A sweeping veterans’ benefits bill was pulled from the House floor on Thursday before it could be brought to a vote.
The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act includes more than 60 individual measures, most of which have received broad support from veterans’ groups. But the bill would cut some existing benefits to pay for the expansion of other benefits, and those cuts have sparked fierce debate.
In one popular policy change included in the bill under the Major Richard Star Act, veterans would be allowed to collect both retirement and injury benefits, without offsets. To cover the estimated cost of $13 billion over 10 years, coverage for some common ailments, including tinnitus and sleep apnea, would be dropped.
Lawmakers debated the bill for more than an hour before it was pulled, with some members reportedly snapping at each other on the House floor. Blaming “misinformation” about the bill for the conflict, House Speaker Mike Johnson said the legislation probably won’t be brought back for “several more weeks” as leaders consider the next steps.
Democrats call for alternative funding: In an op-ed published by Fox News Wednesday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Mark Takano, the senior Democrats on their respective Veterans’ Affairs Committees, criticized the plan to cut benefits for tinnitus and sleep apnea.
“The Republican insistence on offsetting new investments in veterans is both absurd and cruel,” the Democrats wrote. “The cost of war includes the human cost of caring for our veterans. We make a promise to care for these men and women after their service, and a great nation keeps its promises.”
Blumenthal and Takano noted that Republicans have been inconsistent in their use of offsets to cover the cost of legislation. “For instance, they spent $3.4 trillion to deliver tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer, with no regard to offsetting those costs,” they wrote. “Despite this reality, Republicans claim the only viable path forward for the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act is enacting unprecedented cuts to disabled veterans’ benefits. We are here to say that is simply not true.”
Blumenthal and Takano said the Pentagon is sitting on nearly $100 billion that is “unobligated and unspent” from the massive tax bill Republicans passed last summer. “A small portion of those funds could easily be redirected to cover the human costs of war reflected in the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act.”
Alternatively, Republicans could restore the 39.6% top tax rate for the top 0.1%, up from the 37% rate created in the tax bill. That move, which would affect only those earning more than $25 million a year, would be enough to pay for the new benefit, Blumenthal and Takano said.
While offering no specific funding proposals, Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew seemed to agree with the criticism of the funding plan. The veterans bill “has good provisions, but paying for them by reducing disability compensation for veterans with service-related health issues is the wrong approach,” Van Drew said, per The Hill. “We can, and must, do better.”