GOP Declares War on America's Veterans

If there's one thing about the modern Republican party that really makes me sick, it's the unending hypocrisy. At the same time the GOP is piously spouting that we must "support our troops" and never question the Boy King's endless quagmires lest we somehow weaken their morale, the party is removing the head of the House Veterans Affairs Committee because he was too sympathetic to the veterans.

The incoming chair, Steve Buyer, has all but declared war on veterans groups, suggesting they are part of a Democratic plot to create a universal health care system. "Some within veterans service organizations confuse their party politics with how we honor our commitments to veterans," Buyer said at a press conference in his home state.

After four years thwarting policy plans of President Bush and winning some concessions for veterans health care and benefits, the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and other national groups face a new test of their clout.

It does not just come from Buyer, whom House Republican leaders installed after removing the former chairman, Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, who frequently - too frequently for the chickenhawk Republican leadership - sided with veterans groups against GOP leaders. The chairman of the Senate veterans committee also has been replaced, and Anthony Principi, the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs and a friend of veterans groups, has resigned.

The result is more than mere uncertainty in a time of change. Replacing Smith with Buyer stripped the veterans lobby of a key ally and installed a longtime antagonist with fundamentally different views of the VA's mission. It also sent a chilling signal to Republicans who have bucked the party leadership.

"They've made the calculation that the benefit to their agenda outweighed the risk of inciting the veterans public," said Dennis Cullinan, legislative director for the VFW.

At stake is whether the VA budget is frozen or cut, more veterans are shut out of the health care system, and new fees and higher drug co-payments are imposed based on income. Such changes are possible given past White House requests and the general Republican hostility toward veterans. Veterans groups have used their leverage on Capitol Hill to fight many of these efforts in the past.

Will the veterans ranks, which lean to the right, back the national organizations up, or will they accept whatever the Republicans choose to do to them?

The leadership changes come at a crossroads for the VA. The war in Iraq will make tens of thousands members of the Guard and Reserves eligible for care. The department plans a national reorganization of health care facilities intended to add hospitals and clinics in high-growth states in the South and Southwest while closing others where veterans are scarcer. Record deficits will force tough choices.

Buyer, for one, complains that Congress made a mistake in 1996, when it allowed all veterans to get VA health care regardless of disability or income. Principi in 2003 halted enrollment of higher-income vets without service-connected disabilities, known as Priority Group 8 veterans, because of budget shortfalls, shutting out hundreds of thousands. Buyer is widely expected to try to expand on those restrictions. He strongly suggested that last week by calling for a return to the VA's "core constituency" of poor and disabled veterans.

The real agenda of this should be clear to anyone. The Republicans want to reduce veterans' benefits to the barest essentials. Only the disabled and indigent veteran receives benefits - the middle class veteran receives nothing for his/her service. The middle class veteran has to pay for his/her own healthcare, thereby causing his/her money to flow into the coffers of a hospital corporation/drug company, and ultimately into the wealthy's pockets in the form of non-taxed dividends. This is in line with the Republican agenda to remove any government program that benefits the middle class and protects any wealth or security they have managed to accumulate. In this way, the assets of the middle class return to what Andrew Mellon called their "rightful owners" - the very wealthy. The oligarchy sees middle class persons enjoying comfort, and sees their wealth in the wrong hands. To the old money, the blue-collar working class of this country should never have been able to rise into the middle class. So the polarization of our society continues unabated and apparently unopposed. This has happened in our country before, and would have led to violent redistribution of this unequal distribution of assets, were it not for the foresight of a few brilliant men who forestalled such calamity. Two of those men were named Roosevelt, and both were accused of being "class traitors."

The military brass has a decided preference for a professional, volunteer military, not conscripts serving three-year sentences, and with good reason. But given these kinds of cuts, why would anyone volunteer in the first place, and why would anyone choose to give 20 years of their life to the military? One of the primary irritants to those trying to jury-rig the military budgets to make certain there's enough money for expensive toys is the cost of retiree pensions. Why would anyone give up 20 years if they're not going to earn a decent pension from it?

This is not right. This is the same kind of hypocritical cognitive dissonance that allows a person to claim to be 'pro-life' - right up until a child is born, at which point it becomes an unwanted burden on society. 'Support our troops' right up until the point that they become veterans, at which point they're flushed down the toilet. This is not the thanks our men and women in uniform should come home to. "Oh, you're not homeless, and you weren't shot, so you get NO benefits for having risked your life, your health, and given us several of the best years of your youth. Thanks, now go away and don't bother us." This is DISGUSTING.