Democrats Accuse Republicans of Heartlessness over Vet Bill, but Are Dems the Ones Exploiting Vets?

If you have been paying attention to the mainstream media lately, you may have come away with the impression that Republicans happily voted against increasing health-care access for veterans who were exposed to burn pits while fighting America’s wars.

The media and Democratic activists were up in arms over a video showing Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) fist-bumping Senator Steve Daines (R., Mont.) after the Senate voted on the PACT Act. HuffPost called it “callous.” MSNBC’s Joy Reid sneered, “Video from the Senate floor shows those very Senators celebrating, shaking hands, and fist-bumping after denying health care to sick veterans.” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes took a similar attitude: “Republicans get played. They’re so mad at Democrats they just like went out there onto the floor and they just like blocked this bill. Screw you . . . And then, Republicans celebrated . . . truly shameless stuff.” Left-wing political action committee MeidasTouch tweeted, “This is the fist bump everyone needs to be talking about.” 

In June, the bill, called the Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxins (PACT) Act, was approved by the Senate 84–14. However, in a procedural vote last Wednesday, Republicans blocked the legislation, with a final vote of 55–42. Twenty-five Republicans who had approved the prior version of the bill voted against it in the procedural vote. Cruz pointed out why some Republicans voted against the bill: “What the dispute is about is the Democrats played a budgetary trick, which is they took $400 billion in discretionary spending and they shifted it to mandatory.”

Comedian Jon Stewart reacted to Republicans blocking the bill saying, “What Ted Cruz is describing is inaccurate, not true, bulls***.” Stewart continued, “It’s nonsense. There’s nothing in the bill that’s not related to veteran spending . . . There was no budgetary trick and it was always mandatory [spending] . . . There was no reason for them to switch the votes.” 

Stewart, of course, is wrong. Cruz debunked Stewart’s claims, telling him, “you’re wrong here”:

The bill gives a $400B blank check—separate from vets care—for unrelated pork that will supercharge inflation. I support the PACT Act & the $679.4B it would dedicate to vets. It’s ppl trying to use PACT to shovel more pork who are exploiting vets.

Cruz further pointed out that the Republicans made clear to the Democrats that if they passed Senator Pat Toomey’s (R., Penn.) amendment making the spending discretionary, the Republicans would have overwhelmingly voted for the bill. Cruz said that the Democrats “want to cram $400 billion in unrelated spending onto this bill that has nothing to do with veterans.”

Code of Vets, a veterans’ nonprofit organization, responded to Stewart as well, countering his claims:

Cruz and Code of Vets are right on point. The Democrats did change the spending from discretionary to mandatory in the PACT Act. Stewart is either ignorant or lying about that fact. The last thing America needs right now is another $400 billion in wasteful spending that will only drive up inflation. That Democrats and their media allies are gaslighting the public by smearing Republicans as cold-hearted and anti-veteran is a disgrace.