TAKE ACTION

Add Your Name to the Open Letter.

President-elect Obama

In the coming months, President Obama has a unique opportunity to make a series of critical decisions impacting Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Sign the open letter urging him to enact these four critical policies in his first 100 days:

· Ensure that veterans don't have to fight for funding for hospitals and clinics.

· Prioritize veterans in the economic stimulus package.

· Implement GI Bill transferability.

· Aggressively address troops’ mental health injuries.

Dear President Obama,

I stand with IAVA and believe it is crucial that the men and women who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan get the care and benefits they have earned when they come home. You can make major progress during your first 100 days in office by ensuring that the following four policies are enacted:

• Ensure that veterans don't have to fight for funding for hospitals and clinics.  
Because of delays and backlogs in Congress, the veterans’ budget is often passed late, forcing VA facilities to ration care.  Advance-funding the VA budget to match the Independent Budget recommendations made by leading veterans groups, including IAVA, will ensure that veterans get the care they need in a timely fashion.

• Prioritize veterans in the economic stimulus package.  
Caring for our veterans isn’t just the right thing to do – it a sound economic investment.  IAVA calls for tax credits for patriotic employers that hire new veterans and reservists, support for veterans struggling with student loans, and investment in shovel-ready projects like repairing veterans’ hospitals and cemeteries.

• Implement GI Bill transferability.  
The historic post-9/11 GI Bill, passed last year, included a provision to allow servicemembers to transfer their GI Bill education funding to a spouse or dependent.  But the military has been dragging its feet on getting the regulations in place, so service members are still waiting for their benefits.  The Obama Administration can and must get the bureaucracy moving and make this benefit a reality.

• Aggressively address troops’ mental health injuries.  
Today, the military has a dangerous shortage of mental health professionals.  The Obama Administration should act immediately to implement new recruitment and retention incentives to encourage psychiatrists and psychologists to join and stay in the military.

Thank you.