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Opinion

Who did more for veterans?

By Chuck Baker
July 19, 2024 - 7:06 am
 

Did President Joe Biden or President Donald Trump do more for America’s veterans? It all depends how one keeps score: Introduce laws? Pass laws? Do large things, or many small things? Important things, or things that were not so important?Below are two examples according to Military.com.

Biden shepherded through the PACT Act, which has been described as the biggest expansion of veterans’ benefits in a generation. Trump’s biggest veteran-related legislation was the Mission Act, which expanded veterans’ ability to seek VA-funded care outside of the VA system.

But, overall, veterans’ organizations have celebrated the PACT Act as a historic achievement.

“Simply put, the bill represents the largest expansion of VA care and benefits for those exposed to harmful substances during their military service in history,” Joe Parsetich, then the national commander for the Disabled American Veterans, said at the time of the passage in 2022.

The Mission Act, meanwhile, was an effort to fix issues with the earlier Choice Act, a 2014 law that was borne out of the VA wait-time scandal. Trump often incorrectly refers to his achievement as “Choice,” even though the earlier bill with the same name was signed by his predecessor, President Barack Obama.

Someone who may have benefited from the passage of the Mission Act, for that individual, it’s the most important thing,” said Patrick Murray, legislative director at the Veterans for Foreign Wars. “Someone who may have had a rare cancer that was benefited by the PACT Act, that’s the most important thing to them. So, different veterans who had different illnesses, injuries, disabilities, whatever, may have benefited from either of the bills and, to those veterans, that’s the most important thing.”

Overall, did Biden heap more praise on veterans than Trump? I’m registered nonpartisan, so I’m not asking anyone to choose one or the other, and I’m not certain who helped veterans more. We’ll see how things work out in November.

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