Daniel Gade, one of President Trump’s picks to be a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, has been a staunch critic of the Department of Veterans Affairs, arguing that its system for providing financial support to disabled veterans has left them worse off.
Gade, himself a disabled Iraq War veteran, has argued the system inadvertently encourages veterans to continue to receive financial assistance rather than re-entering the workforce.
“People who stay home because they are getting paid enough to get by on disability are worse off. They are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. They are more likely to live alone. You’ve seen these guys. And the system is driving you to become one of them, if you are not careful,” he said in a speech to fellow veterans in a 2015 New York Times profile.
Gade’s nomination has attracted little attention thus far. He will have his first Senate hearing before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Tuesday morning with Janet Dhillon, a corporate lawyer and Trump’s pick to head the commission.
Veterans’ groups have had little to say about the nomination. “We don’t advocate for or against the nomination of any individual for elected or appointed office,” American Legion spokesman Joe Plenzler told the Washington Examiner, adding the group was “unfamiliar” with Gade.
Should Gade be confirmed, he wouldn’t have any direct impact on the VA’s policies. While part of the EEOC’s mission is to defend veterans’ rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act, it is separate from the department. In his prepared remarks for Tuesday’s hearing, Gade said he would work to “protect the vulnerable against those who would marginalize them or dismiss them from employment based on characteristics unrelated to their ability to perform the job at hand.” His remarks make no direct mention of VA policies.
A West Point graduate, Gade retired from the Army earlier this year at a rank of lieutenant colonel, after two decades of service. He lost a leg in combat in 2005 while serving as a tank company commander in Iraq. He recovered at a VA hospital and said in later interviews that the experience convinced him that the agency’s payment system had perverse effects.
Gade said in the interview that he was stunned to learn that fellow patients he knew during his recovery were still under VA care more than a year after he had left. “I couldn’t believe they were still there. These guys weren’t bad guys — a lot were straight-up heroes — but there was no driving force to move them forward.” That prompted him to found the Independence Project, a Veteran’s employment advocacy group.
