LETTER: Blame GOP for veterans' problems

The Sunday, July 31, 2016, edition of the Inter Lake published a letter from Mr. Dale Terrillion criticizing Sen. Tester on his record as a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs.

Specifically, Mr. Terrillion is of the belief that Sen. Tester, as a minority senator on the Veterans Affairs Committee, has the ability to legislate, single-handedly, much needed reforms that would benefit our veterans. Sorry, Mr. Terrillion, but that is not how it works.

However, one senator in the majority party, i.e., the Republican Party, can, in fact, ensure that legislation never leaves committee for a vote on the floor. From all I have observed of Sen. Tester during his term in office he is as honest and forthright a politician that can be found in Congress. If he says something to be true you can bank on his honesty. Therefore, the statement attributed to Sen. Tester that “one Republican senator” blocked some bill important to our veterans is, in my mind, undoubtedly true.

Mr. Terrillion’s accusation that Sen. Tester is playing a “political game” that is harming our veterans is nothing less than absurd. The truth is that Republican obstructionism is the “political game” responsible for blocking legislation that would benefit not only our veterans, but our entire country on many fronts. As an example of how Republican obstructionism works I invite readers to examine the history behind current Senate bill S. 271. That bill, which would benefit hundreds of thousands of military veterans, has been introduced, and reintroduced, by Sen. Harry Reid many times over the last 15 years, but has never made it out of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs.

That committee is currently comprised of eight Republicans and seven Democrats. Five of the seven Democrats are cosponsors of S. 271, and only one Republican openly supports it. (Kudos to Nevada Republican Sen. Dean Heller.) Why the lack of Republican support? Could it be that the much-despised Sen. Reid is the bill’s sponsor? Personally, I can see no other reason.

Any person who truly believes that Republicans support veterans’ causes is either completely delusional, or has been duped by Republican and Faux News rhetoric. If there are any veterans “dying in the hallways” of our VA hospitals or clinics, the blame rests solely on the political obstructionist game being played by the Republican Party.

—Al Weed, Kalispell