By JAMES MATHESON
CHICAGO – Republican proposals to slash veterans programs have been drawing fire this week from Democratic veterans and delegates, including Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.
“I’m excited for the fact that we got one of our own that’s about to be the next vice president of the United States,” Moore told the Veterans and Military Families Council at the Democratic National Convention Thursday. “It’s exciting to think that we’re going to have someone like that who’s not just helping to drive our policy, but who’s helping us to remind ourselves of our moral obligation.”
At issue are plans in Project 2025 – written by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank – to decrease funding to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Both parties’ vice presidential nominees, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio and Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minnesota are veterans, so the repercussions of the project on veterans has been a frequent topic of conversation in Chicago.
“Trump’s Project 2025 will slash veteran benefits and force VA hospitals to close across the nation,” Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Arizona, told the Thursday night convention crowd. “Show some respect. So, for the 18-year-old who decides to enlist, for the families like mine who prayed every night that their loved one would come home, for our troops stationed thousands of miles away, for my fellow Marines of Lima Company, let’s Elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”
Meanwhile, Republicans avoided that topic last month at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Project 2025 has been under scrutiny in recent months because it was created as a blueprint for a second Trump presidency. The 900-page policy proposal calls for a reorganization of the American government that would solidify conservative rule and shrink the federal government and its functions.
Moore, a combat Veteran who deployed to Afghanistan during his time with the Army, criticized proposed cuts to the services that help veterans like himself while lifting up the military career of his fellow governor and serviceman.
While Walz was enlisted and served in the National Guard for 24 years, his adversary, Vance, served a tour in Iraq as a Marine.
During Moore’s Thursday speech to the dimly lit, scattered conference room full of fellow veterans and their families, he spoke of his own experiences in the military and the moments that prioritized the post-service lives not just of veterans, but their spouses and children as well.
“We decided to go in and not just slow walk, but sprint toward solutions when I took on the role of governor,” Moore said. “We decided to introduce legislation in our first year that focused on things…that actually made the spouses of those who were serving a preferential class when it comes to hiring and retention and employment.”
Maryland First Lady Dawn Moore testified in February before the House Economic Matters Committee in support of the Families Serve Act of 2024. She was the first first lady to testify on behalf of legislation in nearly 20 years. The bill incentivizes businesses to hire military spouses despite resumes that may show gaps due to frequent moves.
Moore emphasized that the Vice President Kamala Harris-Walz ticket is going to remind Americans that there is a cost to freedom.
He concluded his speech by saying that the cost to take care of veterans and their families is a worthwhile one. He used the slogan he coined after the March collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge: “Leave No One Behind.”
“These are people who are going to lift up those who we lost in combat and not disregard them, or somehow either confuse the Medal of Honor with the President’s Medal of Freedom,” Moore said. “I don’t know if these people are really confused, or just have no interest in actually understanding the difference. But (Harris and Walz are) people who are truly going to be our partners inside the work to create a more perfect union.”
Veterans within the Maryland delegation at the Republican National Convention last month told CNS they trusted former president Donald Trump and Vance with veterans funding despite a history of proposed cuts by the Heritage Foundation and GOP ties to the organization.
Moore told CNS in an interview after his Thursday meeting that the plan is harmful to veterans.
“For any veteran who supports Project 2025, I would just ask that they look deeper into what Project 2025 is,” Moore told CNS. “What Project 2025 would do, it would do things like cut funding towards veterans. It would do things like cut support for veterans hospitals. It would do things like cutting support for our military and our personnel. It’s a dangerous isolationist philosophy.”
Republican veterans are singing a completely different tune, though. Several Republican delegates to the RNC who served in the armed forces said they supported the project.
“Whatever it says in the Heritage Foundation, or Project 2025, or those issues with the veterans packages, I have every confidence that President Trump will do the right thing for our military and for our veterans,” Jerry DeWolf, a delegate from Maryland’s 6th congressional district and a Navy veteran, told CNS last month in Milwaukee.
This support from Maryland Republican delegates for their presidential and vice presidential nominees looks beyond the pair’s ties to the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025.
Vance has embraced Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation in recent months.
“Most Americans couldn’t care less about Project 2025,” Vance said on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight” in July. “I’ve reviewed a lot of it, there’s some good ideas in there.”
In the same interview, Vance said there were ideas he didn’t agree with in the policy proposals. But while Vance endorses the plan for the next administration, Trump has attempted to distance himself, saying he doesn’t know who wrote the comprehensive playbook for GOP policy.
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I have no idea who is behind it.” The former president went on to say that some of the ideas within the document are “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.”
Despite the denial, at least 140 of Trump’s former ambassadors, advisers and his former chief of staff contributed or hold positions with the Heritage Foundation.
“For veterans who are trying to understand where exactly they want to be, or what they are looking for in a candidate, I would say they should probably look for a candidate that sees them and their family,” Moore said. “They should probably look for a candidate and for a campaign that actually has policies that would benefit them and their families. I think when veterans do that, they’ll see that the Harris-Walz campaign has the most comprehensive ideas as to how exactly we can support veterans and their families.”
Republican National Convention delegates like state Sen. Johnny Ray Salling from Maryland’s 2nd congressional district, endorsed the Heritage Foundation plan. When asked if he supports Project 2025, Salling said: “I do. And we should never try to restrict funds that would help our veterans and help their families.”
The 2023 annual proposed federal budget released by the Heritage Foundation recommended that lawmakers make massive cuts to veterans programs. While the recommendations are independent of Project 2025, they demonstrate a history of efforts by the Heritage Foundation to cut veterans benefits.
The Heritage Foundation Budget Blueprint for fiscal year 2023 consisted of over 200 policy recommendations to reduce the federal budget, two of which included capping initial applications for disability compensation at 10 years post-service and eliminating concurrent receipt of retirement pay and disability compensation. Such policy changes would require that veterans file their claims within a 10-year window after discharge.
The veterans in Maryland’s RNC delegation still believe a Trump-Vance ticket would protect them.
“We understand that not everything can be done perfectly but I have full faith and confidence in President Trump, and his vice president is a Marine,” Barry Donadio, an alternate delegate for Maryland’s 1st congressional district, said. “That’s something held very, very important to the enlisted branch of all the armed services.”
Donadio has been a part of the Secret Service, Army and Air Force.
The Heritage Foundation’s more recent policy recommendations in Project 2025 demonstrate the foundation’s continued desire to slash benefits, cut funding to the VA, and minimize the role of the federal government. Many of these suggestions could have direct effects on the state of Maryland due to the number of federal jobs in the state between the National Institutes of Health, Fort Meade, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, or the Social Security Administration.
“Maryland has such a close connection with the federal government that Project 2025 literally guts the federal workforce,” Ken Ulman, chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party, told CNS. “That has a disproportionate effect on the state of Maryland.”
Under Project 2025, some medical conditions would receive different disability ratings in the future. So veterans who filed claims down the road could qualify for fewer or no benefits.
“There’s this idea and this philosophy, I think that comes out of Project 2025, that individuals are and should be self-sufficient, that government does not play a role, that you know that government is not going to support you when you are sick,” Moore said.
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