House passes $3B VA funding bill as specter of government shutdown looms

The House of Representatives passed a roughly $3 billion veterans supplemental funding bill with broad support Tuesday.

It comes as Congress is barreling toward an Oct. 1 partial government shutdown deadline with no agreement between Republicans and Democrats on federal spending in the next fiscal year. 

Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., who spearheaded the veterans bill, said he was hopeful that his legislation has enough critical support to keep it free from the political quagmire of fiscal year 2025 funding.

"In the fray and chaos of all the election drama and all the [funding] drama…there are still members, you know, in a bipartisan fashion, making sure that our veterans are taken care of," Garcia recently told Fox News Digital.

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Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., led the charge on a $3 billion supplemental funding bill for veterans' care. (Getty Images)

"And we just need the Senate and the president to understand that value as well, and when they do that, we'll fix the problem."

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) warned Congress in July that it was about $3 billion short of the funding it needed for the current fiscal year, ending Sept. 30, and about $12 billion short of its projected needs in the following one. 

The VA is warning that a failure to pass the added funds by Sept. 20 could mean that 7 million veterans could be left without benefits by Oct. 1.

"I would never just write a blank check to a federal agency that's underperforming and, you know, effectively overrunning their accounts," Garcia explained. "It is something that affects not just the 7 million veterans, but also the families and everyone around depending on those checks."

And those 7 million veterans, he said, "would lose their pension benefits, they would lose their GI bill benefits, the college tuition assistance."

It comes after a similar legislative push was mounted in the Senate in August. It's unclear if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to take up the House bill.

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Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough would need to provide detailed budget accountings to Congress under the House bill. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Garcia’s bill also includes a mandate for the VA to issue a report on the shortfall to Congress, and future accountability reporting guardrails to ensure continuing funds are managed properly. It would also force the VA secretary to report to lawmakers on any future budget estimate changes. 

He ascribed the budget shortfall to "mismanagement and bad budgeting from the VA and probably, you know, not managing other accounts correctly that have affected these VA benefits."

For its part, the VA pointed to increased demand for its health care and passage of the PACT Act as reasons for the shortfall.

Lawmakers returned to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday afternoon and have less than 10 working days to solve the broader government funding issue before the partial shutdown deadline.

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Government funding has been a political lightning rod that has caused some of the largest political upheavals of the 118th Congress.

A planned vote on a short-term fiscal year 2024 funding extension, called a continuing resolution (CR), was delayed in the face of intra-GOP strife last week and is expected to possibly get a vote this week as well.

Garcia had urged House leaders, including Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to keep the VA funding bill separate from federal spending talks. (Getty Images)

Garcia maintained that his veterans supplemental funding bill and the wider federal spending fight were on parallel legislative tracks, but previously admitted he did worry about the former effort getting sandbagged by the latter.

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"Because this turns into a pumpkin on Sept. 20, we don't really have time to tie this to a CR package," he said.

The House bill is co-led by senior GOP lawmakers House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., and House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill.