Discussion · Senate
Richard Blumenthal Democrat
“I want the Senate to pass my bill for veterans. The Republican plan cuts benefits for veterans with hearing loss and sleep problems to pay for other care. My bill protects those benefits and pays for the program using leftover military funds instead.”
“Madam President, 2 weeks ago, House Republicans failed to advance the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act. That failure in the House was the latest example of broad bipartisan opposition to the Republican proposal to cut more than $50 billion--that is $50 billion--in benefits for disabled veterans over the next 10 years. This controversial proposal continues to divide Congress, and it also is dividing the veteran community. And it is something we could have easily averted if my Republican friends had engaged in a serious and substantive conversation about the process, a conversation not only with Democrats but with the veterans service organizations. They pursued a take-it-or-leave-it approach. I would like to think that it is mainly the House of Representatives that is responsible for this take-it-or-leave-it approach because Democrats and veterans advocates have been very clear from the very beginning, we oppose the cuts in the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act for more than 1 million veterans who are currently eligible to receive benefits because they suffer from sleep apnea or tinnitus. These disabilities are not hypothetical or abstract; they are real. And they do disable people, and often they are the result directly from combat or training that inflicts the same kind of harms. For example, standing near artillery being fired for many hours a day, the result is impairments of hearing, tinnitus. And the toxic chemicals in training as well as in combat can result in sleep apnea. So I am here to say again I oppose efforts to water down the Major Richard Star Act, a DOD-administered and funded policy, with cuts to veterans’ benefits. I oppose watering it down by taking care and benefits away from veterans. The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, to its credit, includes dozens of bipartisan priorities that Democrats have authored and championed. They are bipartisan, many of them. I support them. I want these priorities signed into law. Veterans, survivors, and caregivers deserve them. But we cannot accept the false narrative that accepting the Republican-proposed cuts is the only way to do it--our way or the highway--especially since it is a budgetary rule that has been selectively enforced in the past that somehow there needs to be an offset. In fact, there should not be an offset to care for veterans by taking away from other veterans for a program that is an obligation of the Department of Defense. Call it the Department of War; it is still their obligation to provide full retirement pay without subtraction for disability benefits, as is now required. Unjustly, unconscionably, Republicans insist on offsetting new investments in veterans with those offsets, which is absurd, and I hope still my Republican colleagues will look to the compromise that I have offered. I don’t think there should be a need for an offset. There hasn’t been for some benefits in the past. But if Republicans are going to continue to block the Major Richard Star Act with insistence on an offset or a pay-for, I have one. It is, in fact, contained in an alternative bill that I am offering today to address the two major concerns with the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act. First, it would replace the watered-down version of the Major Richard Star Act with my bill to fully eliminate the wounded veterans tax, and it would strike the unprecedented cuts for disabled veterans who suffer from service- connected tinnitus and sleep apnea. In doing so, it would utilize unspent Department of Defense funds from H.R. 1, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, to cover the entire cost of the bill. It is the only offset proposal for the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act that has garnered bipartisan support, and it is the one that doesn’t pit some veterans against other veterans. More than $75 billion of the Department of Defense funds in H.R. 1, a bill signed into law more than 1 year ago, still remain unspent and unobligated, and CBO has confirmed--absolutely confirmed--enactment of my proposal prior to the Department’s obligation of those funds would provide the savings we need. The CBO has said, if we pass this bill, the savings from unobligated funds can be counted as an offset. Let me just say bluntly: There is a lot of rhetorical rigmarole that we can apply to pay-go and offsets and pay-fors. We make the laws here. We can pay for this program out of unobligated funds that the Secretary of Defense--call him the Secretary of War--has said is unobligated. Now, he has said a lot of it will be obligated, but it is for things like the Golden Dome, where most military experts say that money will not be feasibly spent by the end of the year. We should use it if we need to have an offset. I believe that veterans, survivors, and caregivers have paid for their benefits through service and sacrifice. The cost of caring for veterans is part of the cost of war, and for those combat-injured veterans who are receiving disability benefits for their injuries, they should not have to sacrifice their retirement pay that is an obligation of the Department of Defense. It should not be taken out of the VA. It may seem like an abstract principle, but to veterans who would lose sleep apnea and tinnitus benefits, it is a big deal. In fact, it can be a life-changing deal. Costs that are dramatically increasing each day because of the President’s blundering war of choice in Iran have resulted in 18 service members dying and more than 600 injured, and they will be among the ones who are penalized if they retire with fewer than 20 years. We are creating a new generation of combat-injured veterans. It is unconscionable to claim that we can only care for them by forcing other veterans to sacrifice. We need to do the right thing. Veterans deserve meaningful results from a grateful nation, and they should never be handed an invoice when the costs of war come due. My Republican colleagues cannot claim that the Major Richard Star Act is unaffordable. If you want a chart to give you some idea of the comparatively minuscule cost of the Major Richard Star Act, here is $13 billion. It is over 10 years. Here is our fiscal year 2027 defense request for 1 year. It dwarfs. In fact, $13 billion is hardly a rounding error on $1.5 trillion. The NDAA benefits expansion in fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2021 was $13 billion--no pay-for. The estimated cost of the Iran war: $38 billion. That figure is a lowball. It is in excess, really, of $100 billion; we all know it. Compared to all we spend on our defense capability, doing right by these veterans is basically a rounding error that the country can well afford. Now, my colleague’s bill also siphons off $500 million from disabled veterans for an IT slush fund that the VA does not need or request. The money that they are taking from veterans who suffer from sleep apnea or tinnitus covers, in their view, the Major Richard Star Act, but it is only 17 percent of the money that they are taking away from these disabled veterans. The rest of it, of the $56.2 billion that they would save by, in effect, inflicting harm on these veterans--who knows. Taking money from veterans with service-connected disabilities and giving it to President Trump’s cronies or whoever else is going to lay claim to that compensation cut but not used is absolutely shameful--a staggering dereliction of our obligation to veterans. Cutting $56 billion worth of benefits when only 15 percent, 17 percent will go toward covering new VA benefits is cruel and unconscionable. Better to adopt my compromise proposal. Taking unobligated funds--$13 billion-- out of the more than $75 billion that are unspent and unobligated, that the CBO says can be used for these savings, is the better way to go. It is the only one that has garnered bipartisan support. It is the only one that isn’t opposed by the stakeholders. It is the only one that can pass. It is the only one that should pass. So notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 433, S. 4744. I ask unanimous consent that the Blumenthal substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.”
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Madam President, 2 weeks ago, House Republicans failed to advance the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act. That failure in the House was the latest example of broad bipartisan opposition to the Republican proposal to cut more than $50 billion--that is $50 billion--in benefits for disabled veterans over the next 10 years. This controversial proposal continues to divide Congress, and it also is dividing the veteran community. And it is something we could have easily averted if my Republican friends had engaged in a serious and substantive conversation about the process, a conversation not only with Democrats but with the veterans service organizations. They pursued a take-it-or-leave-it approach. I would like to think that it is mainly the House of Representatives that is responsible for this take-it-or-leave-it approach because Democrats and veterans advocates have been very clear from the very beginning, we oppose the cuts in the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act for more than 1 million veterans who are currently eligible to receive benefits because they suffer from sleep apnea or tinnitus. These disabilities are not hypothetical or abstract; they are real. And they do disable people, and often they are the result directly from combat or training that inflicts the same kind of harms. For example, standing near artillery being fired for many hours a day, the result is impairments of hearing, tinnitus. And the toxic chemicals in training as well as in combat can result in sleep apnea. So I am here to say again I oppose efforts to water down the Major Richard Star Act, a DOD-administered and funded policy, with cuts to veterans’ benefits. I oppose watering it down by taking care and benefits away from veterans. The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, to its credit, includes dozens of bipartisan priorities that Democrats have authored and championed. They are bipartisan, many of them. I support them. I want these priorities signed into law. Veterans, survivors, and caregivers deserve them. But we cannot accept the false narrative that accepting the Republican-proposed cuts is the only way to do it--our way or the highway--especially since it is a budgetary rule that has been selectively enforced in the past that somehow there needs to be an offset. In fact, there should not be an offset to care for veterans by taking away from other veterans for a program that is an obligation of the Department of Defense. Call it the Department of War; it is still their obligation to provide full retirement pay without subtraction for disability benefits, as is now required. Unjustly, unconscionably, Republicans insist on offsetting new investments in veterans with those offsets, which is absurd, and I hope still my Republican colleagues will look to the compromise that I have offered. I don’t think there should be a need for an offset. There hasn’t been for some benefits in the past. But if Republicans are going to continue to block the Major Richard Star Act with insistence on an offset or a pay-for, I have one. It is, in fact, contained in an alternative bill that I am offering today to address the two major concerns with the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act. First, it would replace the watered-down version of the Major Richard Star Act with my bill to fully eliminate the wounded veterans tax, and it would strike the unprecedented cuts for disabled veterans who suffer from service- connected tinnitus and sleep apnea. In doing so, it would utilize unspent Department of Defense funds from H.R. 1, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, to cover the entire cost of the bill. It is the only offset proposal for the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act that has garnered bipartisan support, and it is the one that doesn’t pit some veterans against other veterans. More than $75 billion of the Department of Defense funds in H.R. 1, a bill signed into law more than 1 year ago, still remain unspent and unobligated, and CBO has confirmed--absolutely confirmed--enactment of my proposal prior to the Department’s obligation of those funds would provide the savings we need. The CBO has said, if we pass this bill, the savings from unobligated funds can be counted as an offset. Let me just say bluntly: There is a lot of rhetorical rigmarole that we can apply to pay-go and offsets and pay-fors. We make the laws here. We can pay for this program out of unobligated funds that the Secretary of Defense--call him the Secretary of War--has said is unobligated. Now, he has said a lot of it will be obligated, but it is for things like the Golden Dome, where most military experts say that money will not be feasibly spent by the end of the year. We should use it if we need to have an offset. I believe that veterans, survivors, and caregivers have paid for their benefits through service and sacrifice. The cost of caring for veterans is part of the cost of war, and for those combat-injured veterans who are receiving disability benefits for their injuries, they should not have to sacrifice their retirement pay that is an obligation of the Department of Defense. It should not be taken out of the VA. It may seem like an abstract principle, but to veterans who would lose sleep apnea and tinnitus benefits, it is a big deal. In fact, it can be a life-changing deal. Costs that are dramatically increasing each day because of the President’s blundering war of choice in Iran have resulted in 18 service members dying and more than 600 injured, and they will be among the ones who are penalized if they retire with fewer than 20 years. We are creating a new generation of combat-injured veterans. It is unconscionable to claim that we can only care for them by forcing other veterans to sacrifice. We need to do the right thing. Veterans deserve meaningful results from a grateful nation, and they should never be handed an invoice when the costs of war come due. My Republican colleagues cannot claim that the Major Richard Star Act is unaffordable. If you want a chart to give you some idea of the comparatively minuscule cost of the Major Richard Star Act, here is $13 billion. It is over 10 years. Here is our fiscal year 2027 defense request for 1 year. It dwarfs. In fact, $13 billion is hardly a rounding error on $1.5 trillion. The NDAA benefits expansion in fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2021 was $13 billion--no pay-for. The estimated cost of the Iran war: $38 billion. That figure is a lowball. It is in excess, really, of $100 billion; we all know it. Compared to all we spend on our defense capability, doing right by these veterans is basically a rounding error that the country can well afford. Now, my colleague’s bill also siphons off $500 million from disabled veterans for an IT slush fund that the VA does not need or request. The money that they are taking from veterans who suffer from sleep apnea or tinnitus covers, in their view, the Major Richard Star Act, but it is only 17 percent of the money that they are taking away from these disabled veterans. The rest of it, of the $56.2 billion that they would save by, in effect, inflicting harm on these veterans--who knows. Taking money from veterans with service-connected disabilities and giving it to President Trump’s cronies or whoever else is going to lay claim to that compensation cut but not used is absolutely shameful--a staggering dereliction of our obligation to veterans. Cutting $56 billion worth of benefits when only 15 percent, 17 percent will go toward covering new VA benefits is cruel and unconscionable. Better to adopt my compromise proposal. Taking unobligated funds--$13 billion-- out of the more than $75 billion that are unspent and unobligated, that the CBO says can be used for these savings, is the better way to go. It is the only one that has garnered bipartisan support. It is the only one that isn’t opposed by the stakeholders. It is the only one that can pass. It is the only one that should pass. So notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 433, S. 4744. I ask unanimous consent that the Blumenthal substitute amendment at the desk be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.