THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 3, 1995 TAG: 9503030393
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
The Republican drive to reduce the federal deficit is threatening plans to build a $29 million outpatient clinic at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Hampton.
The clinic is among $200 million in previously approved VA projects that were being considered for elimination Thursday in the House Appropriations Committee.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Jesse Brown earlier this week condemned the proposed cuts as ``un-American'' and ``political meanness at its worst.''
U.S. Rep. Herbert H. Bateman, a Newport News Republican who last year spearheaded efforts to win funds for the project, called efforts to reverse that decision ``ill-advised.'' But he conceded that the budget cutters probably will prevail in the House.
``I hope it will disappear . . . later in the process,'' Bateman said of the proposed cut. He suggested senators might be more receptive to pleas for the clinic.
The proposed clinic, which has been under study for a decade, would replace a facility built in 1910 that now serves about 180,000 patients annually, Bateman said.
An appropriations subcommittee proposed cutting the clinic funds from the Veterans Affairs Department's 1995 budget as part of a midyear budget review.
Various appropriations panels in the House have proposed slashing $17.5 billion in projects approved by last year's Democrat-controlled Congress.
Nearly $15 billion of that would come from programs overseen by the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Labor and Veterans Affairs. by CNB