Below is a letter from CRFB President Maya MacGuineas to the conferees appointed to negotiate between the House and Senate versions of the Veterans Affairs appropriations bill. It asks lawmakers not to add to the debt by creating a cap exemption or adjustment without offsetting the additional spending. We estimated last month the cap adjustment could cost $50 billion or more.
As the conference committee on the House and Senate versions of the mini-omnibus appropriations bill begins deliberations, I am writing to express the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's strong opposition to any discretionary cap increase or adjustment for the VA MISSION Act unless this additional spending is fully offset. Allowing this spending above the cap could easily add over $50 billion to the debt over the next decade. With deficits approaching the trillion-dollar mark, adding tens of billions of dollars more to the deficit is simply unacceptable...
As we said last month, “We all agree that our veterans deserve quality health care. But when something is important, it means that we should be willing to pay for it, not that we should shrug off the bill.”
