Weeellll…. I knew this was going to happen.
I am steadfastly opposed to the latest expansion of veteran’s benefits, aka HR
6047.
Even though it’s a Republican bill, I agree with the democrats who voted in
opposition to it in committee.
Why?
Because the devil is in the details.
A lot of veterans were excited over expansion of the VA bill to include
personnel who had not set foot in Vietnam to become eligible for Agent Orange
benefits if they had, for example, come into contact with it as a part of their
job outside Vietnam proper, this is typically called expanding the Agent Orange
coverage and benefits to the “Blue Water Navy”
For example, personnel on aircraft carriers where missions were flown over
Vietnam.
When aircraft returned, they’d frequently be covered in Agent Orange dust… dust
the deck crews would clean off the planes.
The contact would be the same. The cancers would be the same. The birth defects
would be the same. Even though they may have never physically set foot in-country.
As a retired Veterans Service Officer who worked to get vets connected to VA benefits,
I knew that expansion was necessary. And I was for it, until…
Then, a few years later, along came the Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans
Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act of 2025
And now, we’re confronted with yet ANOTHER expansion of VA benefits, H.R.6047, officially named the Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act, Which expands benefits for “catastrophically” disabled veterans their families and survivors. The bill increases in financial support for benefits that have not been increased “significantly” in decades, including a $10,000 per year increase for those receiving “special military compensation,” again a laudable goal, well deserved and one I could support until…
All three of these efforts, which the sponsors and supporters, including, naturally, the major veteran’s organizations such as the VFW, the Vietnam Veterans of America and the like all support, will set about to brag about their lobbying efforts to make this bill happen.
On the surface, these bills are easy to support. But when the Representatives go home and start bragging about these efforts, there’s one element you can bet they won't be bragging about:
How it’s paid for.
What all THREE of these bills have in common is that these increases will be paid for by veterans and veterans alone.
HR 6047 is funded by eliminating the VA home loan funding fee exemption for disabled veterans with ratings of 70% or below when they use their VA loan benefit for a second or subsequent home purchase. This change is intended to cover the estimated $10 billion cost of increasing benefits for severely disabled veterans and their survivors over the next decade.
The same veterans groups that sold us out on the expansion of Agent Orange benefits bill and The Dole VA Improvement Act are also selling us out on this bill.
Until now, if you had a service-connected disability or any kind, you were exempt from a substantial amount of the VA loan fees. For those veterans without disabilities, those fees were increased to cover the cost of the Agent Orange Expansion Bill, with a sunset clause of 2031.
When the Dole Bill passed, the sunset was extended to 2034.
And now, with this bill, even if you have substantial disabilities equal to 70%, you get no discount at all.
I’m not the brightest bulb on the tree but I am detecting a pattern here.
Now, at the outset, these bills do not impact me in the least.
Yet.
But they WILL impact millions of new veterans trying to get home loans in an increasingly out of control housing market cost, making it even LESS affordable for the veterans we have now and those following along behind us.
If these bills have merit, and it would seem that they do… then why are ONLY VETERANS PAYING FOR IT???
Why are we sending billions to foreign countries like Ukraine and Israel for their militaries… but we have to nickel and dime our veterans here?
As merited as these bills are, I did not support the first two and will not support this one if veterans are forced to bear the burden of the costs of these expansions.
Veterans are veterans. And now, this is becoming a dual class of veteran (until they eliminate any veteran housing benefit altogether to pay for some other bright idea fairy debacle) where there are the haves and have nots.
This is not fair. It is not just. It is not right.
Veterans should not be forced to pay for benefits that should be the responsibility of the entire taxpaying public we died or were injured defending.
I knew after the Agent Orange expansion that they would keep coming back to this convenient well to rip off veterans for benefits the general fund should be paying for. And it saddens me I was right.
BOTH sides of the aisle should know better, not just the democrats who opposed this bill in committee.
Find some other way to pay for it or don’t do it at all, because eventually, you’ll run out of benefits to take away to pay for these new programs.
