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Home – Veterans Affairs News – America’s Promise to Veterans Cannot Become a One-Way Ratchet

America’s Promise to Veterans Cannot Become a One-Way Ratchet

America has made a sacred promise—some might call it a contract—to our veterans. That contract should never be broken. But does upholding it mean that Congress must maintain every veterans’ program exactly the way it is today? Or could keeping that promise mean having the courage to evaluate whether veterans’ programs are still effective at accomplishing their intended missions?

Those are questions missing from the debate around the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (TCAVA). What we’ve heard instead is a genuine policy debate reduced to a bumper sticker: “Republican bill strips veterans’ benefits. Honor the contract!”

That framing ignores both the merits of the bill and the larger question Congress and veterans service organizations (VSOs) should be debating: Will Congress fulfill its Article I duty to review and reform federal programs or will politically sensitive reforms become impossible to change when special interests mobilize against them?

TCAVA incorporates several significant benefits expansions, including the Major Richard Star Act and provisions from the Love Lives On Act, as well as potential changes to elements of the VA disability rating schedule.

That is why some VSOs reducing TCAVA to “stripping away veterans’ benefits” is so deeply misleading. Illustrations of government bureaucrats aiming rifles at veterans standing in a firing line may generate outrage and sell t-shirts. Still, they do little to explain the policy’s actual merits.

The deeper issue is that veterans’ policy risks becoming a one-way ratchet. Expand eligibility, create a new presumption, add a benefit, or increase compensation, and Congress is keeping the promise. Re-examine an existing method of establishing a rating, and Congress is breaking that promise.

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