Newsbytes September 13, 2024

In this Issue:
Congress Must Fund VA: Budget Deadline Approaching
GAO Wants to Interview Vietnam Veterans
Congress Honors Those Who Died at Kabul Airport
Anniversary of September 11 Attack

Congress Must Provide Supplemental Funding to VA
On July 15, 2024, Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials informed Congress that the department requires an additional $3 billion in funding to support veterans’ pensions and benefits for the remaining months of the current fiscal year. The FRA signed a letter with several other organizations to key legislators urging Congress to immediately provide additional funding to the VA for this fiscal year. Unless Congress approves this necessary funding by September 20, roughly seven million veterans and their beneficiaries may not receive VA disability compensation and other benefits.

Although the FRA supports efforts to ensure accountability for the use of VA funds, these shortfalls are not the fault of our veterans and their families, who have given so much to our country. They should not be asked to bear further burdens, such as delayed benefits and inadequate medical care, due to funding challenges. We urge members to use the Action Center to ask Congress to act swiftly to approve the necessary funding so that there is no gap in either benefits or needed health care.

Link to Action Center

Budget Deadline Approaching
Lawmakers are on a tight schedule to address government funding for the next fiscal year (FY 2025), which starts on October 1, 2024. The House Speaker proposed a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government operating at the same current level until March 28, 2025. The measure includes the “SAVE Act” (H.R. 8281), which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote. The bill also provides $10 billion in emergency funding for disaster relief and nearly $2 billion for the Navy’s Virginia-class submarines.

This CR may pass the House but does not have the votes to pass the Senate. Many pundits believe that both chambers will agree to pass a shorter CR, with few or no policy riders attached, to avoid a shutdown after September 30. Democrats and many Republicans argue that any spending package should only last into December, with the priority this month being to keep the government funded and avert a shutdown just weeks before November’s elections. Neither party wants to be blamed for a government failure this close to elections that will decide control of the White House, Senate, and House.

GAO Wants to Interview Vietnam Veterans
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is asking Vietnam veterans to participate in a brief interview about open-air burning (including but not limited to burn barrels, burn-out latrines, and burn pits). Specifically, they are seeking veterans who were deployed on land or at sea in the Vietnam theater (Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos) between 1955 and 1975. GAO’s report will be publicly available on its website and sent to Congress, the VA, and the Department of Defense. The plan is to complete phone interviews by the end of Monday, September 30. To participate, please email VietnamBurnPits@gao.gov or call 202.512.5624. Learn more here.

Congress Honors Those Who Died at Kabul Airport
House Speaker Mike Johnson posthumously presented Congressional Gold Medals to the 13 service members killed during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. “Our nation owes a profound debt of gratitude to these service members and those who were with them in Kabul,” Speaker Johnson said during the ceremony. “We also owe them something deeper, an apology to the families who are here.”

On August 26, 2021, as U.S. forces worked to evacuate Afghan allies, an ISIS-linked suicide bomber detonated outside Abbey Gate, one of the entrances to Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. The explosion killed the 13 service members and around 170 Afghans, injuring many more.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged the politicians gathered to “ensure the sacrifices of all our service members were not in vain. We must care for them and their families and defend the values of freedom and democracy they so nobly fought for.”

23rd Anniversary of September 11 Attack
The 23rd anniversary of the world’s deadliest terror attack was commemorated this week with special services and events in New York City, at the Pentagon, and across the U.S. on Wednesday, September 11. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in New York City, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon during terrorist attacks carried out by Al-Qaida, a Muslim militant group founded by Osama bin Laden, on September 11, 2001. Bin Laden was later killed by U.S. military forces in Pakistan during a raid in May 2011.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hosted more than 60 National Day of Service and Remembrance events on September 11 at VA national cemeteries across 34 states and Puerto Rico. These events were open to all and honored the veterans, service members, law enforcement personnel, firefighters, and other first responders who served and sacrificed for the nation on September 11, 2001, and in the years since.