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Senator Klobuchar Holds Summit with Duluth Area Veterans

Highlights Priorities to Support Minnesota's Veterans

January 3, 2008

Duluth, MN – U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar convened a summit meeting this morning in Duluth to highlight federal priorities for supporting Minnesota’s veterans.

The summit meeting was also an opportunity for Klobuchar to be reunited with several Minnesota National Guard members from the Duluth area who she met during an official visit to Iraq in 2007, including the firefighters she met at the Baghdad Airport who invited her join them in saluting the flag-draped coffins of fallen soldiers were lifted onto a plane.

“America has a responsibility to deliver on our promise to do what’s right by the men and women who have served and sacrificed for our nation,” said Klobuchar.

She said the government in Washington was not prepared for the protracted nature of the war in Iraq or the impact it would have on the members of America’s military services.

“These men and women have served our country on the front lines,” said Klobuchar.  “But, on returning home, too many have found themselves at the end of the line, waiting to get the health care they need and the benefits they have earned.”

During her first year in the U.S. Senate, Klobuchar has pursued a number of initiatives on behalf of the Minnesota National Guard and all of Minnesota’s veterans. 

At the Duluth meeting, she provided an update on legislation that was passed by Congress during 2007 to increase funding for veterans’ services and support returning National Guard members and Reservists, including full funding of the landmark “Beyond the Yellow Program” for returning soldiers and their families.

Klobuchar noted that the 2008 omnibus spending bill, which Congress passed last month, provides an increase of $3.7 billion in contingent emergency funding for veterans’ programs.  That brings total spending for veterans’ medical care to $37.2 billion for 2008. 

In addition, the Defense Appropriations Bill is providing $23.5 billion in military health care funding, nearly $1 billion over what the president had asked for.  The 2007 supplemental spending bill, which was passed earlier last year, also provided $900 million dollars for treatment and research on traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder.

At the summit meeting, Klobuchar discussed additional federal initiatives that she will be advocating in 2008.  Specifically, she outlined new Congressional legislation she has introduced that will make it easier for veterans to receive the educational benefits they are entitled to; for veterans’ families to get the mental health care services they need; and for veterans in rural communities to get access to health care and other services they have earned.

The Duluth meeting was also an opportunity for Klobuchar to gather information from the local veterans’ community about how best to meet their needs, whether by action at the grassroots community level or in the halls of Congress. 
 
Klobuchar heard from a panel that included representatives from the Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans, the Twin Ports VA Clinic, the Duluth Vet Center and the Minnesota Air National Guard.

“This is important to me,” said Klobuchar, “because I’ve gone to our nation’s capital not only to represent the people of Minnesota, but also to change how things are done in Washington so our government will be more accountable and responsive to all of us, especially America’s veterans.”

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