Lawmakers are moving quickly to pass emergency legislation to plug the roughly $3 billion deficit at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), with officials warning that if Congress does not act in the next few days, payments of benefits to veterans and survivors will be at risk.
The House of Representatives passed the bill with bipartisan support on Wednesday night, and lawmakers from both sides are urging the Senate to pass the bill quickly.
“We all agree on all four areas that this needs to move forward as quickly as possible,” House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-Ill.) told The Hill on Wednesday, referring to top officials on his committee and the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
“We will have enough votes to get the bill through the House and the Senate and get it to the president’s desk, and no one will lose their paycheck,” Bost said, adding that Friday is still “the day we’re aiming for.”
Officials warned that if Congress does not act by September 20, there could be delays in the payment of compensation, pensions and rehabilitation benefits for veterans.
The bill provides $2.9 billion in additional funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, of which about $2.3 billion will go to the Veterans Benefits Administration for compensation and pensions, and about $597 million will be allocated for adjustment benefits.
Senators from both parties hope the chamber can expedite consideration of the bill this week, but given the deficit, the VA’s finances are under increased scrutiny.
Members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee questioned VA officials about the causes of the deficit and budget management during a hearing Wednesday afternoon.
The agency has cited the PACT Act, a landmark law passed in 2022 with bipartisan support, as a major cause of the budget deficit, pointing to an escalate in VA health care enrollment, as well as appointments and application benefits.
Joshua Jacobs, undersecretary of human services at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said during the hearing that since the law went into effect, the agency has served “approximately 340,000 veterans who are now receiving PACT benefits for which they would not otherwise have been eligible. 60,000 of them have cancer.”
But the agency is under pressure from lawmakers.
“I don’t know if I need to have a discussion about providing benefits. We are for it. Veterans are entitled to benefits. We want them to get them. But what concerns me is the lack of budgeting, accountability, knowledge of the facts and time to make better decisions,” said Senator Jerry Moran (Kansas), the ranking Republican on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, at the start of the hearing on Wednesday.
Other Republicans also questioned officials about previous reports that the VA improperly awarded millions of dollars in bonuses to its executives last year.
Given the growing pressure on Congress, Moran said during the hearing that he had asked his colleagues from both parties “to help reach an agreement today or tomorrow on the additional funding needed.”
“And I want to make sure that happens, and I expect it will happen tomorrow.”
A bipartisan effort to fast-track similar deficit-fixing legislation before the August recess failed due to opposition from conservatives and increasing scrutiny of VA funding.
Sen. John Boozman (Arkansas), the ranking Republican on the subcommittee that drafts annual VA funding, expressed hope Tuesday that the Senate can expedite House-passed legislation and pass it unanimously, but that process can also be stalled if a single senator opposes its passage.
“My hope would be that they send it here and we do it unanimously,” Boozman told The Hill. “If not, then we have to take the time from now on to get it. [passed].”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a conservative who previously opposed efforts to speed up the Senate version of the bill, told The Hill on Wednesday that he would be willing to “vote on the House bill” if he would get an amendment vote in return. Paul says his proposal aims to offset the bill’s costs.
“We’re going to introduce an amendment to the House VA bill to cover the costs,” he said. “That doesn’t solve the problem. … There’s a huge problem. That’s what happens when you put together a bill and say if you have high blood pressure, you can get money for the burn pit.”
“I’m 61 years old. Sixty percent of 60-year-olds have high blood pressure. While there’s no direct link between high blood pressure and burn pits, if you take every 60-year-old veteran and say if they have high blood pressure, you get disability benefits, that’s what happened. Millions of people signed up, and they just used up all the funds,” he argued. “That’s spending on a scale we’ve never seen before.”
