VFW’s Priority Goals

VFW’s official positions on national veterans issues and security issues

(Positions based on national convention resolutions and rated as priorities by their respective committees.)

Dear Legislator: america's veterans Need your help 

VA Budget

• Ensure a sufficient VA budget that properly fills the health care demands of all veterans, especially those accessing their benefits for the first time.

• Establish a funding mechanism that guarantees a full, timely and predictable funding stream for veterans health care annually.

• Ensure that the unique health care and benefits needs of Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans are met.

• Ensure more funding for research on traumatic brain injury, and improved access to care for veterans suffering from mental illness.

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.”

Education

• Secure a comprehensive GI Bill for the 21st century that covers the total cost of tuition, books, fees and living expenses for attendance at any educational institution.

• Support legislation that invests in the future of the nation’s veterans.

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 re-enact the Service Members Occupational Conversion and Training Act (P.L. 102-484), which provided job training and employment for certain vets discharged after Aug. 1, 1990.

• Urge Congress to enforce a 3% government-wide procurement goal for businesses owned by service-disabled veterans.

National Security

War on Terrorism and Homeland Security

• Support U.S. troops and their mission fighting terrorism.

• Call for increased and timely funding to fight 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 of a ballistic missile defense system.

• Halt the development and/or proliferation of nuclear weapons or materiel 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, National Guard and Reserve troops 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.

POW/MIAs

• Achieve the fullest possible accounting of all U.S. POWs/MIAs 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.