Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance has accused his Democratic counterpart of “stolen valor,” a term that typically refers to lying about a military service record.
But the actual perpetrators of “stolen valor” in this election are Vance and his party – if not in the military context, then at least in the public service one. Republican politicians have repeatedly claimed credit for valiant actions they didn’t take, pro-family legislation they didn’t support and other popular policies they’re trying to repeal.
For instance, as Democrats celebrated the Inflation Reduction Act’s two-year anniversary last week, Republicans, who unanimously voted against the law in 2022, condemned it and pledged to claw it back. (They’ve already voted a couple dozen times to repeal various portions of it.)
But when it comes to the projects the law subsidized, these same Republicans are big cheerleaders – both for the projects and their own (imagined) role in enabling them.
Most major IRA-funded projects are in Republican-held districts, so the list of triumphs to seize responsibility for is extensive. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.) has puffed up wind energy investments in his state. Rep. Nancy Mace (S.C.) has likewise trumpeted an electric vehicle plant and an electric regional transit hub. Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.) touted a high-tech battery manufacturing facility. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), who has called global warming “healthy,” has since cheered a solar manufacturing project in her district.
This is hardly the only initiative Republican lawmakers have bogarted credit for despite their efforts to stop it. Last fall, House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) cheered the expansion of Florida’s Sarasota airport, which he toured with Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.). That project received at least $16 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. While some Republicans supported this law, both men voted against it.
Similar examples abound for Republicans who voted against the Chips and Science Act.
Vance was not yet in the Senate when any of these blockbuster bills were enacted. When he ran for office, though, he bashed the infrastructure law as “a total disaster for our country.” He has since appeared to take credit for its funding for the Great Lakes as one of his top “accomplishments” in the Senate. (Maybe he was talking about another Great Lakes bill he is co-sponsoring? That legislation might one day count as a Vance accomplishment, but it has yet to receive a floor vote. A Vance spokesperson did not respond to questions about which bill he was taking credit for.)
More recently, Vance spent the past month defending his “childless cat ladies” remarks by explaining he simply meant Republicans are more devoted to family-friendly policies than Democrats are. Which family-friendly policies should Republicans be so proud of, you ask? Oh, you know: the ones championed and passed by Democrats.
For instance, Vance often says he’s been fighting to expand the child tax credit. But earlier this month, when the Senate voted on a bill to do that, Vance couldn’t be bothered to show up. His Republican colleagues blocked the bill from advancing.
Similarly, in 2021, not a single Republican voted for President Joe Biden’s temporary expansion of the tax credit, which cut child poverty in half.
The other effort Vance has been citing as emblematic of his “pro-family” agenda: legislation to eliminate surprise, out-of-network medical bills.
“We got these ridiculous surprise medical billings from the hospital because we had chosen an out of network provider, of course, at this most stressful of all imaginable moments,” he recounted on ABC’s Face the Nation last week, when talking about the birth of his second child. “I’ve actually introduced legislation to stop moms and dads from having to go through those surprise medical billings.” He made similar claims about this legislation on CNN and CBS.
When I first heard these comments, I assumed he was referring to the No Surprises Act, a statute that limited surprise bills from out-of-network providers at otherwise in-network medical settings. Then I realized this (bipartisan) bill was signed into law in 2020, two years before Vance was elected to the Senate.
Unable to find other legislation he sponsored on this issue, I contacted Vance’s Senate office to ask which bill he was referring to. His spokesperson declined to speak on the record or give me the bill number for whatever legislation Vance was citing. Instead, I was told to read a Politico article that mentions a bill he sponsored on a different issue (related to expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993) as well as another bill that’s at least on the relevant subject, but that he merely considered sponsoring. As my Post colleagues reported, Vance cut off talks for that second bill when he began auditioning for Donald Trump’s VP.
To be fair, Vance has not stolen all the undue credit for himself. He’s also praised Trump for things Trump didn’t do. For instance, Vance credited Trump for a recent prisoner swap that, ahem, President Joe Biden negotiated. And Trump himself is of course the master of laying claim to other presidents’ valorous and public-spirited achievements.
You know what they say: impersonation is the highest form of flattery.
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Reach Catherine Rampell at crampell@washpost.com.
