Lawmakers are rushing to pass emergency legislation to plug a roughly $3 billion shortfall facing the Department of Veterans Affairs, with officials warning that benefits for veterans and their families are at risk if Congress doesn't act in the coming days.
The House passed the bill with bipartisan support Wednesday night, and lawmakers from both parties are pressuring the Senate to take up the measure quickly.
“We're all in agreement that we need to move forward as quickly as possible,” House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-Ill.) told The Hill on Wednesday, referring to the leaders of his committee and the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
“We can get enough votes to pass the bill in both the House and the Senate and get it to the president's desk and nobody will lose a paycheck,” Bost said, adding that Friday is still “the day we're aiming for.”
Officials have warned that if Congress does not act by September 20, veterans' compensation, pension benefits and job re-employment payments could be delayed.
The bill requests about $2.9 billion in additional funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, of which about $2.3 billion would go to the VA for compensation and pensions, and about $597 million would go to job reinstatement benefits.
Senators from both parties are hopeful Congress can fast-track the bill this week, but the budget shortfall comes as VA finances come under increased scrutiny.
Members of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee grilled VA officials about the causes of the budget shortfall and their management of the budget during a hearing Wednesday afternoon.
The department cited the PACT Act, a landmark law passed with bipartisan support in 2022, as a major factor in the budget shortfall, pointing to increases in benefits for enrolling, booking and applying for VA health care.
Joshua Jacobs, VA's undersecretary for benefits, said at the hearing that since the law was enacted, the VA has “added approximately 340,000 veterans currently receiving PACT benefits who they were not otherwise eligible for, including 60,000 who have cancer.”
But the agency has faced stiff criticism from lawmakers.
“I don't know if we need to have a conversation about providing benefits. We're in favor. Veterans are entitled to their benefits. We want them to get their benefits. But what I'm concerned about is the lack of budget, the accountability, getting the facts and the time to make better decisions,” Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, the top Republican on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said at the start of Wednesday's hearing.
Other Republican lawmakers also grilled officials about earlier reports that the VA improperly paid millions of dollars in bonuses to senior executives last year.
With pressure growing on Congress, Moran said at the hearing that he had asked colleagues from both parties to “work with us to reach a conclusion today or tomorrow on the additional funding that is needed.”
“And I want to make sure that happens and I expect that to happen tomorrow.”
A bipartisan effort to quickly pass a similar bill to fill the shortfall before the August recess failed due to conservative resistance and increased scrutiny of VA funding.
Speaking on Tuesday, Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, the top Republican on the subcommittee that sets the VA's annual budget, said he hopes the Senate can move quickly on the House-passed bill and pass it unanimously, but that process could be delayed if one senator objects to passage.
“I would hope that they would send it over here and that we would unanimously approve it,” Boozman told The Hill. “If that's the case, we need to take the time to get it to us right away. [passed].”
Conservative Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has previously opposed efforts to fast-track the Senate version of the bill, told The Hill on Wednesday that he would agree to “put a vote on” the House bill in exchange for voting on amendments. Paul has said his proposal is aimed at offsetting the bill's costs.
“We're going to introduce an amendment to the House VA bill to cover the cost,” he said. “This doesn't solve the problem. There's a bigger problem. This is what happens when you put a bill out there and say people with high blood pressure can get money for an incinerator.”
“I'm 61 years old. 60 percent of 60-year-olds have high blood pressure. There's no direct causal relationship between high blood pressure and burn pits, but if you say every veteran who's 60 years old has high blood pressure, you get disability benefits. Millions of people signed up, and the money's gone,” he argued. “We're spending at a pace we've never seen before.”
