Veterans

On Thursday, March 3, 2022, the United States House of Representatives passed HR 3967, the Honoring our PACT Act of 2021. The bill was only expected to pass in the House because the Democratic Party holds the majority of seats. This is exactly how it played out as the final vote was 256-174, with just 34 Republicans voting over the whining criticisms from their fellow GOP members that this bill was too expensive. That’s a bit different from the 363-70 vote on the National Defense Authorization Act a couple of months ago, where only 19 Republicans were worried about budgets when they added $25 billion on top of the already increased defense budget bill proposed by President Biden.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made this point in her remarks before the bill was passed, reminding the House GOP that “The budget costs of it are a cost of war. When we decide we need to engage and initiate in a military action, we should understand that the cost is not just in our defense budget, but also in our veterans budget when they come home.” In fact, Pelosi went on, “the cost of this bill is a fraction – if we're talking budget – of the cost of the Republican tax bill that they passed in 2017, which added $2 trillion to the national debt. I didn't hear anybody complaining about – on the other side of the aisle – about the impact that had on veterans and their concerns about the fiscal soundness of the United States.”


https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/3/2083727/-PACT-Act-passes-with-134-Republicans-voting-against-helping-veterans-exposed-to-toxic-burn-pits?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=main