John McCain was down the road in Kansas City the other day speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Unsurprisingly his speech centered on the military and especially the shameful treatment of our nations veterans. McCain said that veterans “now deserve the distinction of the best Americans, and we owe them a debt we can never fully repay.”

I agree with John McCain that we owe veterans more than we are giving them. I would just ask McCain why even though he says he supports the troops and is running largely on his service history he refuses to do anything that would actually repay the troops for their service.

John McCain has flat out refused to support our troops by endorsing Jim Webb’s new GI Bill that would improve education benefits for veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. Or maybe he shouldn’t have killed the dwell time amendment last summer that would have ensured our troops had enough time to rest and recover between deployments.

Think Progress has compiled a nice list of other ways that McCain has shown his support for the troops:

• Voted AGAINST an amendment providing $20 billion to the VA’s medical facilities. [5/4/06]
• Voted AGAINST providing $430 million to the VA for outpatient care “and treatment for veterans,” one of only 13 senators to do so. [4/26/06]
• Voted AGAINST increasing VA funding by $1.5 billion by closing corporate loopholes. [3/14/06]
• Voted AGAINST increasing VA funding by $1.8 billion by ending “abusive tax loopholes.” [3/10/04]
• Voted AGAINST a $650 million increase in veterans’ medical care funding. [8/1/01]

I guess what McCain really meant wasn’t that we owe veterans a debt we can never repay but instead that we owe veterans a debt he will never repay.

Update: This morning on The View McCain said that veterans need “significant educational benefits in return for serving” yet he still wont sign Senator Webb’s GI Bill to provide it for them. ~ 4/10/08

William
WWJV4.com