DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson has rolled out a $15.5 billion plan for military veterans that includes cutting their income taxes, giving them a health care card to access private care and expanding education benefits.

The New Mexico governor would pay for the plan by collecting certain capital gains taxes, which he said would pull in $25 billion a year.

He said conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington represent the Bush administration's "terrible mistreatment of America's veterans."

"President Bush has treated our nation's heroes with a shocking lack of concern," Richardson said in a statement released prior to his speech Friday.

In February, reports surfaced of shoddy outpatient treatment, poor living conditions and bureaucratic delays at Walter Reed.

Soon afterward, Bush set up a presidential commission chaired by former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole and Donna Shalala, former Health and Human Services secretary during the Clinton administration.

The panel urged broad changes to veterans' care that would boost benefits to family members caring for the wounded, establish an easyto use Web site for medical records and overhaul the way disability pay is awarded. It also recommended stronger partnerships between the Pentagon and the private sector to boost treatment for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Not every wound can be treated with bandages," Richardson said during his speech. "We have to have a national strategy and we don't. We need to make mental health care a priority for veterans."

He said his plan would implement the recommendations of the Dole-Shalala Commission, which he estimated would cost $100 million.

Richardson began his "Keeping Our Promise" tour in Davenport. His campaign planned 29 stops in 23 Iowa towns over four days to roll out the plan, which included eliminating federal income tax for all veterans in their first year as civilians, a $2.2 billion cost. It also would reduce federal income taxes for all veterans by 5 percent for life at a cost of $6.1 billion annually.

Other plan benefits would include:

- A health care card entitling veterans to their choice of care when they cannot conveniently access Veterans Affairs Department care.

- Full mandatory funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

- One year of comprehensive disability insurance for family members who must leave work to care for a critically wounded soldier.

- Enactment of the Defenders of Freedom Tax Relief Act, which would offer tax credits to help offset lower pay members of the National Guard or Reserves might receive while they're on active duty.

- Expanding education benefits by as much as $24,000 through a loan forgiveness program.

Richardson was joined by New Mexico Secretary of Veterans Services John Garcia, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam, and Lou Helwig, director of field operations for the New Mexico Department of Veterans Services. Helwig spent 12 years in the Air Force.

Retired Army Brig. General John Johns, a combat arms officer for more than 26 years, was also campaigning for Richardson.

Congressional Medal of Honor winner Hiroshi Miyamura, an auto mechanic and gas station owner who was wounded in 1951 and held as a prisoner of war for 27 months by the Chinese, also was making campaign stops as part of the rollout of Richardson's veterans plan.