News/Commentary

White House buried in backlash when it tries to shame House GOP for ‘harming hardworking Americans’

April 28, 2023 | | Print Article

The Biden administration White House is facing backlash for fearmongering over Republicans’ just-passed debt-ceiling bill.

To hear the White House tell it, the bill will harm “hardworking Americans” by “undermin[ing] veterans’ health care.”

Observe:

But according to Republicans, this is phony-boloney rhetoric.

“For months, Democrats have spread false claims that House Republicans would cut veterans’ benefits to get our fiscal house in order,” House Veterans Affairs Committee chair Mike Bost said in a statement last week.

“With the introduction of the Limit, Save, Grow Act, the message could not be clearer. This commonsense bill will grow the economy and save American taxpayers money, all while protecting veterans’ benefits, Social Security, and Medicare,” he added.

What the bill would actually do is raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion in exchange for a cap on 2024 spending, limiting it to 2022 spending levels, and in exchange for limiting growth in spending to 1 percent annually over the next decade.

“The bill also includes a number of measures Republicans say will cut costs, including expanding work requirements for food stamps and Medicaid, repealing IRS funding Democrats approved last year, blocking the Biden administration’s planned student loan forgiveness, and clawing back unused funding meant to address the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to Military.com.

“House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has estimated the bill could save $4.5 trillion over the next decade, though Congress’ independent budget scorekeeper has not released its own estimate yet,” the site reported earlier this week.

That said, in fairness, the Department of Veterans Affairs has raised concerns that the 2024 spending cap “could slash medical services for veterans and slow benefits payments,” Military.com notes.

But this is just a concern — not a fact. Granted, it’s a concern evidently shared by many.

“More than 20 veterans service organizations sent a letter to Congress on Tuesday urging lawmakers to vote against the [debt-ceiling bill] unless it included protections for VA funding. The VA estimated it would lose 81,000 jobs across the Veterans Health Administration and 6,000 staff in the Veterans Benefits Administration if the bill becomes law,” according to Stars and Stripes.

Responding to this concern, one Twitter user sought to explain why it’s overblown.

Look:

“The GOP proposal does not specifically cut VA funding, but it would place a cap on the overall amount of money the government can spend, leaving it to the Appropriations Committee to determine later which departments would get cuts and which ones wouldn’t,” the Twitter user wrote.

“And considering that the Appropriations Committee Chair used to be Chair of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and her father was a World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient, I highly doubt Veterans Healthcare is in any kind of danger,” they added.

FYI, everything the Twitter user wrote appears to be 100 percent correct.

Indeed, Military.com even notes that the debt-ceiling bill “does not specifically cut VA funding, but it would place a cap on the overall amount of money the government can spend, leaving it to the Appropriations Committee to determine later which departments would get cuts and which ones wouldn’t.”

And so the “concern” by the VA and White House and others doesn’t appear to be very legitimate.

That said, see more replies to the White House’s fearmongering tweet below:

As seen above, critics accused the Biden administration’s White House of being the one harming hardworking Americans.

Critics also noted that there’d be plenty of more money for the VA if the Biden administration hadn’t unnecessarily increased its funding of the reviled IRS.

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Vivek Saxena
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