A reserve fund will be established to allow the entire Federal share of revenues resulting from a potential tobacco settlement to be dedicated to bolstering Medicare's solvency. The purpose of the extra veterans funding would be to give smoking-related disability benefits to veterans and their survivors. The Rockefeller second-degree perfecting amendment would add language to the same effect. After the vote, the Senate agreed to a pending Domenici second-degree substitute amendment to the Rockefeller amendment. See vote No. 76.
Highway construction is certainly important, but veterans benefits are a greater priority.
After long debate, and for very good reasons, the Government long ago decided that veterans disability compensation is not limited to combat-related conditions. In 1993, the VA general counsel interpreted the law to require the payment of disability compensation to veterans who could prove they had become addicted to tobacco while in military service, if that addiction continued without interruption and resulted in an illness and disability. We agree with the general counsel's ruling. Many of us served in the military, and we remember that we were encouraged to smoke at every opportunity. Cigarettes were given to us free in our rations, and tobacco products were sold in commissaries at discounts as high as 75 percent.