Rep. Scott Perry (R-FL) reportedly exclaimed during a Sunday conference call that “heads need to roll” over the Biden administration’s claim that the Republican debt ceiling plan would severely scale back care for veterans.
Republican veteran lawmakers convened in a conference call put on by House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY). During this call, Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough cautioned that the Limit, Save, Grow Act – a debt ceiling bill passed by the House – may impede the purported improvements from the Biden administration to enhance veteran care.
McDonough argued last week that should the GOP get its way on the debt ceiling, there could be a potential “reduction of 30 million outpatient visits for veterans,” and up to 81,000 jobs slashed from the Veterans Health Administration.
House Republicans denied McDonough’s charges that the Limit, Save, Grow Act would spell trouble for veterans. Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), a veteran who chairs the House Freedom Caucus, asserted that the bill does not slice into the budgets of Social Security, Medicare, or any other funding that could benefit veterans.
“If they’ve got time to divert this much and resources away from veterans care to lie about it, obviously they’re not focused on our heroes,” the Pennsylvania Republican opined. “It is completely wholly unacceptable and heads need to roll for it.”
Some Republicans have accused the left of intentionally spreading lies about the Republican debt ceiling proposal in order to skirt around answering to Biden’s refusal to enter negotiations with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL), also a veteran, explained, “You have a scenario where this administration is avoiding negotiating with Speaker McCarthy avoiding negotiating with Republicans because all they want is a clean debt ceiling, lift without cuts, and spending.”
“We have to cut spending in order to rein in the debt ceiling and the deficit that we’ve been funding as a government, but I want to make it very clear that none of that’s going to be on military spending,” continued Steube. “And none of that’s going to be on veterans spending. And again, you have a complete mess of misrepresentations by the Democrats, because they don’t have anything else to offer other than the lie about what Republicans are doing.”
This is not the first time GOP actors have suggested that McDonough is not an entirely honest figure; RNC Research shared a video in 2018 allegedly showing then-former Obama Chief of Staff McDonough refusing to give a straight answer on to whether or not the Obama administration “choked” in its dealings with Russia.
Obama's Chief of Staff Denis McDonough can’t give a straight answer if Obama admin “choked” on Russia https://t.co/r59pqUQqjt pic.twitter.com/sQDNlKx6GB
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 4, 2018
