- RAWSTORY.COM - Raw Story - 04/07/2024 17:59

Project 2025 will rob veterans and active duty troops of billions in benefits

The Project 2025 blueprint for a potential second Donald Trump administration would plunder veterans' benefits and shower cash on private contractors.Right-wing policy makers led by the Heritage Foundation are crafting a detailed plan to slash federal spending, cut taxes, gut regulatory agencies, stock the federal government with loyalists and privatize many government functions, including the Veterans Health Administration.A chapter in the massive, 920-page Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise released by the conservative think tank details cost-cutting measures and other proposed changes to the Veterans Administration, including the replacement of its leaders and decision makers with political appointees.Brooks D. Tucker, who served as chief of staff for Trump’s second VA secretary Robert Wilkie, wrote the chapter on VA reforms with the assistance of Darin Selnick, who called for dismantling the agency when serving on a presidential commission in 2016 and worked for the Koch brothers-funded Concerned Veterans for America (CVA).Searchable database for Project 2025 policy recommendations.Among other recommendations, the plan proposes eliminating concurrent eligibility for both service-related disability benefits and military retirement benefits, which Tucker says would reduce mandatory outlays by at least $160 billion through 2032, and revising the disability rating awards that determine eligibility for benefits and determine monthly disability compensation to reap "significant cost savings."The plan also proposes to end enrollment in VA medical care for veterans in two low-priority groups to save an estimated $69 billion through 2032 and narrow eligibility for veterans disability by excluding disabilities that cannot be related to military service, which would save an estimated $37.6 billion during that same period.Tucker recommends the expansion of Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOC) rather that maintaining or upgrading "obsolete" or "unaffordable" VA health care campuses that currently provide inpatient services, emergency care and other health services in one location.Project 2025 also calls for privatizing the Department of Defense’s current TRICARE system offered to military families, which Tucker claims would provide higher quality care and result in $60 billion in savings, and require married service members to share a housing allowance and document their housing expenditures.“Servicemembers are not entitled to — and should not be able to — retain 'extra compensation' from money above what they pay for housing," Tucker wrote.