During election season it’s not unusual for some to criticize FLVCS for our positions on issues. We are a non-partisan group and rarely endorse candidates.

That being said, an aspect of our mission is to educate the public on veterans’ and national security issues.  

Some have criticized us as partisan for disseminating information about Mitt Romney’s avoiding military service[1], Paul Ryan’s failure to mention veterans in his budget and Mitt Romney’s consideration of a voucher program for VA. 

We disagree that providing such information is partisan. The information is factual and should be considered by every citizen, especially veterans and their families when they vote. Should we pretend the information doesn’t exist? 

We sometimes displease both parties. When FLVCS pointed out to President Obama that the surge in Afghanistan was likely to be a failure and that maintaining combat troops in Afghanistan was counterproductive, some Democrats excoriated us for not supporting the President.

Our mission is to speak out on the issues we believe to be important from our perspective as veterans who have servedAmericano matter how it rubs politically. We endeavor to do so based on facts and informed opinion. 

For those who say we have taken a partisan stand by providing information about Mitt Romney and Republican priorities, here is more information that you should know. 

The Chattanooga Times, on September 11, 2012, published an editorial titled “Faking Budget Promises” about the Romney/Ryan budget.

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/sep/11/0911b-t1-faking-budget-promises/?print 

The editorial says: 

“Ryan’s feel-good fiscal chicanery does allow him and Romney, however, to keep saying—without provoking fact-checker’s opposition— that they will keep providing veterans’ benefits, boost national research in health care and innovation, and so on. 

Voters have to know, however, that Romney’s and Ryan’s over-promising–they have specifically promised large new tax breaks for the rich and big corporations—would immediately break their budgets.”

FLVCS is a “fact checker.” 

Our position is that Romney and the Republican Party will cast aside the needs of veterans to advance their budget cutting ideology. Not only does the Ryan budget not mention veterans, on September 19, 2012, the Republicans in the Senate on an almost straight party line vote defeated a veterans job bill on the basis that it was too expensive. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/112-2012/s193  

Yet, those senators who refuse to help veterans find jobs continue to fund the Afghanistan War which is far more expensive. The very same Republican senators have voted to fund weapons systems the pentagon doesn’t want and refuse to make the pentagon account for its spending and instead of demanding that it account for what it is spending already, Romney proposes to exacerbate the waste by setting Pentagon spending at four per cent of GDP even if not needed to keep America safe. 

In our view, bloated Pentagon spending and counterproductive war weaken our economy and nation by directing resources to military spending that could, and should be, invested more wisely in other areas such as education, health care, research, infrastructure and helping veterans. 

As for Afghanistan, when Romney was asked why he didn’t talk about the war, or our troops, in his convention speech, he said, “When you give a speech, you don’t go through a laundry list. You talk about things you think are important.” 

In our opinion, nothing else is more deserving of discussion than the sacrifice of our troops. They are still being killed and wounded in Afghanistan everyday. In our opinion, discussion about the war and helping our veterans should be front and center. 

Republicans have shown us their priorities. Democrats, in the main also continue to fund the war and fail to make the Pentagon account. We ask politicians of both parties to stand up for America, support our veterans and end unnecessary war.