Is the U.S. at risk of a brutal fiscal crisis? No doubt. When 13% of the federal budget goes to paying interest on the national debt — and the percentage keeps going up — America is on a path that has yielded chaos in dozens of nations and set the stage for World War II.
Is excessive military spending a key part of the problem? Most budget experts say yes. As of last year, the $900 billion-plus the U.S. spent on defense was more than the next nine nations combined. Analysts have long argued for cutting the number of troops and reducing U.S. deployments around the world by embracing force-multiplying technology — and by leaving behind costly 20th-century strategies focused on winning protracted land wars.
But until Jan. 20, no one with real power had made the argument that military belt-tightening should begin by squeezing the comparably small programs helping nearly 16 million veterans. Since then, the Trump istration has aggressively pushed a plan to cut 83,000 jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which helps veterans with health care, housing, educational aid and more. It has done so even as Donald Trump continues the presidential tradition of embracing service . “They love our country and they love being in our military again,” he said on March 4. The “again” shows he thinks he deserves the credit.
Yet as a comprehensive March 23 U-T detailed, the president’s embrace doesn’t extend to those not on active duty — despite his from 65 percent of veterans in November. Instead, Trump’s meat-cleaver approach to VA funding has led to dread and anxiety among the nearly 200,000 veterans in San Diego County. Many grasp that as with the White House’s approach to Social Security, the intent is to reduce spending on benefits — not by reducing them but by making them more difficult to obtain due to heavy workloads.
What’s striking is how few Republican lawmakers have anything — good or bad — to say about this cruel approach. Outside of mild criticism from Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, chair of the veterans committee, and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, most duck the issue — notably by skipping constituent town hall meetings. But as the stories grow of ailing or troubled veterans who die or attempt suicide because of their inability to get the VA’s help, these lawmakers can only hide for so long. And when they emerge, their failure to honor President Lincoln’s promise to care for those who served in our military and for their families and survivors should shape how their own service is ed.
