BANGOR – Maine’s Democratic congressmen are up in arms on behalf of military veterans, who they say stand to lose big from cuts in the recently approved federal budget. Taking advantage of a two-week Easter-Passover break from their work in Washington, D.C., Reps. Tom Allen and Mike Michaud were in Bangor Thursday morning, speaking to a small gathering at the Maine Veterans’ Home on Hogan Road.

A report commissioned by the two congressmen finds that a $5.3 billion reduction in federal funding for veterans’ health benefits would have serious repercussions in Maine. According to the report, the budget cuts mean that many veterans who turn to their benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs when they lose insurance coverage through their workplace will be able to do so no longer. The study finds that 1,900 Maine veterans would be unable to sign up for benefits because they have no service-connected disabilities. This is especially relevant for middle-aged veterans who recently have lost their jobs in Maine’s struggling economy, or who may in the future, according to Michaud.

Additionally, many veterans who are already enrolled in the VA’s health care program will be assessed a new $250 annual enrollment fee and significant increases in their co-payments for prescriptions and medical care.

“Our study estimates that 7,800 Maine veterans, including 2,600 now receiving care, will likely be unable to afford these fee increases and will consequently drop their VA enrollment,” said Allen. “As our first troops come home from Iraq and more depart to continue what may be years of operations in the Persian Gulf, this is the wrong message to send them. We should be renewing our promise to veterans, not abandoning them.”

Both Michaud and Allen laid the blame on President Bush’s commitment to a major tax cut – part of the administration’s economic stimulus package. “This is not a growth package at all,” Allen said. “So much of the benefit goes to the top 1 percent [of wage earners] at the same time that domestic spending is being cut across the board. And that’s a mistake.”

Michaud said that maintaining veterans’ health benefits at current levels would take about 2 percent of the proposed cut.

Alwin Cox of Medway, an officer with Disabled American Veterans, said the problem is that veterans are treated as a special interest group. “We go to Washington every year and get on our knees and beg for funding,” he said.

The congressmen agreed that what’s needed is a new model for funding veterans’ benefits. Rather than the current “discretionary” status, they said, benefits must be mandated in order to assure the government follows through on its commitments to those who enter military service.