In honor of Veterans Day, Mike Pence penned an op-ed for Fox News (who else?), Vice President Mike Pence said that the military has “no better friend than President Trump,” and then listed all of the things Trump has done for the military and for veterans since becoming president.
‘The debt our nation owes those who have worn the uniform is a debt we will never be able to fully repay. But just as those courageous men and women have fought for us, our entire administration has fought for them.’
He differentiated between veterans’ benefits and programs like Medicaid, food stamps, and housing assistance, saying “veterans’ benefits are not entitlements – they’re earned.” Of course, Social Security is not an entitlement, either. It is also earned and Pence has been silent on Trump and the GOP Congress’s promise to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Pence did not embellished the measures Trump has taken to improve conditions for veterans; however,. he failed to mention all of the many things Trump has done that have hurt veterans. For instance, Pence bragged that Trump has ensured “access to the real-time, world-class care they have earned, whether at a private health-care provider or the Department of Veterans Affairs.”
However, veterans’ groups say this is not a win. In June, they said that they were worried about Trump’s move to establish “the makeup of a commission focused on closing VA facilities. The other concerns [include] transferring funding of veterans’ healthcare from VA facilities to private entities.”
The vice president also insisted that veterans are greatly benefitting from Trump’s new programs, since “Trump signed into law the largest investment in our national defense since the days of Ronald Reagan.” However, The Center for American Progress writes:
‘For every $2 of the cuts Trump wants to make to services and benefits for veterans, which will total more than $154 billion over the next decade, Trump plans to give more than $3 to the adult children of millionaires and billionaires.’
Pence also boasted that under Trump, 54,000 homeless vets now receive housing assistance. Under Obama, however:
‘The number of veterans using VA homelessness programs has nearly doubled nationwide, from 158,000 in 2011 to 304,000 in 2016. The efforts have been so successful that even critics who blasted the Obama administration for the many failures of the VA have offered grudging respect.’
Veterans have much better friends in our country that Trump.
Featured image via Flickr by NASA HQ Photo under a Creative Commons license
