Congress passes $3B bill to plug VA shortfall amid concerns about veterans’ checks

The Senate passed an emergency spending bill Thursday to provide billions of dollars in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), as officials warn that benefit payments for veterans are at risk of being disrupted next month absent congressional action.

The Senate passed the bill with a voice vote with bipartisan support Thursday morning, as VA officials warned of increased risk of a benefits cliff in the coming weeks if lawmakers didn’t act by Friday. 

The bill, which passed the House earlier this week, now heads to the White House for signature. 

The measure calls for about $2.9 billion in additional funding for the VA, of which about $2.3 billion would go toward the Veterans Benefits Administration for compensation and pensions. Roughly $597 million would be put toward readjustment benefits.

House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chair Mike Bost (R-Ill.) said earlier this week that the bill, dubbed the Veterans Benefits Continuity and Accountability Supplemental Appropriations Act, would keep veterans’ disability compensation and education benefits from being held up. 

The VA has pointed to the PACT Act, a landmark law that passed with bipartisan support in 2022, as a key driver behind the budget shortfall, pointing to increases in enrollment in VA health care, appointments and applications benefits.

During a hearing Wednesday, Joshua Jacobs, the under secretary for benefits for the VA, said that, since the law’s implementation, the agency has seen “about 340,000 veterans who now are getting PACT benefits that would not have been eligible, 60,000 of whom have cancer.”

However, the VA has faced considerable heat from lawmakers over the shortfall, as questions arise over the agency’s budget management, and the events that preceded and came after the budget gap. 

Among the provisions in the bill passed Thursday are measures requiring the VA secretary to submit reporting to lawmakers detailing ways to improve forecasting and budget assumptions, as well as reporting on changes to estimates going forward.

It also requires the inspector general of the Department of Veterans Affairs to conduct a review of the circumstances surrounding the budget shortfall and the causes.

However, there are still questions around how Congress will respond to another request from the VA for an additional $12 billion in fiscal 2025 for medical care amid some resistance from conservatives.

As senators considered the legislation this week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) unsuccessfully pushed for an amendment he said is aimed at offsetting the costs of the bill by rescinding funding for the Department of Energy loan guarantees.

“My amendment would just simply offset the new money they need for the Veterans Affairs that they didn’t calculate well and didn’t appropriate by taking it from somewhere else in the budget,” Paul said on the floor Thursday. “To me, it seems eminently reasonable. Rather than borrow more money and put ourselves further into debt, we have a $35 trillion debt.”

He also called the VA shortfall “foreseeable” after Congress expanded benefits years ago, while adding, “I think it is the priority and it is [the] responsibility of America to take care of its veterans, but we still have to think about what we’re doing.”