The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a roughly $3 billion veterans aid bill early this week, according to information obtained by Fox News Digital.
The announcement comes as Congress presses toward an Oct. 1 deadline for a partial government shutdown with no deal between Republicans and Democrats on next year's federal spending.
Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., who is spearheading the veterans bill, is hopeful his bill can garner enough critical support to pull itself out of the political quagmire that is the fiscal 2025 budget.
“The drama of the election [funding] “The drama … you know, we have bipartisan members making sure our veterans are taken care of,” Garcia told Fox News Digital.
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Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., is leading the push for a $3 billion supplemental funding bill for veterans' health care. (Getty Images)
“And we just need to get the Senate and the president to understand the value of it, and then the problem will be solved.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) warned Congress in July that it was about $3 billion short of funding needed for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and about $12 billion short of projected needs for the next fiscal year.
The VA has warned that if additional funding is not approved by September 20th, as many as 7 million veterans could lose their benefits by October 1st.
“I would never write a blank check to a federal agency that has a poor track record and effectively overfunds its accounts,” Garcia explained. “This not only impacts seven million veterans, but also their families and everyone else who relies on those checks.”
And those 7 million veterans “will lose their pension benefits, they will lose GI Bill benefits and they will lose college tuition assistance,” he said.
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The House bill would require VA Secretary Denis McDonough to submit a detailed budget report to Congress. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Garcia's bill also includes a requirement for the VA to submit shortfall reports to Congress and future accountability reporting guidelines to ensure continuing funds are being properly stewarded. The bill would also require the VA Secretary to notify lawmakers if future budget estimates change.
He blamed the shortfall on “mismanagement and mismanagement by the VA, and perhaps, as you know, mismanagement of other accounts that impacted VA benefits.”
Meanwhile, the VA pointed to increased demand for health care and the passage of the PACT Act as the cause of the budget shortfall.
A vote in the House of Representatives is expected early this week, with lawmakers returning to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday afternoon to resolve broad government funding issues within 10 days of a partial government shutdown deadline.
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Government funding has become a political lightning rod, sparking some of the biggest political upheavals of the 118th Congress.
A planned vote on a short-term funding extension for fiscal year 2024, known as a continuing resolution (CR), was delayed last week due to intra-Republican infighting, and a vote is expected to take place as soon as this week.
Garcia called on House leaders, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, to keep the VA budget bill separate from federal spending talks. (Getty Images)
Garcia argued that the VA bill and the fight over broader federal spending are running parallel legislative processes, but acknowledged he worries the former effort could be thwarted by the latter.
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“We don't have much time to tie this into the CR package because this turns into a pumpkin on Sept. 20. And I would suggest to the leadership that we should not use veterans as political leverage for other legislative initiatives, which is what I have done,” he said.
The House bill is co-sponsored by two ranking Republicans: House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-Ill.).
This follows a similar legislative push in the Senate in August.
