Dad,
I wanted to clarify my position on Republicans being worse on veterans issues than Democrats, the deeper issue being helping you to understand how I arrive at the conclusions that I do.
Lindsay Cormack, an assistant professor of political science at Stevens University, wrote a book called Congress and U.S. Veterans: From the G.I. Bill to the VA Crisis. One of the topics she researched for the book was which party is better on veterans issues, Republicans or Democrats? She examined thousands of email newsletters that various members of Congress sent to their constituents to gauge how often each party talks about veterans issues. She also examined Congressional records to determine which party authors the most legislation regarding veterans.
Before answering the question, Cormack discovered that veterans related legislation originates from three subsets of congressional members: members of the Veterans Affairs committees, members with a large proportion of veterans among their constituents, and the Democratic party at large. Drawing my own conclusion here, I assume that if the Republican party was the veterans party, as many people believe, the Democrats would not occupy the last category in this list.
The reason why Republicans have garnered the pro-veteran reputation they have relates to Cormack’s observation that Congress is occupied by two different kinds of legislators. One kind, the workhorse, drafts legislation, navigates compromises, and isn’t afraid to get elbow deep in messy, complicated issues. On veterans issues, the Democrats are the workhorses. The Republicans, on the other hand, are the “show ponies that care more about pumping out media sound bites or trying to get the next viral video on Youtube.” This observation is supported by Cormack’s discovery that Republicans talk about veterans issues about two thirds more often in their newsletters than Democrats do, but Republicans author very little, if any, of the legislation that affects veterans.
If the Republicans can’t be bothered to write legislation to help veterans, do they support the bills that are written? No. To name one example from the 117th Congress (2022), 174 Republicans, or 82 percent of House Republicans, voted against a bill aimed at helping veterans who were sick from their exposure to burn pits and other toxins. Republican Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks justified her party’s position by saying that the bill was too expensive and that “We are not doing right by our veterans by being fiscally irresponsible in their name.” Nancy Pelosi asked if the Republicans thought that veterans were inclined to sacrifice their health for the sake of the national budget, and reminded them that they passed a tax cut in 2017 for America’s wealthiest people. (Much has been written about the harm the country endures every time the Republicans do this. I won’t discuss that here.) Pelosi summed up the Republican position by saying, “Tax cuts for the rich, Cancer for our veterans”
This isn’t a recent phenomenon, either. During the Obama administration, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave out 154 D and F grades to members of Congress for their lack of support for veterans. Only 12 of those went to Democrats.
It is easy, and wise, for Republicans in this day and age to appear pro veteran. Our Congressman sent me an email proclaiming his pride in being able to honor Vietnam veterans with commemorative pins and thanking them in person for their service. But to the best of my recollection, he has voted against every piece of veterans legislation that has appeared before Congress during his tenure. Our Senators have done the same. None of them talk about the veterans legislation they oppose in their newsletters, while they are quite vocal about their opposition to the VA closures here, using them to hide their voting records on veterans issues by painting Joe Biden as disconnected from the needs of veterans. In the meantime, Biden has signed four bills into law addressing discrimination in VA disability claims for minorities and the high mortality rate of pregnant veterans, among other things. It wouldn’t surprise me if our Congressman opposed all of it. He had commemorative pins to order. By the way, I am not a particularly big fan of Biden. I do not support the VA closures and think his administration is boneheaded for doing it. The Democrats are the lesser of two evils in the sense that when they try, they don’t always get it right, and they misunderstand a lot. One of my high school bullies made fun of me relentlessly for a presentation I gave in a class and turned most of my classmates against me. He didn’t have the guts to do a presentation himself. One reason that I find the Republicans so repugnant is that they remind me of that guy. They don’t try, and undermine the efforts of the people who do.
I imagine you wonder if the “evil Dems” have turned me into a liberal snowflake. My opposition to the Republican party isn’t because I am a liberal, or a Democrat. I try to be guided by facts, and the facts suggest that the Republican party doesn’t deserve my support because they don’t support me.
Your Son#Disability #Depression #Suicide #MentalHealth #PTSD #Trauma
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