Sharron Angle has still got it. In the wake of attacks over her previous position of privatizing the Department of Veterans Affairs, Angle is now denying that she wanted to tear down the system. In fact, she says that she was calling for the V.A. to “do a better job.” But of course, the original transcript says quite the opposite.
As Jon Ralston reports, Angle was asked at a fundraiser this past weekend about Harry Reid’s recent ad, which attacks her as wanting to “end our promise to veterans.”
Angle responded:
“Well, first of all, when we talk about Harry Reid’s ads, let’s remember that a half truth is no truth. And what you’re finding in his ads are these half truths. We were discussing, at the time that I made that remark, we were discussing Obamacare and Medicare. And how Harry Reid has taken a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare, right out at a place where seniors have choices—Medicare Advantage, one of the programs that actually works. And I was talking about my father, who is 88 years old, he’s on Medicare, he’s on Social Security, and he’s a veteran. Not of just World War II, but also the Korean War. He had a Purple Heart. He has served this country, and yet he pays $800 a month in prescription drugs that are not covered by the VA and they’re not covered by Medicare. And, there is a lot of you that understand what I’m saying. And that was the context of those comments. I said that they could do a better job, that’s all I said, is the VA could do a better job for our veterans. And I believe that. I believe that our veterans fit in that A priority box. We should be supporting our military and their dependents (applause) and our veterans. We should be supporting them. We owe them. We owe them and we should be supporting them.”
In fact, as Ralston points out, the original transcript of Angle’s remarks from May show that she was very much against having the V.A. cover more things, in favor of a privatized system and less government dependency. Here are the relevant comments, stemming from a discussion of Social Security:
Angle: … And my father did the same thing. He calls it his rocking chair pay but he doesn’t live on his Social Security, he has investments that he has made over the years in rental properties and things like that—that are actually paying for his retirement. He needs more and more supervised care. He’s 87 years old and has Parkinson’s and we have to pay more and more for his healthcare. I know he pays over 800 dollars a month in prescription drugs that we can’t get through his VA nor through Medicare—they just wont cover those things. And I know lots of seniors—
Becker: Should they cover those things?
Angle: No, not if you’re working towards a privatized system. And he can pay for them. That’s my whole point. Even with the system we’ve got, it’s broken, its not covering for every cost that he has. And if he were dependent upon that, he wouldn’t be getting the healthcare he needs and that’s why we need to fix the system.
The TPM Poll Average currently puts Harry Reid ahead by 47.2%-44.9%.
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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