Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said the proposals – part of the Bush administration’s budget request for fiscal 2009 – “would close the VA’s door to thousands of our nation’s veterans.”

Murray’s comments came during a hearing of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, which was reviewing President Bush’s requested budget.

Bush has asked Congress to spend $93.7 billion on veterans – $3.4 billion more than the current fiscal year. The extra money includes higher spending on the health care of veterans returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The VA anticipates treating 333,000 veterans from the current conflicts in fiscal 2009 – 40,000 more than expected this year.

Bush would pay for some of the increase by slashing in half the spending on VA construction projects – from $1.1 billion this year to $587 million in fiscal 2009.

At least two projects at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System would lose funding under Bush’s plan – a $43 million project to make a nursing building meet seismic standards and the construction of a mental health services building, which carries a price tag of $178 million.

Bush also has proposed new enrollment fees of up to $750 for some veterans and increasing co-payments for prescription drugs for higher-income veterans who were not disabled during their military service. Under the president’s proposal, those co-payments would jump from $8 to $15.

The administration sought similar new fees last year, but Congress rejected the idea.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, predicted lawmakers would once again refuse to hike the co-payments.

“Year after year, Congress throws this in the garbage can where it should belong,” Sanders said.

Murray, the panel’s third-ranking Democrat, said the fees would “discourage many veterans from accessing the VA – even as our veterans are turning to the VA in larger numbers than ever before.”

Newly installed Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake defended the proposal, saying that money for treatment of veterans would be twice as high as when Bush took office seven years ago.

“Our priority, I think, is appropriately those with (service related injuries) or a severe economic need,” Peake said.

Budget plan cuts forest money

WASHINGTON – A Bush administration spending plan that would slash money for the Forest Service could lead to massive layoffs at the agency charged with managing 193 million acres of national forests, Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday.

Spending for the Forest Service would be cut by nearly 8 percent next year, to $4.1 billion, in a budget plan submitted by President Bush.

The plan could mean the loss of more than 2,700 jobs – nearly 10 percent of the agency’s work force – as well as reductions in dozens of programs, from road and trail maintenance to state assistance, land acquisition and recreation, lawmakers said.

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair, chairman of the House Appropriations Interior subcommittee, called the budget plan “an unmitigated disaster” that “would cause real harm to our 193-million acre national forest system.”

The only bright spot in the budget was a request to increase spending for fighting wildfires by about $148 million to just under $1 billion, Dicks said.

The Associated Press