF/OIF veterans are met,
including increased funding for traumatic
brain injuries and improved access to care.
• Increase priority given to women veterans
by hiring specialized health care providers
and by providing training in gender-specific
issues to help address shortfalls in genderspecific
and mental health care.
• Improve outreach so that all veterans—
especially female, minority and rural
veterans—are ware of the range of health
care services and benefits available to them.
VA BENEFITS AND COMPENSATION
• Reduce VA’s backlog of pending claims.
• Ensure VA’s disability compensation
program is fully funded and preserved
in its current form.
• Oppose any change to current definitions
of “line of duty” or “programs for disability
and survivors benefits.”
• Demand seamless transition in transferring from DoD
to VA, including an integrated electronic medical
record that travels from duty stations to VA to
wherever veterans receive health care.
• Improve veterans transition services and benefits,
including viable training, employment and education
programs to provide meaningful careers.
MILITARY QUALITY OF LIFE
• Ensure that active-duty, National Guard and Reserve troops receive
increased pay, affordable health care,
and adequate housing and work
facilities for themselves and their
families.
VETERANS EMPLOYMENT
• Ensure that provisions of the
Uniformed Service Employment
and Re-Employment Rights Act
(USERRA) are strictly enforced.
• Support the National Committee
for Employer Support of the Guard
and Reserve to educate employers on
the importance of hiring National
Guard and Reserve troops and the
employer’s responsibilities as
mandated by USERRA.
• Urge Congress to amend P.L.
106-50 to state that the 3%
government-wide procurement
goal for Service Disabled Veteran
Owned Small Businesses will be
enforced. This will require agencies
to report their procurement levels
and be held accountable if they fail
to meet a 3% procurement requirement.
WAR ON TERRORISM AND
HOMELAND SECURITY
• Support U.S. troops and their mission to
prosecute the war on terrorism around
the world.
• Call for increased and timely funding to
fight and win the war on terrorism.
• Support U.S. government efforts to take
decisive and offensive action in the global
war on terror.
• Secure U.S. borders, shorelines and all
ports of entry.
• Halt the flow of illegal immigration.
DEFENSE AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
• Increase Defense spending to fund all needed
weapons programs, personnel initiatives and
troop end-strength requirements.
• Urge the continued development &
deployment of a ballistic missile
defense system.
• Halt the development and/or proliferation of
nuclear weapons or material by North Korea.
• Secure Europe through the continued
expansion of NATO.
• Investigate the 1967 Israeli attack on the
USS Liberty.
MILITARY AFFAIRS
• Seek to improve the quality of life for all
active-duty and reserve component members
and their families.
• Provide a military base-pay raise to restore
full comparability with private sector wages.
• Support efforts to lower the Guard and
Reserve retirement pay age to 55.
• Oppose any TRICARE fee increases.
• Establish a Combat Action Medal for
Navy and Marine Corps personnel.
POW/MIA
• Achieve the fullest possible accounting of all
U.S. military personnel missing from all wars.
• Ensure the U.S. government keeps the POW/MIA issue elevated as a national priority.
• Urge the President and Congress to fully fund
the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command
through a dedicated single-line item
appropriation in the Defense budget.
• Support all POW/MIA public awareness
initiatives. |
