House GQP Bill Would Result In 22% Cut To Federal Assistance Programs, Including VA Health Care Benefits

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The U.S. is facing a default on its national debt for the first time in its history, in violation the constitutional obligation to maintain the full faith and credit of the United States, as early as June 1. Treasury Chief Janet Yellen Says U.S. Risks Default as Soon as June 1 Without Debt Ceiling Increase.

This is only happening because MAGA Fascist economic terrorists have taken the country hostage and are threatening to blow up the U.S. and global economy if Democrats do not concede to their extortion demands to make deep cuts to federal programs that struggling Americans rely upon.

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Just to be clear, the GQP bill that passed last week by the bare minimum vote is a messaging bill, it is dead on arrival in the Senate. It is not a serious attempt at legislation. It was a sop to the extremist GQP House Freedom (sic) Caucus – more accurately described as the GQP House Fascist Caucus – the anti-government insurrectionists who tried to overthrow American democracy on January 6.

The White House states, Congressional Republicans’ Legislation: 22% Cuts That Would Harm American Families, Seniors and Veterans:

Yesterday, Speaker McCarthy and Congressional Republicans doubled down on threatening default in order to extract a wish list of extreme, unrelated policies that will hurt hard-working families. The legislation Congressional Republicans have drafted is designed to avoid leveling with the American people about how these cuts would impact their lives. So I want to be very clear about exactly what this plan would mean for families and communities across the country.

The legislation Congressional Republicans introduced sets overall appropriations for Fiscal Year 2024 at the same level as FY 2022. At this level, all appropriated funding—including both defense and domestic programs—would be cut deeply. However, Congressional Republicans have indicated that they are not willing to cut defense funding at all, which means that everything else in annual appropriations—from cancer research, to education, to veterans’ health care—would be cut by much more.

The math is simple, but unforgiving. At their proposed topline funding level—and with defense funding left untouched as Republicans have proposed—everything else is forced to suffer enormous cuts. In fact, their bill would force a cut of 22 percent—cuts that would grow deeper and deeper with each year of their plan.

[The legislation proposed by Congressional Republicans would set the FY2024 topline at $1.471 trillion, equal to the FY 2022 level. Under the assumption that funding for defense in FY 2024 will at least match the baseline level of $885 billion, non-defense funding would total $586 billion, which is 22 percent lower than the currently enacted level of $756 billion.]

What would that mean for the American people just in the first year of their plan? Consider just a few examples:

      • Undermine Medical Care for Veterans: Cutting funding by 22 percent would mean 30 million fewer veteran outpatient visits, and 81,000 jobs lost across the Veterans Health Administration—leaving veterans unable to get appointments for care including wellness visits, cancer screenings, mental health services, and substance use disorder treatment.
      • Slash Funding for Schools with Low-Income Students and Students with Disabilities: A 22 percent cut would impact 25 million students in schools that teach low-income students and 7.5 million students with disabilities, which could force a reduction of up to 108,000 teachers, aides or other key staff.
      • Eliminate Preschool and Child Care for Hundreds of Thousands of Children: A 22 percent cut would mean 200,000 children lose access to Head Start slots and another 180,000 children lose access to child care—undermining our children’s education and making it more difficult for parents to join the workforce and contribute to our economy.
      • Strip Nutrition Assistance from Millions of Women, Infants, and Children: A 22 percent cut would mean 1.7 million women, infants, and children would lose vital nutrition assistance through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), significantly increasing child poverty and hunger.
      • Rob Seniors of Healthy Meals: A 22 percent cut would take away nutrition services, such as Meals on Wheels, from more than 1 million seniors. For many of these seniors, these programs provide the only healthy meal they receive on any given day.
      • Raise Housing Costs for Hundreds of Thousands: A 22 percent cut would eliminate funding for Housing Choice Vouchers for over 630,000 households, including 190,000 households headed by seniors and 50,000 veterans.
      • Scale Back Rail Safety Inspections: A 22 percent cut would result in 7,000 fewer rail safety inspection days next year alone, and 30,000 fewer miles of track inspected annually—enough track to cross the United States nearly 10 times.

These are just a few examples—the list goes on and on. A 22 percent cut to the National Institutes of Health would delay cancer and Alzheimer’s research. A 22 percent cut to the Army Corps of Engineers would affect key water resources projects all over the country. A 22 percent cut to the Department ofHomeland Security would undermine border management and drug interdiction. And under their bill, these cuts would get even deeper over time. There is no escaping the pain to working families and our economic future: if they seek to protect any area from cuts, it only means more harmful cuts to all of the other painful impacts listed above.

Let’s just take the cuts to veterans benefits.

Military.com reports, House Republican Threatens to Cut VA Budget over Agency’s Warnings About Budget Cuts:

House Republicans are floating [a retaliatory investigation of] the Department of Veterans Affairs or cutting its communications budget as they fume about the Biden administration’s messaging on the House GOP’s debt limit proposal.

The potential reprisals were suggested by a couple of lawmakers during a press call over the weekend hosted by the No. 3 House Republican, [insurrectionist] Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., in which Republicans insisted the debt limit and spending cut bill they recently passed would not result in reductions to veterans health care and benefits, contrary to recent VA warnings.

“Obviously, they have too much money in the communications department if they’re spending it on political purposes,” Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., said in suggesting cuts to the VA’s press office.

At issue is a [messaging] bill passed by House Republicans last week that would raise what’s known as the debt ceiling in exchange for placing a cap on the overall amount of money the government can spend. The bill does not specifically mandate cuts to the VA or any other department, but it also does not specifically protect any department. Instead, lawmakers would determine later which agencies would take cuts and which ones wouldn’t during the annual appropriations process.

While some congressional Republicans have vowed to protect the Pentagon from budget cuts as part of the debt ceiling fight, the Biden administration has issued warnings based on the assumption that every other federal department would face a 22% cut in order to meet the cap in the GOP bill.

Ahead of the House vote on the [messaging] bill, the VA said that a 22% cut would mean being able to handle 30 million fewer outpatient visits than planned, eliminating 81,000 Veterans Health Administration jobs and 6,000 Veterans Benefits Administration jobs, and increasing the disability claims backlog by an estimated 134,000 claims.

The VA warning, along with subsequent statements from congressional Democrats and the White House framing the cuts as written into the GOP [messaging] bill, infuriated Republicans. On the weekend press call, [insurrectionist] Stefanik accused the Biden administration of “shamelessly lying” about the contents of the [messaging] bill.

Citing federal laws against government officials making false statements [that’s rich!], [insurrectionist] Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., also said that “we need to investigate this.”

“It is nothing more than a fear tactic,” Clyde continued. “When the Democrats don’t have the facts on their side, they use lies, emotion and volume. [Psychological projection.] President Biden is abusing veterans once again, and I think Congress should investigate this.”

In response to the latest GOP defenses of their bill, the White House issued a statement Tuesday accusing Republicans of wanting to “hollow out” the VA.

“Unless moderates are willing to stand up to the extreme MAGA groups that have taken over the conference, the House GOP is going to define themselves as so indentured to multinational corporations and billionaires that they’re willing to make the biggest cuts to veterans benefits in American history,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in the statement, using the abbreviation for former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

The political posturing comes as the Treasury Department warned Monday that the U.S. could hit the debt ceiling as soon as June 1, bumping up its previous estimate of defaulting on U.S. debts from somewhere between July and September. The debt ceiling or limit is the amount of money the Treasury Department can borrow in order to pay for spending Congress has already approved through the annual appropriations process. Economists and administration officials have warned that an unprecedented default could cripple the American economy by reducing faith in U.S. credit and increasing interest rates.

Under the House GOP plan, the debt ceiling would be raised by $1.5 trillion or to March 31, 2024 — whichever comes first. In exchange, discretionary spending in 2024 would be capped at 2022 levels, which is about $130 billion less than this year’s spending level. Spending growth over the next decade would also be capped at 1%.

While it would be possible to meet the cap without cutting either the Pentagon, which makes up about half of the discretionary budget, or the VA, which represents more than one-sixth of the non-defense discretionary budget, doing so would require steep cuts to other government agencies that Democrats are not likely to agree to. Left-leaning think tanks have estimated protecting both Pentagon and VA spending would mean more than 30% cuts to everything else.

The bill is dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but House Republicans view the measure as their opening offer [extortion demands] in debt ceiling talks. After the Treasury’s announcement Monday, the White House said President Joe Biden invited congressional leaders to a meeting next week. The White House has said that it will not negotiate a budget deal tied to the debt ceiling, which it insists should be raised without other stipulations.

Asked Thursday about GOP complaints that the VA’s warnings about the effects of the bill were fearmongering and lies, VA Secretary Denis McDonough maintained he had not seen the Republican criticism but said that “if there’s something for me to say to my Republican colleagues on the Hill, I’ll say that to them personally.”

“A fair reading of that [bill] would suggest that we, as we prepare for the provision of care in the next year, be ready for the full range of options, the full range of outcomes,” McDonough said at his monthly press conference, while incorrectly asserting the GOP bill includes a carveout for the Defense Department. “And that’s what we’re doing.”

On the House Republican press call over the weekend, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., said he spoke with McDonough on Sunday morning. Bost said he told McDonough that he was “disappointed” but that “the conversation didn’t go much past that.”

“No veteran will lose benefits,” Bost vowed. “In my nine years as a member of Congress, I have never seen the use of an agency that is so vitally important to so many people be used as a political hammer to deliver a message that is false so that it would stir people up to cause our veterans to be used as pawns.”

He is full of shit. Before the PACT Act – Five Remarkable Times Republicans Voted Against Veterans:

President Biden signed the PACT Act today, less than two weeks after Republican Senators pulled the rug out from under it by voting down the bill. Now law, the PACT Act will open up life-saving medical access to hundred of thousands of Veterans exposed to burn pit toxins, the effects of which include cancer to lung disease. While we are still shaking our heads over a no-win decision by Republicans to vote it down (after voting Yes for it less than two weeks prior) we wondered about their record in the last decade on similar Veteran-related bills in Congress. Is there a track record that needs to be reviewed and reassessed? 

Despite veterans benefits and assistance programs being widely popular with the public for centuries, congressional Republicans continue to vote against programs that would provide life-saving assistance to veterans. Here are a some of the more high-profile examples of Republicans voting against bills or cutting funding that would help save the lives of Veterans and their families:

In July of 2022, 11 Senate Republicans, including Mitt Romney and Rand Paul, voted against a bipartisan measure (the PACT Act) that is designed to help veterans who were exposed to toxic chemicals while deployed abroad.

In 2017, Former President Donald Trump and congressional Republican leaders put forth budget proposals that would have done great damage to the economic security of veterans and their families—all to pay for tax cuts for millionaires and corporations. Here are two other blogs, here and here, that list many more times when Trump, who called Veterans “suckers and losers” treated them with disdain.

In 2015, the GOP-controlled Senate voted down a bill to provide $1 billion over five years to provide jobs for unemployed veterans. The bill was fully funded, and would not have added any additional money to the deficit.

In 2014, Senate Republicans shot down one of the largest pieces of veterans legislation in recent history. The Comprehensive Veterans Health Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014 would have repealed the military retiree cost-of-living adjustment reduction, and would have protected veteran pensions and educational payments from future Congressional budget fights. It would have also authorized the construction of more than 20 community-based outpatient clinics to serve veterans in rural and remote areas.

In 2011, Republican Paul Ryan and the House of Representatives attempted to end VA healthcare benefits for disabled veterans who are Priority 7 & 8. This means veterans with conditions not recognized by the VA, like certain diseases from Agent Orange exposure, would have to pay for healthcare out of pocket if they didn’t have another service-connected disability.

It is widely believed throughout the United States that our brave and dedicated troops are some of our most important assets. When conflict arises, we can trust that they will boldly leap into action to protect and defend our nation, making immeasurable sacrifices in the process. Since the inception of our country, presidents and politicians from all political parties have enacted laws and agencies specifically designed to help support veterans and military members after they return home.

Once A Soldier understands the sacrifice that service members and their families have made. We believe that all US veterans deserve support, and access to high quality physical and mental health care. There’s always pork added to any bill, and they get passed all the time. If that is being used as to why a Senator or Representative won’t vote  yes on a bill for Veterans, we demand that they put Veterans first and vote Yes.

There needs to be five so-called “moderate” Republicans in the House to break ranks with the extremist MAGA Fascists in their caucus to pass a clean bill to lift the federal debt ceiling and to pay the bills already incurred by Congress. So far, these cowards are all more terrified of their GQP crazy base than in doing what the Constitution requires them to do, and that they took an oath of office to do. If they default on the debt and blow up the U.S. and global economy with their extremist ideology, it will be on their heads, and the GQP must be destroyed as a political party and thrown on the ash heap of history.

UPDATE: On Tuesday, Biden tweeted a flow chart showing exactly how Republicans in the House had not protected veterans’ health benefits.





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3 thoughts on “House GQP Bill Would Result In 22% Cut To Federal Assistance Programs, Including VA Health Care Benefits”

  1. There are only ~18 million (~7% of US population) vets. The GQP figures they can shitcan us and save a load of money for their oligarch buddies. When the GOP military-industrial complex wants more $$$, they’ll just draft more dumbass 18 y/o who fall for the “god, flag & country” BS. I was one of those dumbass 18 y/o back in 1969. If I had a draft age kid, there’s no way I’d let him join any US military adventure.

  2. Heather Digby Parton writes, “Kevin McCarthy has no chance at a budget deal: Joe Biden has learned from Barack Obama’s mistakes”, https://www.salon.com/2023/05/01/kevin-mccarthy-has-no-chance-at-a-budget-deal-joe-biden-has-learned-from-barack-obamas-mistakes/

    (excerpt)

    Today, Joe Biden and the rest of the Democratic leadership are firmly refusing to negotiate around the debt ceiling, which is as it should be. There is a process for cutting spending, if that’s what these Republicans want to do, and it’s called appropriations. They can negotiate night and day in the budget talks and use every trick in the book to get their way with that (and there are a few.) But they cannot be allowed to pull this bs over and over again. If they want draconian spending cuts to happen they have to bargain for them or win a real majority and pass legislation like normal elected officials.

    Unfortunately, the Republicans once more have a great friend in the media which is always inexplicably drawn to the idea of spending cuts and are once again pushing stories of fiscal doom due to deficits. (Weirdly, they too didn’t say a peep during the Trump years when he was running up the debt without restraint.) Pundits love to insist that we must “learn to take our medicine” many of whom are well-off celebrities who will face little hardship from the “shared” pain and cost such policies will bring.

    And when it comes to describing the politics of the situation they seem to be constitutionally incapable of accurately reporting that the Republicans are threatening to destroy the economy in order to force draconian spending cuts under a Democratic president while the Democrats are simply doing what they do under both Republican and Democratic presidents: paying the bills. Instead, they are laying the responsibility for the potential default on the debt on Biden, who is apparently falling down on the job if he doesn’t capitulate to the insane demands of a bunch of radical extremists who very often won’t take yes for an answer anyway. It’s absurd and luckily, so far, the Democrats are standing fast.

    [O]verall, the Democrats are hanging tough: a clean debt ceiling vote, period. It’s what has to be done. Unless we want to just cash in our chips and give Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene lifetime appointments to run the country, this hostage taking has to stop. The damage they did with this gambit back in 2011 is still being felt and the country can’t afford another round of that insanity.

  3. Bottom line is that MAGA think the American people are stupid: they point out that cuts are not targeted at veterans programs, and neglect to mention that ALL discretionary spending will be cut, INCLUDING vet benefits and admin costs. They are lying by omission and hoping America won’t notice.

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