Offsets would lower disability compensation for some future veterans
The House passed a major package of veterans bills Wednesday on Veterans Day, approving its centerpiece — a bill to boost compensation for an estimated 58,000 combat-injured medical retirees — by voice vote after no member requested a recorded roll call. The approval drew objections from House Democrats and from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who criticized both the bill’s funding mechanism and its path through the chamber.
The measure targets a trade-off built into current law: combat-injured retirees with less than 20 years of service give up a portion of their military retirement pay when they also receive Department of Veterans Affairs disability compensation. Lawmakers in both parties back changing that so those retirees receive their full injury compensation and their retirement pay, but they disagree about how to fund it. The bill passed Wednesday would raise those retirees’ compensation by an average of about $1,450 more per month, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
To help pay for the increase, the Republican bill would change how the department rates tinnitus or sleep apnea. Those changes would lower disability compensation for some future veterans, though they would not affect current veterans receiving compensation for those conditions. Democrats overwhelmingly opposed the trade-off as the bill was debated.
“It does not take care of veterans. It takes from them,” Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., said of the bill.
Republicans had pulled the bill from consideration earlier this year because they did not have the votes to pass it. This time, Democratic leaders again encouraged their members to oppose the measure, saying that cutting benefits for one group of veterans to fund new benefits for another is not the answer.
The floor action unfolded in a packed, noisy chamber as lawmakers talked among themselves following an earlier vote. After the House clerk read the bill’s title, the presiding officer, Rep. Addison McDowell, R-N.C., stated the question for passage and called for members in favor to say aye and those opposed to say no.
“The ayes have it,” McDowell said. “The bill is passed.”
Under normal House practice, Democrats would interject and ask for a roll call vote. None came. Republicans placed the responsibility on Democrats: Rep. Mike Bost, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, called Democrats “asleep at the wheel.”
“If nobody calls for the vote, it’s passed, which is a good thing,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. “If a few of them want to go voice their objections, they can go and make it clear on the House floor why they are against our veterans on Veterans Day,” Scalise said. “But I was proud to support it. I’m glad it passed.”
Rep. Mark Takano, the ranking Democratic member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said there was no opportunity for the minority to ask for a recorded vote. “The intention was to sneak this through,” Takano said. “Well, all I can say is, I think it’s a shallow, a hollow victory because it will go nowhere in the Senate.”
Cory Geisler, the national commander-in-chief at the Veterans of Foreign Wars, criticized the voice vote in a statement. “If congressional leaders believed this proposal was worthy of passage, they should have had the courage to let every member’s position be recorded for the country to see,” Geisler said. “Playing political games with veterans’ benefits while avoiding public accountability is cowardly and dishonorable.”
Democrats have their own bill addressing the compensation issue, which is expected to come up for a vote Thursday. Supporters used a discharge petition to get around Republican leadership and force the vote. The Democratic measure does not include offsets.
Takano said that while some Republicans have voiced concerns about the price tag of his bill, they have no problem sending soldiers to war, approving the Pentagon budgets that come with it, or passing tax breaks that primarily benefit the wealthy. “Why then do they insist on balancing the budget on the backs of our veterans?” Takano said.
If the Democratic-led bill passes, the Senate could pick the bill it favors or take up neither, leaving the issue to the Democratic-controlled Congress seated next year.