Rep. Bernie Buescher is currently running various political ads, for his re-election, announcing how supportive he is of veterans and that he was motivated to right a wrong done to them (return money appropriated from the Colorado Veteran’s Fund) several years ago.

If Bernie was really so motivated (as he said, “It was stuck in my craw”), why did he wait 4 years to introduce legislation to correct the situation?

On top of that, it was Rep. Steve King who first introduced a bill (HB-1077) to return the misappropriated money to the Colorado Veteran’s Fund, not Buescher.

Bernie all but plagiarized King’s bill and, with the help of the eastern state Democrats, got his version approved by the Legislature, with some very significant changes (and not widely known conditions).

Those conditions were:  There could be no challenge, petition, lawsuit, etc., against the bill (or the bill was null and void); the money must remain untouched in the Veteran’s Fund for 3 years (until July 1, 2011);  and, all interest accrued by that returned amount (through July 1, 2011) would be credited to the State’s General Fund.

Wow!  Thank you so much, Bernie, for returning that money to the Veteran’s Fund.  They will no doubt need that money by the year 2011.

Bernie, I ask you – if something was taken from your family  5 years ago, and it was, today, announced that it had been returned to them, but they could not access it,  use it or benefit from it, for the next 3 years, would you announce this revelation with the enthusiasm that you do now ?

GARY PARROTT
Grand Junction

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.