Congress: "Screw the troops!"

It's hard to imagine a story that illustrates more clearly than this one that "support the troops" really means "support the lawmakers who send other people's kids off to get mangled in their misguided wars of choice."

USA Today:

Congress appears ready to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war.

House and Senate versions of the 2007 Defense appropriation bill contain $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center -- half of what the center received last fiscal year.

Proponents of increased funding say they are shocked to see cuts in the treatment of bomb blast injuries in the midst of a war.

"I find it basically unpardonable that Congress is not going to provide funds to take care of our soldiers and sailors who put their lives on the line for their country," says Martin Foil, a member of the center's board of directors. "It blows my imagination."

The Brain Injury Center, devoted to treating and understanding war-related brain injuries, has received more money each year of the war -- from $6.5 million in fiscal 2001 to $14 million last year. Spokespersons for the appropriations committees in both chambers say cuts were due to a tight budget this year.

"Honestly, they would have loved to have funded it, but there were just so many priorities," says Jenny Manley, spokeswoman for the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The Center requested $19 million dollars -- a drop in the freakin' bucket. Next year, we're projected to spend over $84 billion on new weapons. We'll spend ten times that $19 mil for "Star Wars" ballistic missile defense alone -- a program with almost no chance of ever working and designed to counter one of the least likely post-Cold War threats.