The Most Powerful Person

I find it amazing that in this country of ours that one PERSON has so much power that he can decide on his own if a Bill won’t become law.

Let use look at how a Bill becomes law;

1.     A member of Congress introduces a bill.

2.     Committees review and vote on the bill.

3.     The Senate and the House debate and vote on the bill.

4.     The President signs the bill—or NOT. 

Now the last step mean the President can SIGN or VETO the BILL.  BUT if over 290 of the House of Representatives votes to override the VETO and at least 67 Members of the Senator votes to overturn the VETO then the Bills because law. Seems Fair to me that because ONE Person decide that the bill should NOT become law then a Super Majority can over ride the VETO.

Now if you think I am talking about the President, you would be wrong. Let me give you an example.

There is a Bill in the House of Representative, HR-969, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act that has 334 Members of the House of Representative that support the Bill. Now when I went to school I did learn the 334 is greater than 290. YET in the House Veterans Affairs Committee ONE PERSON, the Honorable Congressman Jeff Miller is deciding, since he is the Chairman that HR-969 should not go to the Floor for a VOTE, EVEN if there is more than a SUPERMAJORITY already in the House SUPPORTING the Bill.

In the Senate there is ONLY 45 Members Supporting S-681, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act. This is 45% of the Senate that supports the Bill. I find it hard to believe that there wouldn’t be at least 6 more members of the Senate would vote for the Bill, but that is a guess. It would be nice if Senator Johnny Isakson would also bring the Senate Version to the Floor for a VOTE.

Now to be fair to both of them I understand they were waiting for the CBO score of the Bills. The CBO has stated that the Bills will cost about $2.4 Billion over the period of 10 years. So that excuse is over. They are also waiting for a Write Up from Secretary McDonald of the VA and the VA was waiting for a Write Up from the Navy. Well the Navy has provided the Write Up telling the VA there were no way they can test a Ship that may have been exposed to Agent Orange back in the 60’s and early 70’s.  Too much time has passed for anything to still be there.

All members of Congress are sworn in with the following oath:

‘I AB do solemnly swear (or Affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or
purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.’

It's easy for Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans to understand this oath because it is very similar to the oath we had to take when we joined the Navy. So the oaths states they are going to follow the Constitution. It some what easy to understand, well, if you can understand the Constitution.

Now MY UNDERSTANDING of the Constitution is that both the Members of the
House and Senate are elected to represent the will of the people that not only elected them but who they represent. This is easy enough for me to understand. Now of course not all constituent are going to agree so they should do as a majority of the constituent want, which is if they are in favorite of the Bill it would seem that their constituent are in favorite of the Bill.

Now to me it seems that at least Chairman Jeff Miller is either Breaking the Law or Violating the Constitution by not allowing the Bill to go to a floor for a vote.  They are deciding what they want and not what a majority of the fellow Members of Congress are wanting. So it seems that the most Powerful Person in OUR government is NOT the President of the United States but the Chairman of the Veterans Affair Committees.

These are my opinion. I’m not a lawyer; this is done with some research and guessing. I have been working for about two years helping to get the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act along with many others. I started the Blue Water Awareness Group on Facebook under 2 years ago and there we have many great members working towards the same cause in getting the Members of Congress to understand why we feel they should bring back the benefits that were taken away from Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans in 2002.

Many of us have the effect of being exposed to Agent Orange; in my case I have Prostate Cancer, which is on the list of diseases that Agent Orange cause. I also have Thyroid Cancer, which there is now finding evidence that Agent Orange may cause problem with the Thyroid. Yet the VA says that I couldn’t have been exposed to Agent Orange since I was stationed on a ship. Yet there are studies both here in the US and in Australia those shows that members of the Navy may have been exposed to Agent Orange by the way of the way the water on Naval Ships distilled for cooking, cleaning, bathing and all the other reason water is used. BUT the VA along with Congressman Jeff Miller don’t believe it.

Mike Yates

Blue Water Navy Awareness

thebluewaternavyawarenss@gmail.com