‘abject cruelty’ – New York Daily News

Comic and activist Jon Stewart roared with contempt on Thursday after 25 Senate Republicans blocked a bill to provide healthcare for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits while serving overseas.

“They [military veterans] lived up to their oath. And yesterday, they [senators] spit on it — in abject cruelty,” Stewart told reporters during a news conference called by the bill’s advocates. “These people thought they could finally breathe. You think their struggles end because the PACT Act passes? All it means is they don’t have to decide between their cancer drugs and their house. Their struggle continues.”

[ Schumer, Jon Stewart demand passage of Gillibrand’s bill granting full benefits to veterans exposed to burn pits ]

Lawmakers, veterans groups and the families of service members sickened and killed by exposure to burn pits overseas had expected to be attending a victory celebration at the passage of the Sgt. Heath Robinson Honoring Our Pact Act. It would spend more than $280 billion to ensure the 3.5 million warfighters exposed to manmade poisons get cared for.

Instead, they were confronted with the fact that more than two dozen GOP senators changed their votes on the measure Wednesday night, blocking a bill that just last month 84 senators voted to advance.

Between then and Wednesday, the House made a minor technical change that required the bill to be passed again. But the Republicans retreated, led by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

“This is total bulls–t,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the measure’s lead authors. “At the 11th hour, Sen. Toomey decides that he wants to rewrite the bill, change the rules… How he convinced 25 of his colleagues to change their vote, I have no idea. What the hell? How does this happen? How do you change your mind, right when you’re about to make a law that’s gonna save lives?”

The reversal was especially devastating for Susan Zeier, Heath Robinson’s mother-in-law, who had already been invited to the White House to celebrate a bill signing victory that she and her family had fought for for years. Robinson’s lungs were destroyed by contaminants and lung cancer linked to his service in Iraq. He died in 2020.

“They voted for all of us to suffer. They are endorsing our suffering,” Zeier told reporters, before pointing to ill veterans standing in the heat with oxygen tubes running to their noses. “They are endorsing her suffering. They’re endorsing him… They don’t give a s–t about veterans.”

Toomey, who is retiring this year and won’t face voters in the fall, led the charge in blocking bill by raising the same concerns he brought up in June. Then and Wednesday evening, he said that the bill contained a “gimmick” that would let Democrats in the future add $400 billion in spending to the deficit.

He made the claim because, in addition to funding the projected $280 billion cost of the bill, the measure shifts veterans spending from the category of discretionary to mandatory. Discretionary spending has to go through the regular process every year, which for more than a decade now has been highly uncertain, with stalemates and government shutdowns. Mandatory spending — for things like Medicare and Social Security — has a much longer timeline and is more stable. The idea was to grant veterans Medicare-like stability.

But Toomey argued it was just a ruse to free up $400 billion in that discretionary budget for an unspecified spending spree.

Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) ripped Toomey’s justification as spurious and hypocritical, saying it doesn’t matter what category the spending is in, since Congress gets the final say, either way, while Toomey wants an amendment that would enforce just one method of funding, and prevent the more stable one.

“We, in essence, yesterday took benefits away from the people who have been impacted by war, that we sent off to war,” said Tester. “We turn our backs and say, ‘No, we’re going to find an excuse to vote against our veterans while we wave the flag, talking about how great our fighting men and women are.’”

“Everybody is saying, ‘Well, it’s inevitable. We’re gonna pass the PACT Act,” said Shane Lierman, of the Disabled Veterans of America. “You know what else is inevitable? Veterans suffering and dying without access to health care and benefits. That is also inevitable.”

The fate of the bill is now unclear. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Thursday afternoon that he’d give Republicans the weekend to think it over, and hold a new vote.

“We are going to give our Republican friends another opportunity to vote on this Monday night,” Schumer told reporters Thursday afternoon.

He also promised that — as Democrats offered back in June — that Toomey could get a vote on his amendment to change the funding.

“We offered Toomey, standing in the way, the ability to do an amendment at 60 votes, just like the bill is a 60-vote bill,” Schumer said. “We will give Senator Toomey a right to bring his amendment to the floor and try to get the votes.”

Representatives of the veterans have said that lawmakers have assured them the measure will ultimately pass. If Republicans relent Monday, that would be true. If they don’t act next week, it could take weeks or months that some sick veterans do not have.

Stewart focused specifically on Toomey, and other senators who voted for all the United States’ recent wars and the deficit-busting funding bills that went with them.

“They haven’t met a war they won’t sign up for, and they haven’t met a veteran they won’t screw over. What the f— are we?” Stewart asked.

“Barbaric,” Zeier answered.