The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: veterans
Kevin McCarthy

House Republicans Lie About Huge Cuts For Veterans In Their Budget

House Republicans are lying about the debt ceiling bill they passed on April 26 when they say the across-the-board budget cuts it demands in exchange for preventing the United States from defaulting on its debts won’t impact veterans programs.

The $1.5 trillion Limit, Save, Grow Act that House Republicans passed on a party-line vote would slash federal funding back to 2022 levels in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling.

If Congress doesn’t lift the debt ceiling by June 1, the United States will be unable to pay its obligations, which experts say would cause a financial crisis and recession.

The White House, Democratic lawmakers, and some outside think tanks said reverting back to 2022 spending levels would require spending cuts averaging 22 percent.

House Republicans claim they will not approve funding cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs, but the bill doesn’t explicitly exclude programs for veterans.

“House Republicans are NOT going to cut the VA budget,” the House Republican conference tweeted on April 30 after criticism of the GOP’s legislation and its impacts on veterans began to take hold. “President Biden and extreme Democrats are continuing to lie and fearmonger about the Limit, Save, Grow Act. Don’t believe them. Republicans have always prioritized veterans in our budgets.”

Republicans threatened to investigate the Department of Veterans Affairs for suggesting that the GOP’s bill would cut funding to veterans programs.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), the senior House Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee, tweeted on Monday in response: “House Republicans are lying. Their bill immediately rescinds past funding Congress obligated to the VA. And it directs massive across-the-board budget cuts without exempting the VA. Republicans could’ve excluded the VA from those cuts but chose not to. They voted to cut the VA.”

Veterans groups, which wanted explicit language in the bill saying that veterans programs wouldn’t be cut, say they feel duped: After the bill was introduced, Veterans Affairs Committee Chair Mike Bost (R-IL) had said in a statement posted on the committee’s website:

For months, Democrats have spread false claims that House Republicans would cut veterans’ benefits to get our fiscal house in order. With the introduction of the Limit, Save, Grow Act, the message could not be clearer. This commonsense bill will grow the economy and save American taxpayers money, all while protecting veterans’ benefits, Social Security, and Medicare. Republicans have always prioritized veterans in our spending to ensure veterans have access to the care, benefits, and services they have earned, and as the Chairman of this Committee, that is my number one priority. Anyone who questions our commitment to the men and women who have served should find new talking points.

“Today’s vote sends veterans a clear message: your care and benefits are up for negotiation,” Allison Jaslow, the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said in a statement published on April 26. “Veterans’ calls to include explicit protections for Department of Veterans Affairs funding in The Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023 went ignored. Politicians effectively turned their backs on us – rushing a bill to the House floor that does nothing to protect veterans’ care and benefits as they seek to aggressively cut federal government spending – and expressed no shame in doing so.”

A coalition of 20 veterans groups sent a letter to Congress saying they also fear cuts to veterans’ programs.

The groups, which included VoteVets, the Union Veterans Council, and the National Military Family Association, said in the letter: “If enacted, the proposed legislation would dramatically reduce total federal discretionary spending and could endanger funding for VA and veterans’ programs. Without specific language to explicitly protect VA from the impact of the proposed budget reductions, it would leave many veteran resources open to cuts, potentially undoing years of progress VA has made for those that have earned it.”

House Republicans say the bill merely reverts to spending levels that were in place last year.

“The President wants you to believe the sky will fall if Republicans limit spending to what it was in Dec 2022—just 4 months ago,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted April 26. “But when he signed these same exact spending levels into law last year, he sang their praises. What changed, Mr. President?”

For the past year and a half, however, Republicans have frequently pointed out that inflation has made goods more expensive, meaning that it will cost more for the government to buy the same number of items now than it did a year or two ago.

On December 13, 2022, the House GOP caucus tweeted: “Eggs are UP 49.1%. Airline Fares are UP 36%. Milk is UP 14.7%. Electricity is UP 13.7%. Groceries are UP 12%. Chicken is UP 12%. Gas is UP 10.1%. Baby Food is UP 10.9%.”

In December 2021, McCathy released a press release titled “Inflation is Crushing California’s Small Business Owners” in which he told constituents, “Republicans across the country are continuing to put pressure on the Biden administration to hold them accountable for this skyrocketing inflation – the highest in over three decades.”

After several actions by the previous Congress and the Biden administration to shore up supply chains and curb inflation, inflation has eased in recent months from its nine percent rate in June 2022. But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumer prices increased by five percent between April 2022 and March 2023.

As a result, reverting overall spending to 2022 levels would be even more of a cut than just the 22% reduction in actual dollars.

“Funding for these programs needs to rise to meet national needs, address shortfalls that hamper the delivery of government services, and help create an economy in which everyone has the resources needed to thrive,” the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, a progressive think tank, wrote in an analysis of the bill.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Kevin McCarthy

GOP House Majority Votes To Slash Benefits -- And Care -- For Veterans

House Republicans voted Wednesday to cut veterans’ services significantly and limit their health care. That’s just one aspect of Barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling and budget cuts extortion package that passed 217-215, with all but four Republicans voting for it. Those four didn’t think the cuts were deep enough.

The bill would roll back spending for the 2024 fiscal year to 2022 levels, except for defense spending. Because it’s exempted, everything else would be cut by much more. That’s an estimated 22 percent cut, which the Veterans Administration says would mean the immediate loss of $2 billion in funding for veterans services, and 30 million fewer veteran outpatient visits. The VA would lose 81,000 jobs. That would mean fewer employees to answer veterans’ phone calls, schedule health visits, process their disability claims, and provide other critical services.

The cuts would hurt rural veterans in particular, cutting necessary technology infrastructure and support for telehealth programs for vets who live far from the VA facilities they rely upon. The cuts would also limit the availability of medical equipment and technology provided to vets so they can have telehealth appointments from home.

A frequent complaint about the VA from veterans is the backlog of benefits claims. This Republican budget would slash 6,000 jobs from the Veterans Benefits Administration, meaning an estimated 134,000 pending benefits claims would be added to the current backlog. That would mean longer wait for pensions, life insurance, GI Bill educational support, and employment counseling and services.

“It’s cruel and it hurts our heroes,” said Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in a press conference with veterans groups after the vote. Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Chris Deluzio, a former Navy officer and Iraq war veteran blasted Republicans for betraying vets.

“They're doing these cuts against the backdrop of holding our economy hostage. They're telling us, ‘If you don't want to put the economy into default and wreck this country, well, you have to cut veterans care,’” he said. “It's the same guys who I see all the time wrapping themselves in the flag, using my fellow veterans and me as props in their ads and on their websites. No more. They should be hearing from all of us.”

The defense Republicans put up against these cuts is that they aren’t real, that the word “veteran” doesn’t appear in the bill. It’s true that no specific cuts are actually spelled out in the bill, but the bill rolls back the budgets and caps the growth of all discretionary spending–again, everything but defense. They pretend like chopping off nearly a quarter of the VA won’t hurt veterans. Or maybe they are just hoping the public won’t notice or care.

Take, for instance, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Mike Bost (R-IL), who said on the House floor, “We’re not cutting veterans’ benefits” [emphasis added]. No, they’re not cutting benefits directly, they’re cutting the VA’s ability to provide those benefits. A neat deflection from the truth of the matter. Democrats, he said, “with no regard for the impact of their words, … continue to speak lies about how House Republicans are cutting veterans' benefits and it's false.”

What’s false is the idea that the cuts wouldn’t hurt veterans and their families. When Republicans are reduced to rhetorical games about what is and isn’t a cut, you know they’re losing the argument. For a party that represents a big chunk of rural veterans and likes to wave the flag as much as they do, you’d think these would be the last cuts on the table, not the first.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Endorse This! Colbert Lays Into Republicans Over Veterans Bill

Endorse This! Colbert Lays Into Republicans Over Veterans Bill

After his former boss Jon Stewart assailed Ted Cruz and other Senate Republicans for voting against the PACT bill, meant to aid veterans affected by toxic burn pits, Stephen Colbert joined the chorus of righteous outrage by taking on Republicans himself.

“I’ve been making the political jokey make-em-ups for over 20 years now, and I have never seen anything so baldly cynical and pointlessly malicious as this,” he said. “And if there are children in the room, tell them to age quickly and please vote.”

Both chambers of Congress originally passed the bill, but due to an administrative issue, the Senate was forced to vote again. Twenty-five Republican senators then shamelessly flipped their votes, blocking the Pact Act’s passage, and making outrageously false claims about pork.

Evidently the incessant shaming by Stewart and Colbert forced feckless Republicans to do the job we pay them vastly too much to do and vote in favor of the PACT bill.

Colbert takes a funny shot at Donald Trump's Saudi golf tournament -- and the scary photo portrait of him there.

Watch the entire clip below:

Endorse This! Jon Stewart Says "F*ck GOP Caucus" After They Ignore Veterans

Endorse This! Jon Stewart Says "F*ck GOP Caucus" After They Ignore Veterans

At a press conference on Capitol Hill, Jon Stewart angrily called out hypocritical Republicans by name (ahem, Mitch McConnell) for doing what they do best: Pretending compassion for veterans while blocking legislation critical to their health and well-being. The bill in question would extend health care benefits to veterans exposed to toxins from burn pits. And they had already voted yes before they voted no!

“Ain’t this a bitch? America’s heroes, who fought in our wars, outside sweating their asses off, while these mother-f—ers sit in the air conditioning, walled off from any of it.”

The former Comedy Central star cited a tweet from Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), in which he wrote of an event on Wednesday, “I was honored to join @the_uso today and make care packages for our brave military members in gratitude of their sacrifice and service to our nation.”

“I’m used to the hypocrisy,” Stewart said. He then called out Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, contending that he lied to veterans he met with, and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), claiming he would not meet with veterans groups.

Every second of this appropriately profane speech deserves your attention: