Commentary: Big Tent Ideas

Is VFW Siding With Democrats Against Vets?

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It appears that the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) is helping Democrats this election cycle. The same Democrats who have nominated far left-wing candidates who hold the military men and women in disdain are now using a battle over legislation benefiting veterans to hammer Republicans within weeks of the midterm elections.

The hard left of the Democratic Party hates the military, wants to defund the police and opposes the very idea of fighting for our great nation. Many on the left don’t believe in American exceptionalism. The party is lurching to the left.

It is astonishing and outrageous to see the VFW aligning with a more left-wing Democratic Party in its opposition to the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (TCAVA). That legislation is a sweeping, Republican-backed package designed to improve the lives of millions of U.S. veterans.

The legislation brings together more than 60 proposals, including measures to level up veterans’ healthcare, strengthen mental health services, support military families and expand compensation for combat-injured veterans.

Yet the VFW, one of America’s oldest veterans’ organizations, has launched a campaign to shoot it down, fighting on the same side as Democratic lawmakers against a bill the GOP supports.

The VFW’s objections center on Section 108, which would change how the Department of Veterans Affairs calculates disability compensation for sleep apnea and tinnitus. Existing disability ratings would be protected, but some future claimants could receive lower compensation. Rather than supporting the package while seeking changes to Section 108, the VFW has mobilized its powerful lobbying operation to stop the legislation from passing.

The case for Section 108 is rooted in modern medicine. Sleep apnea can now often be controlled with a CPAP machine, which the VA provides free to qualified veterans. Meanwhile, the number of veterans receiving compensation for sleep apnea has climbed sharply. The VA inspector general found that it rose from under 1 million veterans in fiscal 2015 to more than 1.3 million in fiscal 2019. Veterans themselves understand the logic: one survey found that 58% of veterans believe disability ratings should be updated as medicine improves.

The VFW Action Corps, a grassroots network of more than 300,000 members and supporters, provides a nationwide mechanism for pressuring Congress through emails, telephone calls, legislative visits and action alerts. Their campaign has urged supporters to contact lawmakers with messages such as “Honor the Contract,” “No Cuts to Veterans’ Benefits,” and “Vote NO on TCAVA.”

But the VFW is hardly speaking for the entire veterans’ community. In fact, some of America’s biggest veterans organizations are fighting on the opposite side. A coalition of 23 organizations, including the American Legion, Wounded Warrior Project and Military Officers Association of America, has urged congressional leaders to advance TCAVA, arguing that the legislation would deliver long-awaited improvements to veterans’ healthcare, compensation and support services.

Even veterans organizations with reservations about the bill have chosen to put veterans first. The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) has said openly that legislating disability rating changes “is not standard and is not a path we would typically support.” Yet MOAA backs TCAVA anyway, calling it “a net expansion of benefits and support for veterans, survivors, caregivers and military families.” That is responsible advocacy: support the larger package and keep working to improve it. By comparison, the VFW’s refusal to back the bill and seek changes later looks rigid.

Why would you cut off your nose to spite your face? That’s what the VFW is doing. TCAVA would greatly expand pay and benefits overall, but because of one section, the VFW is willing to lose the entire benefit expansion.

Evidence shows that veterans support the legislation. A Mission Roll Call poll found that 71% of respondents backed TCAVA. A separate survey by a group opposed to the legislation, the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), found that 71% of its respondents opposed the bill unless Section 108 was removed. Most of the survey respondents were DAV members, so there is little doubt that they had heard about the DAV’s position before the survey questions reached them.

Fiscal responsibility is also a concern. Democrats have used a discharge petition to force a vote on a standalone version of the Major Richard Star Act, which is now projected to cost more than $78 billion from 2026 to 2036. That version has no offset to pay for it. TCAVA includes relief for combat-injured retirees and pays for its benefit increases. One approach is an unfunded promise; the other is a responsible plan that keeps the savings working for veterans.

The VFW’s tensions with the GOP go beyond core veteran issues. They dial into abortion — which the VFW supported in testimony to Congress — and the VFW’s support for taxpayer-funded gender surgeries. The VFW has absolutely no reason to support these causes, which waste taxpayer money on unnecessary and harmful procedures.

And it all empowers Democrats just weeks before the election. The VFW is providing cover fire for an attempt to derail legislation supported by 23 other veterans’ organizations, while fueling a controversy that Democrats can exploit against Republicans. It is giving cover for Democrats to say it is the GOP that’s extreme on radical issues like taxpayer-funded abortions and gender surgeries.

That raises a question about the organization’s priorities. Can it protect future disability compensation without obstructing the wider benefits contained in TCAVA?

With the midterms approaching, when a group plays politics with veterans’ interests, that group will have a hard time engaging in bipartisan negotiation on legislation to forward the ball to help out struggling veterans.

Leif Larson is a messaging consultant and media strategist for multiple political candidates and issue campaigns across the country.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.