It is not that you don't help your Vets, it is just that this should not be an issue at this time. All this should have been taken care of years ago. The National Budget should never be considered when considering benefits for your disabled veterans. If money must be moved from one place to another to accommodate them over the short term then do it, but do it quickly it is their lives your playing with. I know that the VA system in the U.S. may need more tweaking, but there is no reason not to copy it as it is now, it is far better than any other Veteran benefit program in the world at the moment. We may complain about it, but it is only that we want more for our disabled veterans who's wars really never end.
I do see your point here. Regardless of how responsible Canadians choose to be, we should still help our veterans. The hope of course is that if we increase help to our vets now, which we ought to do of course, we would also respond as soon as possible to adjust the economy to stabilize government spending, either by reducing spending in other areas or increasing taxes, or both, depending on need. You say they are two separate issues. I say hell no! All government policy must always be looked at from a holistic perpective. Each policy decision effects, or at least ought to effect, other policy decisions. No government should ever government from the heart alone, but rather from the heart and head together, even when discussing the most emotional or patriotic sentiments. In the end, the head and analytical thought should ever disappear from public policy just because of the emotional aspect of the topic at hand.
Whenver we discuss government policy in one area or another, we should always look at the long-term effect and how we may have to modify other policies to make it feasable in the long-term. Otherwise, we risk a short-term solution whereby we borrow and spend for our vets today, only to then have to cut help for our future vets because of debt, bringing us right back to square one.
Then again, for any future war we ought to look at the overall policy aspect of that too, how we'll fight the war, how we'll finance it, how we'll deal with the potential consequences and fallout in the short and long term both domestically and nternationally, whether it's diplomatic,social, cultural, economic, health, or whatever other fallout. Before even having gone into Afghanistan, we ought to have a foreseen this (after all, it's been a problem for centuries, so it's not like we have no precedent for the social, mental, health, and other problems vets face after a war). We should have looked at other wars and their concequences, asked ourselves how we would deal with this and have a plan for it, determine whether we could afford it, etc. etc. etc. before even declaring war on Afghanistan. Yet we'd failed to do that. I hope it serves as a lesson for next time.
Now of course waht's done is done, but that does not mean we can't now develop a sustainable long-term plan for our vets today rather than just react in an ad hoc manner ruling by the seat of our pants.
