This week in his address to the nation, Obama said some pleasant words about our military veterans. He might have even been sincere on some level. After all, they’ve been keeping his particular posterior safe for the last seven or eight years.
Obama mentioned the story of retired Army Captain Florent “Flo” Groberg, the 32-year-old who the President presented with the Medal of Honor last week. Obama gave a brief synopsis of the actions Captain Groberg took on the morning of August 8th, 2012, which made Groberg worthy of receiving the Medal of Honor:
Three years ago, on patrol in Afghanistan, Flo saw a suicide bomber coming toward his unit. Without hesitating, Flo grabbed him by his vest and helped push him to the ground. When the bomb went off, Flo was badly injured, and four of his comrades were killed. But many more were saved because of Flo’s sacrifice.
A lengthier account of the events of that day can be read here at the U.S. Army’s website.
Obama also spoke about veteran employment. He said that vets “know how to get stuff done.” According to Obama, he tells small business owners and CEOs on a regular basis that “if you want to get the job done, hire a vet.” For vets who are looking for work, it can’t be too bad to have the President of the United States as a job reference, even if it is Obama. At least in some cases.
While it was nice of the President to encourage employers to hire those who have served in our nation’s armed forces, he had to take the opportunity to pat himself on the back a little, however hard as that is to believe.
In recent years, we’ve made historic investments to boost the VA budget, expand veterans’ benefits, and improve care for our wounded warriors. We’ve now slashed the disability claims backlog by nearly 90 percent from its peak. We’re reducing the outrage of veterans’ homelessness and we’ve helped tens of thousands of veterans get off the streets. The veterans’ unemployment rate is down to 3.9 percent – even lower than the national average.
Historic. One could concede that Obama used the word “investments” in a more honest way this time, but he’s still saying that we’re spending more money than ever on problems that haven’t been fixed. He believes that increased spending on veterans is needed along with reforms of the VA system. He told a Veterans Day crowd at Arlington Cemetery last week, “Still the unacceptable problems that we’ve seen, like long wait times and some veterans not getting the timely care that they need, is a challenge for all of us if we are to match our words with deeds.”
But over the years, Obama has made a habit out of uttering words that the deeds never match.
For instance, Obama boasted of reducing the disability claims backlog by nearly 90 percent. Yet his administration set the goal at 100 percent by the end of Fiscal Year 2015, which was September 30th. As the Washington Free Beacon noted, over 75,000 claims are still in the backlog. Now administration officials are saying that when they set the goal for the claims backlog at zero, they didn’t actually mean zero-zero.
Allison Hickey, a VA official, has suggested that the agency will never eliminate the backlog of its oldest claims.
“Zero for us is not an absolute zero,” Hickey said in August when the backlog was reduced to just under 100,000 unresolved claims from a peak of well over 600,000 in March 2013.
The Free Beacon also brought up that the VA has been busted for manipulating data and shredding documents to “lower” the backlog. At least ten different investigations into benefit data manipulation are underway at various VA facilities across the country.
Like Obama said, the Veterans Administration budget is indeed the highest it’s ever been. It’s gone from having $73.1 billion in 2006 to $163.5 billion in 2015–more than double. And it has made some difference for the better to an extent.
A Congressional Research Service study released this month estimates that the number of homeless veterans in the United States dropped from 74,050 in 2009 to 49,933 in 2014. 16 percent of the total homeless population in America consisted of veterans in 2009. That figure was down to 11 percent in 2014. Though the VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) claim the assistance plans they initiated in that time are responsible for the decrease, it could be argued that the sort-of-but-not-really recovering economy also played a significant role.
Obama and the VA set a goal in 2009 to end veteran homelessness by the end of this year. Since they hadn’t even halved the number by the end of 2014, it doesn’t appear as though they will meet that goal unless they’ve been able to perform some Big Government hocus pocus over the course of the last year.
The House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs estimated that the VA spent $376 million to curb veteran homelessness in 2009 and around $1.5 billion last year. The amount being spent on health care for homeless vets has nearly doubled in that same time frame, from $2.5 billion to $4.8 billion.
However, just because the government is spending more doesn’t automatically mean it is spending well. The federal government is notorious for wasting money, as most people should know by now. Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL), the chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs committee, believes that the money the government spends on homeless initiatives is disproportionate to the results one would expect.
“The fact that VA increases in spending on homeless initiatives are growing every year and far outpacing reductions in veteran homelessness calls into question the efficacy of VA’s efforts,” Miller said. “Ultimately, the program’s success has to be measured not by how much money VA is spending, but by how many participants are becoming self-sufficient.”
Veteran self-sufficiency was a topic brought up a few days ago in an LA Times op-ed by Phil Harvey and Lisa Conyers, coauthors of a book coming out early next year called The Human Cost of Welfare. While it might sound good on its face that veterans’ benefits have expanded, Harvey and Conyers pointed out that these expansions encourage veterans to become more dependent on the government and less dependent on themselves. They write,
Navy SEAL Eric Greitens, founder of the Mission Continues, explains how soldiers who served their country are transformed into welfare recipients who live off their country.
“When vets come home from war they are going through a tremendous change in identity,” he says. “Then the VA, and others, encourage them to view themselves as disabled.” By the time they come to Greitens’ nonprofit, “We meet a number of veterans who see themselves as charity cases and are not sure anymore what they have to contribute.” …
We shouldn’t go back to the bad-old days when veterans were afraid to admit weakness. But Lt. Col. Daniel Gade is one of many veterans who think our disability system is harmful, psychologically, to former soldiers. Gade lost his leg in combat in 2005 and now teaches at West Point. He recently gave a talk to disabled veterans at Ft. Carson, Colo., in which he urged them to rejoin the workforce.
“People who stay home because they are getting paid enough to get by on disability are worse off,” he warned. “They are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. They are more likely to live alone.” …
We could redress this problem by changing the way we view — and label — veterans with disabilities. As Gade noted in a recent National Affairs article, “Veterans should be viewed as resources, not as damaged goods.” He recommended that “efforts to help veterans should begin by recognizing their abilities rather than focusing exclusively on their disabilities, and should serve the ultimate aim of moving wounded soldiers…to real self-sufficiency.”
The two authors wrote that “1 in 4 younger veterans is on disability, versus just 1 in 7 of those over age 54.” As they put it, a greater emphasis should be placed on things such as job training because “we are condemning thousands of young veterans who served their country to life on the dole rather than enabling them to reenter the workforce with the necessary accommodations.”
So when the Commander-in-Chief says that veteran unemployment is down to 3.9 percent, yet the labor participation rate of our veterans is right around 50 percent–twelve points lower than the overall rate for civilians–people should realize that the government is instilling a dependency mentality among our vets. America’s veterans should be proud of the things they accomplished while they were enlisted, but they should also be proud of the accomplishments they will make once they return to American society.
Those who have served our country with loyalty, diligence, and honor deserve to be treated with dignity and should be cared for when they need the help. Shouldn’t they treat themselves with dignity and care, as well? That’s not going to happen when, post-enlistment, the government cradles veterans the rest of the way to their graves. It makes no sense that the strength, the will, the determination, the perseverance, and the discipline that U.S. servicemembers were taught to have when they entered the military should just fade away once their duties in the armed forces are fulfilled.
The president can talk about everything the government is doing to provide for our vets. He can act like he wants to help our them become self-sufficient. Billions of dollars are being spent on efforts to assist them, but not enough is being done to remove their dependence upon the government. That has to have a demoralizing effect on many of them. The truth is that the administration’s efforts are making veterans less likely to acquire true independence.
The men and women who have sacrificed for our country absolutely deserve the best care we can give them, if ever and whenever they need it. We owe them that.
Yet from the very origins of revolution that founded this country, Americans have had an intense, fighting spirit of independence. Our vets also deserve access to the best avenues that direct them toward their own individual independence, if ever and whenever possible. We owe them that, too.
