My husband is a combat veteran. While risking his life to save others as a Pararescue man, he was exposed to agent orange while in Vietnam, and airborne toxins from burn pits in Kuwait during Desert Storm. 

Agent Orange exposure has been linked to long-term health effects in many Vietnam-era veterans, including Parkinson’s Disease, multiple myeloma, and cancer. The VA fact sheet on burn pits used in Iraq and Afghanistan says exposures to high levels of specific chemicals present in burn pit smoke can cause long-term, systemic effects on the skin, respiratory system, liver, eyes, gastrointestinal tract, kidneys, nervous system, reproductive system, and the cardiovascular system.

This week, the US Senate was set to pass a bill that would provide health care and benefits for millions of veterans suffering from exposure to toxins from Agent Orange and burn pit smoke. Known as the PACT Act, the bill would have no longer required a veteran to prove that his/her illness was caused by toxic exposures suffered in the military in order to get VA coverage. It would also have been the largest expansion of care for veterans in VA history.

The bill included expanding the VA health care eligibility to Post-9/11 combat veterans (which includes 3.5 million toxic-exposed veterans), added 23 burn pit and toxic exposure-related conditions to the VA’s list of service presumptions, created a framework for the establishment of future presumptions of service connection related to toxic exposure and would have expanded presumptions related to Agent Orange exposure by including several southeast Asian countries including American Samoa and Guam. The bill would have also strengthened federal research on toxic exposures to military personnel, improve the VA’s resources and training for toxic-exposed veterans, and would have set VA and veterans up for success by investing in VA claims processing, VA’s workforce, and VA health care facilities.

Sadly, in a surprise move, 41 Republican senators blocked the measure on Wednesday (even though many of them had voted in favor of it just one month earlier).

I am saddened by the bill’s death, but not surprised. The Republican Party talks a big game about its respect and admiration for the military but the facts speak for themselves. The hawkish party that loves to send troops into harm’s way, spent $754 billion on the US military in 2021. Although the VA accounts for only 5% of federal spending, those 41 senators blocked a bill that could help millions of disabled and sick veterans who served their country. Several senators appeared quite gleeful as they fist-bumped one another as the bill died.

Comedian John Stewart, a longtime supporter of veteran issues, bluntly shared his views on those Senators who killed the act by turning an about-face. “America’s heroes, who fought in our wars, outside sweating their asses off…battling all kinds of ailments, while these motherfuckers sit in the air conditioning, walled off from any of it. They don’t have to hear it, they don’t have to see it. They don’t have to understand that these are human beings…. I’m used to the lies, I’m used to the hypocrisy…. Senate is where accountability goes to die…. I’m used to all of it. But I am not used to cruelty.”

He continued: “[Republicans] haven’t met a war they won’t sign up for, and they haven’t met a veteran they won’t screw over.” 

Stewart has been a longtime advocate for veterans’ health care and initiatives. In 2019, during a hearing on the Hill, he shamed Congress on behalf of the 9/11 first responders who had yet to receive September 11th Victim Compensation Fund benefits, saying the lawmakers’ “rank hypocrisy” and “shameful” behavior “cost these men and women their most valuable commodity: time.”

At a press conference on Thursday, the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Senator John Tester (D-MT) said that Republicans “voted against the men and women who fight for this country,” and warned that “more veterans will suffer and die as a result.”

Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) defended the measure, claiming that the bill “would authorize $400 billion over the next 10 years of existing spending … to be switched from discretionary to mandatory,” and that it would create a “slush fund,” allowing for “all kinds of spending on who knows what.” Mandatory spending includes entitlement programs like Social Security and is set in law and in effect indefinitely, whereas, under discretionary spending, members of Congress would control the funding each year through the appropriations process.

John Stewart had a sharp rebuttal to this excuse. “That’s nonsense. I call b*******. You know what’s a slush fund? The Overseas Contingency Operations fund — $60 billion, $70 billion every year on top of $500 billion, $600 billion, $700 billion of a defense budget. That’s a slush fund,” Stewart said. “Unaccountable. No guard rails. Did Pat Toomey stand up and say, ‘This is irresponsible! The guard rails!’ No. Not one of them did. They vote for it year after year after year. You don’t support the troops. You support the war machine. That’s all you care about.”

The phrase “thank you for your service” rings hollow.