Rep. Mark Takano said Wednesday that Congress should abandon the veterans omnibus if lawmakers cannot agree on how to pay for it, and instead move the Major Richard Star Act and the other bills in the package one by one. He said the bill would pass quickly if it were not tied to the funding fight.
The dispute is holding up the Taking Care of America’s Veterans Act, which supporters say is the best chance in years to advance more than 60 veterans bills at once. The package includes the Major Richard Star Act, the Love Lives On Act, expanded caregiver support, survivor benefits, community care improvements, education reforms and mental health initiatives. It was headed toward a Senate floor vote this week, making Takano’s call a direct challenge to the effort to keep the omnibus intact.
The Major Richard Star Act sits at the center of the standoff because it would let certain combat-injured medically retired service members receive both military retired pay and VA disability compensation without the dollar-for-dollar deduction. Congress has repeatedly failed to advance it because lawmakers cannot agree on a funding offset, and that same fight is now shadowing the broader package around it.
Asked what Congress should use instead, Takano pointed to unobligated Department of Defense funding and said the pay-for did not need to be settled at the start. He said it could be handled through negotiation, which is a sharp departure from lawmakers who want a firmer offset before moving ahead.
That view runs into a different argument from Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jerry Moran, who says projected savings should be redirected into veterans programs rather than allowed to return to the broader federal budget. Moran said the legislation takes no benefit away from anyone already receiving those benefits, but Carol Whitmore, speaking at a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees, drew a harder line. “When some suggest that veterans’ benefits are too expensive, let us be clear: This is the cost of war,” she said.
What comes next is a test of whether lawmakers keep trying to hold the package together or peel off the Major Richard Star Act and the rest of the bills before the vote cycle closes. Takano made clear he thinks the standalone path is the safer one, and the longer the funding fight lasts, the more likely the larger omnibus is to become the casualty.
