Support the Troops

In some quarters, that Republican mantra will get you nothing but a laugh. Stories like this are way too common:

Walking up and down the sidewalk near the Colmery-O'Neil VA Medical Center, Tim Sanders looks like a model for the "Army Strong" ad campaign.

Except, that is, for the placard he is holding high proclaiming, "Vets are losing their benefits."
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Anthony S. Bush / The Capital-Journal

Tim Sanders, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stands vigil at S.W. 21st and Gage near the Colmery-O'Neil VA Medical Center in protest of the loss of benefits to veterans. Veterans, he says, aren't being taken care of.

Sanders, an imposing 6-foot-3 inches tall, isn't the picture of health he appears to be. After tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, he is considered 50 percent disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs. He suffers physical, emotional and now bureaucratic problems.

For starters, he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He also has back and knee problems from paratrooper duty.

"The transition from combat veteran to civilian was very difficult for me," he said.

Now 32, he is entitled to care at the VA medical center and normally receives a VA check for $730 each month. This month his check was reduced to $196. He can't pay his rent or other bills.

The VA asserted he owed money for medical expenses he incurred in 2006. The VA began retrieving the money from his monthly allotment. But Sanders insists he doesn't owe the money and believes the error is being corrected, thanks to the efforts of a Veterans of Foreign Wars representative who went to bat for him. . . .

He said the medical expense he was being dunned for was supposed to be covered by the VA because he was eligible for VA medical care for two years following his leaving the Army in 2005.

Let's hope it's being corrected.

Frankly, the idea of an administration that's spending money like there was no tomorrow (and for some of them, maybe there isn't) going after the people who made immense sacrifices for the relatively paltry amounts spent on their medical care is beyond gross.

The VA claims lack of resources and a systemic defect (read bureaucrats with too much job security). That doesn't explain how they can be dunning veterans for medical expenses that the VA should be covering.

It's something that, to be fair, predates this administration, but it's this administration that put us into an aggressive war that is just sucking the country dry and has made the problems several orders of magnitude worse. Bush, as we well know by now, inhabits his own little fantasy world, but the tickle-down effect of that attitude is disastrous. Fred Kaplan gives a take on the shell games the administration is using to push it off to the next president's shoulders -- just like every other mess he's made.

And, if you think John McCain, War Hero and Straight Shooter, is the solution, guess again:

Not only has he refused to support the 21st Century GI Bill, which the Veterans of Foreign Wars endorsed last June, he has consistently voted against increasing funding for the Veterans’ Administration, which oversees all medical care for veterans:

– Voted AGAINST an amendment providing $20 billion to the VA’s medical facilities. [5/4/06]

– Voted AGAINST providing $430 million to the VA for outpatient care “and treatment for veterans,” one of only 13 senators to do so. [4/26/06]

– Voted AGAINST increasing VA funding by $1.5 billion by closing corporate loopholes. [3/14/06]

– Voted AGAINST increasing VA funding by $1.8 billion by ending “abusive tax loopholes.” [3/10/04]

– Voted AGAINST a $650 million increase in veterans’ medical care funding. [8/1/01]

Though McCain has derided progressive universal health care plans as “a government takeover,” he is mum on the success of the VA, a government-run, integrated approach that, as Paul Krugman put it, is “one of the few clear American success stories in the struggle to contain health care costs.”

I guess disdain for the people who actually do the job is a basic Republican characteristic.

You can certainly tell this is the VA under a Republican administration.