Ranking Member Takano Applauds House Action on Benefits Funding, Calls Out Republican Political Games on VA Healthcare Funding

WASHINGTON, DC – House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Ranking Member Mark Takano (CA-39) today took to the House floor to bring attention to ongoing funding shortfalls for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). While Ranking Member Takano was glad the House acted on a supplemental funding bill (H.R. 9468) for the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), he slammed the Majority for not also acting this week on $12 billion in funding for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). 

More veterans than VA could have anticipated have applied for healthcare and benefits since the Ranking Member’s Honoring our PACT Act was signed in to law two years ago. With more veterans than ever receiving healthcare and benefits at VA, VA needs additional funding to ensure benefits are paid on time and that there are enough resources and staff to provide care for veterans. 

Ranking Member Takano delivered the following remarks on the House floor this evening: 

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my support for H.R. 9468, legislation that addresses a critical funding shortfall at the Veterans Benefits Administration, which could delay delivery of crucial veterans’ education and disability benefits.  

When we passed the Honoring our PACT Act into law, we intended that VA move quickly to implement the law. This speed was necessary so that veterans who needed care and benefits could receive them as quickly as possible. We also gave VA the money necessary to do that work, and the authority to move more quickly if it could.  

On day one, President Biden accelerated implementation of the law, and one year later, VA also hit the gas so that more veterans could enroll in VA healthcare more quickly. VA set aggressive goals, and what we’re seeing right now is a result of VA exceeding those goals.   

VA has granted almost one point two million PACT Act disability claims. Hundreds of thousands of new veterans have been enrolled in healthcare at VA. G.I. Bill and job training benefits are being used at unprecedented levels to further veterans’ education and careers. These are all good things.  And I don’t think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are arguing they are bad. But their rhetoric regarding VA’s financial management belies their true motive here, which is to take any and every opportunity to bash the Biden-Harris Administration—in this case, for simply providing care and benefits to veterans.    

From what we have heard today, it sounds like Republicans are begrudgingly willing to fund VBA, when this is the bare minimum that we should be doing! While I am glad that we are getting the VBA supplemental completed this week, I am very concerned, and frankly disappointed, that we are not also taking action on the 12-billion-dollar Veterans Health Administration shortfall. The deadline for the VHA shortfall is not this week, but that does not make it any less pressing.  The time when VHA will need this funding is fast approaching, and this Congress has not shown itself to be capable of reliably passing funding bills on time. Republicans have even refused to include VHA funding in their Continuing Resolution text that was introduced last week and is up for a vote tomorrow. I have heard the Chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee say that Congress never fails to fully fund the VA. And so, I am confident that this VBA supplemental will pass easily with plenty of support from both sides of the aisle.   

But why the political games with veterans’ healthcare? Why not address it now, while we are here working on VBA funding, and provide veterans and their families, and the VA workforce some much-needed stability? Why not include it in the CR we are voting on tomorrow?  

We must get VHA the funding it needs to provide world-class healthcare to those who served and any delay in that care could be devastating for veterans. Enough of this brinksmanship! Republicans are shorting veterans and their families by not addressing VHA funding now along with VBA funding. Democrats are once again charged with being the adults in the room and are calling on the Majority to do the right thing, pass all of the funding VA needs now and stop any uncertainty for veterans. Let’s get this done!  

VHA’s need for an additional 12 billion dollars is not malfeasance or incompetence. More veterans than ever before are accessing VA healthcare. We should be celebrating and applauding that fact, not denigrating VA and its hardworking staff. When every VA request for additional funding is met with suspicion, accusations of mismanagement and derision of VA, what is the true motivation of my colleagues? Is it to ensure that VA is able to deliver the necessary care and benefits to veterans, or is it to extract a pound of political flesh? 

I have no doubt this bill will pass. It includes added reporting requirements that will aid us in our oversight responsibilities, which I support. But let us not assign blame where there is none. And let us not denigrate those who wake up daily and do their best to serve those who have served our nation.    

And whatever we do, Mr. Speaker, let us get VA ALL the resources it needs to deliver for our veterans.” 

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