The Truth About the Jon Stewart Burn Pits Bill

BUCK: I want to add something to the mix here. The storyline over the weekend — I didn’t get to talk to you about this one — was where Jon Stewart went on these absolutely profane rants, calling the GOP all kinds of names around a bill in the Senate that had to do with health benefits for veterans affected by burn pits. I remember burn pits when I was in Afghanistan. People were concerned about them then, and that was 15 years ago. It was not a good idea to be subjecting people to this. Serious health consequences from it, and we owe our veterans a debt of honor to make sure that they are taken care of for any of their service-related health issues and to provide them with health care as part of the deal that we have for them serving their country.

That all said, Jon Stewart — who I think is well-intentioned on this, but a lot of people who are well-intentioned… And he has been in the fight a long time, I know, and for 9/11 first responders has been pushing for them and they have been getting the funding year in and year out, and it has been bipartisan. But he has been pushing for it. But this notion that the Democrats are the heroes here? Once again talking about narratives, our friend Noah Rothman — you remember him from a week or two ago, we had him on to talk about his new book — is a very sharp guy. And he goes into the belly of the beast over at MSNBC as a conservative.

He writes this about this Senate bill. “The effort to invoke cloture on the Honoring Our PACT Act went down to defeat last week after it had already passed the U.S. Senate in June with significant Republican support. Why?” This is on Commentary.org, by the way. “Days before the Senate was scheduled to vote on this bill, lawmakers raised objections to a ‘blue slip’ provision in the bill which contained a tax provision that the House had not yet voted on. Since all bills involving revenue and taxation must originate in the House, the offending provision was stripped, and the bill was formally reintroduced to the Senate.

“In the interim, however, the Washington Post reported that Sen. Pat Toomey ‘worked behind the scenes to inform his colleagues about a major flaw in the bill.’ The Pennsylvania senator’s long-held objection to this legislation rests on the fact that about $400 billion in spending over the next ten years has been deemed ‘non-discretionary,’ meaning that it doesn’t need to be deliberately appropriated by Congress and will be spent, no matter what. But that spending isn’t dedicated to veterans’ affairs; it isn’t dedicated to anything, in fact. It is a blank check that Toomey believes will be made out to Democratic priorities or favored constituencies without a public debate over the value of that spending.”

Well written, here, by Noah, and Pat Toomey said, “It’s about Congress hiding behind an important veterans care bill a massive unrelated spending binge.” I’m bringing this up, ’cause this is who you’re dealing with. Jon Stewart goes out there cursing and spittle rage at everybody who doesn’t go along with the bill. “You don’t care about veterans!” Really? Republican senators don’t care about veterans? That’s a new one. I mean, compared to Democrat senators, that’s a new one. And when you actually look at this, Democrats are so shameless in the Senate that they would use…

This is the “Hey, we’re gonna have a bill that’s meant to provide housing for people.” This is something that everybody could agree on. Veterans is the best possible issue. I was gonna say housing for people who lost their homes after a terrorist attack. Put that aside for a second. This is as good all of cause as you can find in the government, and Republicans are all on board. Yeah, of course, health care for veterans accepted by burn pits. Of course, we should do this, and they all say this. Of course, we should do this.

But what do Democrats do? “Well, there’s a lot of emotion behind this. So let’s try to slip in a mechanism to allow hundreds of billions of dollars of spending on whatever we want,” and the moment that they get any pushback, they say, “You don’t care about veterans!” A shameless bait-and-switch. Shameless. That’s who they are, folks. That’s who you’re dealing with. Notice, once again, the narrative right now in preparation for the midterms. “Oh, yes, Republicans don’t care about the veterans!” Sure. That’s what they’re trying.