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Support the Troops, Screw the Veterans — Part I
Two of my hottest buttons are hypocritical politicians and the erosion of government-paid veterans’ benefits.
With the war in Iraq, the two have come together nicely to make a hot button the size of a volcano.
In fairness, the erosion in vets benefits began during the Clinton administration but has accelerated since The Decider took the throne and sent hundreds of thousands of Americans to fight in the Mess in Mesopotamia and in Afghanistan.
Many of those veterans have since been discharged, and by one estimate one in five have post-combat physical and mental disabilities requiring treatment, or more than 100,000 to date.
Trouble is, many of these vets are trying to tap into an already overburdened Veterans Administration medical system and are not getting the help they need and very much deserve.
Wait, it gets worse: Given current projections, one expert estimates that about 400,000 vets eventually will need treatment.
What has the response of Congress been to this looming crisis? To cut back benefits, of course.
Who are the leading benefit cutters? The very Republicans who slavishly backed the war and have yammered on ad nauseum about how we have to support the troops.
A guy by the name of Bob Geiger and a terrific young organization called Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America took a close look at 324 Senate votes on veterans’ bennies and healthcare in the last five years that affected American troops and veterans. Their conclusion:
All Senate Democrats have been more supportive of the troops and veterans than any Senate Republicans.
Read their ratings for both Senate and House here. And weep.
15 Responses to “Support the Troops, Screw the Veterans — Part I”
This is old news if you read vets’ blogs. Bush is the worst sort of hypocrite- got daddy to get him out of Viet, and then this unnec. war and betrayal of troops.
This has been happening since WWII. For a long time the VA hospitals serving WWII and Korean vets were like third world hospitals. The wounded, while surviving their injuries, will ned much more care than previous wars. I doubt politicians from either side of the isle will spend the money once the we leave Iraq.
Cosmoetica:
Yes, this is old news on vets’ blogs, but it is no news in the MSM, and that has to change. I don’t know if poets write to their congressfolk. I wouldn’t want you to get your hands dirty, but I would urge others to bring this dire state of affairs — cutbacks, underfunding, not enough money for research into vet health care-related conditions — to their senators and congressmen and demand action.
Rudi:
I have to partially disagree. While the VA hospital system has gone through some tough times over the last 60 years, it was in pretty good shape through much of the 1990s, in part because a lot of Vietnam-era people were entering the upper levels if government.
The cutbacks began under Clinton and have accelerated under The Decider, although the two VA hospitals (PA, NJ) that I have driven people to for check-ups, outpatient surgery, and so on, are impressively well staffed and equipped. It is no accident that the congressmen representing the districts where they are located have beaucoup seniority and are very active on veterans issues. I have another friend who goes to the VA hospital in Buffalo, NY, and sings its praises. How good do you think the VA hospitals (plural) are in John Murtha’s congressional district? Can you say top notch?
The biggest problem with the VA hospital system is that a vet used to be guaranteed immediate access whether he had a hangnail or needed alcohol or drug detox. Now there is a very long waiting list for newly enrolled vets.
Sadly, you are absolutely correct in inferring that a goodly number of the hundreds of thousands of Iraq/Afghanistan vets will be orphaned by their politicians once those wars are over, and therefore will be orphaned by their country.
I agree with you cosmoetica. The billions wasted in contracting fraud, and on incompetent loyalists hired for the provisional government based on their ideology, would have been much better spent on the vets and arming the troops with proper body armor. Bush’s crony’s have raped the treasury, while betraying the very brave men and women fighting for this country that they claim to care so much about.
Wow!!
Can anybody tell me how the Republicans got to be the party that was good on national defense?
BYG- By blatantly using 9/11 and the GWOT to terrorize the populace into voting for them. The last election, Americans finally woke up to their tactics.
Want some truth in advertising?
IAVA is an astroturf offshoot of the Dean/MoveOn left. Formerly “Operation Truth” until they got splattered with the Cindy Sheehan fallout in 2004 and decided to change their name. They do all their fundraising through Democracy in Action. They’re a decidedly leftist political org that hides behind a 501(c)3 tax status and bloody-flag wrappings. It’s as “non-partisan” as the DLC or the RNCC.
Their “ratings system” is a flippin’ joke–it’s just a Dem party plug, with the votes picked to produce the desired results. And Bob Geiger is an unabashed leftist Dem party tool activist.
There are real problems with the VA. It’s be nice to see someone actually working on those specific problems rather than promoting a naked partisan agenda using vets as their poster children.
Tully – You are partially true on this one. The IAVA are a Left organization because all the brave College Republicans fought the war in a basement in front of a keyboard instead of in Balad. How many Republican Iraq vets ran in the last election?
Shaun I was addressing the fact that many WWII and Korean vets had to seek treatment in poor facilaties. You are correct that it wasn’t till the 90′s that conditions improved. What is disgusting is because this war was done in the Rummy – on the cheap hi tech – the VA facilities will not have the sheer numbers from the previous wars.
Tully:
How would you rate the quality of restored veterans’ benefits and enhanced medical and mental health services offered as a result of pressure from a left-leaning veterans organization versus the quality of restored veterans’ benefits and enhanced medical and mental health services offered as a result of pressure from other organizations?
Would you say that cancer treatments available as a result of pressure from a left-leaning organization would be inferior to treatments available as a result of pressure from other organizations?
I’m not a doctor or clinician of any sort, so I’m just asking.
Great post Shaun. Supporting the troops is more than a bumper sticker on the Hummer. I hope it’s true that the public is getting wise to the deception of the sloganmeisters in the GOP. Time for those who have benefitted most from the raid on the US Treasury to pay up for the policies that enriched them at the cost of a half million injured vets and a mountain of debt for our children. Of course the sloganeers will dash back to the tired old line about the ‘tax and spend Democrats’ as if their ‘borrow and spend’ policy of total fiscal irresponsibility is a better solution to providing for the legitimate fiscal demands of a responsible government.
This just came to mind, but the new VA hospital (burn unit)in San Antonia needed public and private donations for completion. I seem to remember Don Imus amking this his cause. His big talking point was that Haliburto and KBR would give a dime.
Look under Clinton the VA like Fema was “reformed.” They proved government can work which like Mikey said is wrong because govt is the problem.
Read this and weep:
They even get praise from that guy Berwick who says we can dramatically reduce costs bt being patient oriented and who was behind that socialist project that allegedly saved over a hundred thousand American lives by getting most American hospitals to follow a few procedures. This guy threatens private enterprise and he praises the VA for giving away their software which could cause business tens of billions a year!
The Republicans need to stop this!
Whoops forgot this:
washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0501.longman.html
Shaun, how would you rate your leaving out relevant information such as blatant info-astroturfing by party-owned political orgs masquerading as non-political and non-partisan? Would you say that [a] it strengthens your arguments, or [b] indicates that real evidence is less important to you than demonizing the opposition? Or supply a [c].
You cite IAVA’s “ratings” as some kind of evidence yet fail to note that their ratings system is artifically constructed to produce exactly what they want it to say. It’s sheer propaganda BS. Likewise, Bob Geiger is still a left-wing Dem activist nutball. When this is noted, you try to change the subject. If the GOP’ers are cutting benefits, why not cite the specific benefit cuts? MOST of the bills IAVA uses in their fake ratings have nothing to do with VA benefits programs. They just throw them in to swing the numbers around to get the result they want. They tossed in every single bill that touched on the military, and rated them by the Dem party position! GMAFB.
It’s nice if the IAVA accomplishes anything good for vets, but the fact remains that they’re a sock-puppet of the Dem party and the MoveOn left, and neither they nor Geiger are credible sources. You’ll do more good for vets by showing actual specific votes on actual veteran’s programs and who made them than you ever will pimping the party puppets.
If, of course, your purpose is actually to help vets rther than just demonize those you oppose.