House and Senate Approve VA Emergency Funding
The House and Senate have approved a $3 billion supplemental funding bill that prevents the Department of Veterans Affairs from having a lapse in veteran benefit payments.
That comes despite lawmakers’ complaints that the VA has been less than transparent or timely about its budgetary needs. Federal News Network reports some lawmakers are unhappy with the VA’s approach to the funding crunch.
Lawmakers Concerned About Department of Veterans Affairs
Some in Washington are less than happy with how the Department of Veterans Affairs handled the three-billion-dollar funding crunch. And they are asking tough questions. Can the VA provide a satisfactory answer?
Members of the Senate’s committee on the Department of Veterans Affairs, including Ranking Member Jerry Moran, complained. According to Moran, “The VA only notified Congress about the budget crunch months after submitting their FY 2025 budget request and appearing before both House and Senate committees to explain their budget needs.”
Another Senate VA committee member, John Tester, was quoted in the same FNN article noting concerns that “this is not the first time the VA has asked for additional funding, but said the department is providing more health care and benefits to more veterans under the toxic-exposure PACT Act signed in August 2022.”
House and Senate Approve VA Emergency Funding
The Senate VA Committee approved the $3 billion supplemental bill on the heels of the House of Representatives’ earlier approval. The money was needed by Friday, September 20, 2024, to avoid delaying VA benefits to veterans and families.
Federal News Network reports that the money is also badly needed for “readjustment benefit payments to more than 800,000 veterans and their beneficiaries.”
More Budget Woes Coming?
According to some sources, the $3 billion approved for the VA may not be a sign of things to come in terms of how much additional consideration the VA budget needs to handle PACT Act claims (see below.)
In mid-September 2024, the Veterans Benefits Administration had paid out approximately $154 billion in benefits to date to nearly 7 million beneficiaries, at press time.
And that number is greatly elevated due to PACT Act claims, which greatly expanded the VA’s beneficiary base since its passage. The Veterans Health Administration is asking for an extra $12 billion to avoid interruptions to PACT Act claim payouts.
The PACT Act resulted in a high level of new and resubmitted VA claims, and the Department of Veterans Affairs is trying to keep up with the volume. In the meantime, lawmakers in Washington face a continued inability to pass an annual defense budget. That makes the VA’s job even tougher due to the rules of stopgap federal funding and continuing resolutions.
About the author
Editor-in-Chief Joe Wallace is a 13-year veteran of the United States Air Force and a former reporter/editor for Air Force Television News and the Pentagon Channel. His freelance work includes contract work for Motorola, VALoans.com, and Credit Karma. He is co-founder of Dim Art House in Springfield, Illinois, and spends his non-writing time as an abstract painter, independent publisher, and occasional filmmaker.
