One of the great political myths is that Republicans are more supportive of America's military and veterans than Democrats. In reality, its the opposite with the GOP and Trump Hell bent to slash funding for everything ranging from Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security to veterans health care benefits - calls all the more urgent give the Trump/GOP $1.5 trillion tax cut give away to the very wealthy and large corporations. Average working Americans and veterans simply do not count in today's GOP. Yes, one hears Republicans bloviating about "supporting our troops" and waiving the flag and bashing "unpatriotic" NFL players, but where the rubber hits the road, their actions do not reflect the talking points they toss out. As the saying goes, talk is cheap. Actions are what count. As a piece in New York Magazine notes, a Trump/GOP effort is underway to cut veterans health care benefits under the guise of addressing the ballooning budget deficit - the deficit that is ballooning in no small part due to the Trump/GOP tax cuts - cuts that have not trickled down in any significant way to working Americans or small businesses. Sadly, rather than "do their homework" and discover the truth, many Republican "friends" simply allow themselves to be taken in by GOP ruses and fail to ferret out the facts. Here are highlights on the threat to veterans benefits:
Last year, the Trump administration insisted that its regressive tax cuts were so important, it was worth adding $1.5 trillion to the national debt to ensure their passage. Now, the White House is warning Congress that the United States cannot afford to add $1.6 billion to the deficit to expand health-care options for veterans.
In a letter Monday, the Trump administration demanded that lawmakers fund a popular veterans’ health-care program — which allows former troops to spend public funds on private doctors and hospitals — with cuts to other parts of the budget. Democrats, and some top Senate Republicans, prefer to raise the current caps on discretionary spending instead.
The case for the latter option is straightforward. Congressional spending falls into two categories: mandatory (funding for programs like Social Security, which increases automatically as more Americans qualify for benefits) and discretionary (spending that Congress must actively renew). When Congress passed its omnibus budget bill back in March, the private veterans’ health-care program was on the mandatory side of the ledger. Thus, although lawmakers knew that federal spending on the program was going to increase, they didn’t have to account for its cost when setting a discretionary budget.
But last month, president Trump signed a law that reorganized veterans’ health care, and shifted funding for the private program into the discretionary column. This did not significantly increase the overall cost of domestic spending — but it did lift the price tag on the discretionary budget above previously set caps. Which is to say: It produced a budget shortfall that wasn’t a product of changes in fiscal reality, so much as in accounting practices.
Relitigating funding levels for various domestic programs — which Congress had found consensus on just months ago — is not a fight that most lawmakers want to have.
And it’s hard to see why the White House does. The administration’s desire to repent for its sins against fiscal responsibility is understandable enough (even if their gesture is roughly akin to a serial arsonist buying a single brownie from a local fire department’s bake sale). But why they would want to center their performance of deficit hawkery on the issue of veterans’ health care is baffling.
Yes, their official position is that the program must be funded with reductions in other appropriations. But the administration has already established that it believes corporate tax cuts are so important, they’re worth enacting at any fiscal cost. Given that context, it shouldn’t be difficult for Democrats to paint the White House’s current hard line on deficits as a tacit admission that it sees caring for America’s retired troops as less important than increasing corporate America’s allowance.
With a family member still dealing with the consequences of injuries suffered in Afghanistan, I know that these veterans' benefits are crucial. Sadly, flag waving Republicans and the foul individual in the White House do not - or perhaps they simply do not care about "little people" - people like veterans.
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