Latest news with #VeteransAffairs
Axios
10 hours ago
- Business
- Axios
Senate takes first step on late government funding bills
The Senate took a bipartisan step forward Tuesday on the first of its annual appropriations bills for the upcoming fiscal year — as the deadline to avoid a government shutdown comes into view. Why it matters: It's an early sign that some Democrats are still willing to work across the aisle to avoid a shutdown, at least for now. The early procedural vote was 90-8. Seven Senate democrats voted against opening debate: Ed Markey (Mass.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Adam Schiff (Calif.), Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Chris Murphy (Conn.) and Peter Welch (Vt.) — along with Republican Mike Lee (Utah). The bill provides funding for military construction and Veterans Affairs. Republican leaders have indicated they want to attach it to packages that fund agriculture programs, food safety, as well as the Commerce and Justice departments. What to watch: Democrats decided Tuesday to support moving forward with the measure, with the party's leaders noting that it reverses much of DOGE's cuts to programs that enjoy broad, bipartisan support. But they are keeping their powder dry on future appropriations bills and a solution to averting a shutdown at the end of September. Democratic leaders have warned Republicans that seeking more rescissions packages like the one Congress sent to President Trump last week would threaten Democratic support for government funding. Trump's budget chief Russell Vought has thrown gasoline on the fire, not only hinting at more rescissions packages, but also saying the appropriations process should be "less bipartisan." The big picture: Congress is far behind schedule for passing all of the appropriations bill before the Oct. 1 deadline, likely necessitating another stopgap spending measure to avoid a shutdown. The Senate Appropriations Committee has agreed to four appropriations bills so far, all with bipartisan support. In the House, two appropriations — funding defense, military construction and Veterans Affairs — have passed along party lines. Congress has increasingly relied on short-term spending measures called continuing resolutions — which keep spending levels flat from the previous year — to avoid a shutdowns.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Area 51 veterans plagued by 'invisible illness' after working on top-secret projects
A group of US Air Force veterans has gone public with their story about how an 'invisible enemy' at the top-secret base Area 51 left them with cancer. The former security guards at the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) - a classified site that houses Area 51 - have claimed that the US government betrayed them and essentially handed them a death sentence without their knowledge. Their claims stem from the revelation that NTTR was built in the 1970s on an area of land in the Nevada desert that was found to be contaminated with radiation from years of nuclear testing in the area. However, that 1975 report from the US Energy Research and Development Administration also said it would 'be against the national interest' to stop the military's secret projects at the site. According to David Crete, a former Air Force Sergeant who worked at NTTR from 1983 through 1987, over 490 of his fellow workers at the base have died of severe illnesses since being stationed at the secret facility. Making matters worse, the US Department of Veterans Affairs has refused to cover their medical care because none of the surviving veterans can prove they were exposed to radiation near Area 51. That's because their work was so top secret, all records of their activities have been marked as 'data masked.' 'I have brain atrophy. The left side of my brain is shrinking and dying. That's not too bad. I'm one of the healthy ones,' Crete told the House Veterans Affairs Committee in April while lobbying for legislation to support the Area 51 veterans. Crete added that the average age of death for someone who served in that unit is 65 and the youngest airman to die was just 33. The Air Force veteran was unaware of anyone who worked at NTTR who had lived beyond the age of 80, but the radiation exposure caused even more harm than that. Along with revealing that most of his fellow airmen had developed multiple tumors since retiring, Crete told lawmakers that the radiation had been passed to their families as well. 'My wife had three miscarriages. One of the guys that I worked with, his wife had seven,' the veteran explained. 'All four of my children were born with birth defects or significant health problems. It's not their fault. I'm not saying it's mine, but I brought it home. It was my DNA that was permanently altered from low-dose, long-term, ionizing radiation exposure,' Crete continued. In 2000, then-President Bill Clinton signed a bill that provided compensation and medical benefits to workers who developed illnesses due to exposure to radiation and other toxins while employed at certain government facilities, including nuclear sites. Crete and other veterans from Area 51 who were invited to Washington on April 8 asked that the same healthcare rules that apply to these workers, who were not part of classified projects, apply to them as well. Veteran Mike Nemcic told NewsNation: 'It's just a matter of betrayal. These folks knew, and they purposefully kept it quiet because it was more beneficial to them not to tell us.' has reached out to the Air Force for comment regarding this matter is still awaiting a response. Crete and the other Area 51 veterans were employed by the Air Force's security police squadron to guard the F-117A Nighthawk, America's first stealth bomber, which was being developed and tested at the top-secret facility. Most of what the airmen did at NTTR since the 1970s is still classified, and they've never been able to share what they were doing, not even to their families. Veteran Pomp Braswell said: 'It felt very special, especially at a young age. My mom knew absolutely zero about what I was doing. She knew there was a phone number if she needed to get hold of me, that's it.' According to Crete, the only recognition of their sacrifice at Area 51 came during a conversation with late US Senator John McCain, who served on the Senate Armed Services Committee and allegedly knew what was happening at NTTR. 'He came up to me and he said, 'Your unit ended the Cold War.' If you ever wanted validation that what you did was important, that's just about it,' Crete recounted. Two bills have been introduced in Congress, the Protect Act and the Forgotten Veterans Act, to provide healthcare relief for the veterans affected by their classified work at NTTR.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
VA expects 30K voluntary job cuts by October, erasing need for layoffs
Voluntary retirements and resignations are expected to trim 30,000 Veterans Affairs workforce positions by the end of September, forgoing plans for potential forced resignations this fiscal year to meet administration goals to reduce the size of government, department leaders announced Monday. Already, about 17,000 VA jobs have been vacated since Jan. 1 through a combination of deferred resignations, retirements, normal attrition and department hiring freezes, officials said. Another 12,000 posts are expected to be cleared out over the next two and a half months. VA Secretary Doug Collins in a statement said that because of those significant workforce reductions — equalling a 6% decrease in the roughly 484,000 VA workforce last fall — department leaders are no longer discussing the idea of a department Reduction In Force process. 'Since March, we've been conducting a holistic review of the department centered on reducing bureaucracy and improving services to veterans,' Collins said in a statement. 'As a result of our efforts, VA is headed in the right direction — both in terms of staff levels and customer service.' House passes $435 billion spending plan for VA in fiscal 2026 A VA spokesman said the department is not looking to make any additional 'major changes' to staffing levels beyond that 30,000 cut. Previously, officials had said they may eliminate up to 80,000 department jobs in coming months. For the last several months, department leaders and members of President Donald Trump's White House staff have insisted that workforce cuts are needed to trim down the federal bureaucracy to reduce spending and improve efficiency. However, Democratic lawmakers and union leaders have strongly objected to those claims, saying the increased medical and benefits workload of the department mandates more staffing, not less. They have also said that hiring freezes and staff cuts have begun to hurt veterans benefits, particularly in tasks indirectly related to medical care, such as appointment scheduling and medical supply delivery. But Collins and top VA officials have said the department has multiple safeguards in place to ensure that staff reductions do not impact veteran care or benefits, including exempting more than 350,000 positions from the federal hiring freeze. Department officials also pointed to positive trends in benefits processing and medical care in recent months, continuing trends from the last few years. Collins said in his statement Monday that the staff reductions thus far have 'resulted in a host of new ideas for better serving veterans that we will continue to pursue.' Department leaders said they are looking at 'duplicative and costly administrative functions that can be centralized or restructured' for additional workforce savings, as well as reducing some of the 274 separate call centers the department runs. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Senate panel backs plans for $456 billion VA budget next year
Senate appropriators on Thursday advanced plans for a $456 billion budget for Veterans Affairs programs and benefits next fiscal year, putting it generally in line with House and White House goals for future department spending. Unlike the House draft adopted last month, however, the Senate VA appropriations plan advanced out of committee with broad bipartisan support and without a bevy of controversial social issue amendments. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, praised the bill's passage as an important step forward for the federal budget process and for supporting America's veterans. 'It helps to fund the VA Health Care System, makes investments to improve mental health care, includes programs to assist in the prevention of veteran suicide, homelessness prevention programs, supports our family caregivers and expands care for our rural veterans,' she said. 'It also funds important veterans benefits, including disabilities, pensions, the GI Bill and employment training programs.' House passes $435 billion spending plan for VA in fiscal 2026 House lawmakers' budget plan for the department totaled about $453 billion, but both the House and Senate drafts call for roughly $134 billion in discretionary funding, money for new program starts and initiatives. That total is slightly less than what White House officials asked for in their budget proposal, but only by about $1 billion. Most of the debate in Thursday's Senate Committee markup focused not on the VA spending plans but instead the controversial rescissions package adopted by the chamber the night before. That measure would pull back about $9 billion in congressionally authorized spending, including money for foreign aid and public media programs. But those objections were not enough to deter most Democrats from backing the Republican-led VA budget plan. The Senate proposal includes language ensuring that veterans 'are never denied care or timely access to care as a result of the damaging or arbitrary cuts to the VA workforce,' a reference to recent workforce reductions at the department. Last week, VA officials backtracked on earlier plans to trim up to 80,000 employees from the department's payroll, instead projecting a reduction of about 30,000 individuals by the end of September. Veterans Affairs leaders have seen regular budget increases annually for more than 20 years, even amid frequent congressional and White House efforts to reduce federal spending. In fiscal 2001, the VA budget — both mandatory and discretionary — totaled just $45 billion. In 2011, it was about $125 billion. In fiscal 2023, the total topped $300 billion for the first time. The House-passed plan for fiscal 2026 would now push that total over the $400 billion level, and cost more than the combined fiscal 2025 budgets of the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps. Senate officials have not said when the budget plan could come before the full chamber for a vote, but Collins said Republican leaders have committed to acting on the issue in coming months.
The Independent
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
‘There's not much to do': National Guard troops deployed to LA mainly fought one thing
National Guard troops and Marines deployed to Los Angeles during last month's anti-ICE protests say their biggest problem wasn't demonstrators - but boredom and low morale. Trump sent more than 4,000 California National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Southern California last month as thousands of people took to the streets in protest of the administration's widespread immigration enforcement. The troops were sent to quell 'lawlessness,' the administration said, but several service members spoke to the contrary. 'There's not much to do,' one Marine, who was not named, told the Los Angeles Times. After the protests died down a month ago, the marine said his duties had mostly involved approving access for visitors and workers at the Veterans Affairs office. Steve Woolford, a resource counselor for GI Rights Hotline, told the Los Angeles Times that many troops have told him they have little to do. 'The most recent people I talked to sounded like they're sitting around bored without much to do,' Woolford said. 'And they're happy with that: They aren't asking to do more. At the same time, I don't think people see a real purpose in what they're doing at all.' Some National Guard troops deployed to LA also told The New York Times they are being ordered to back up federal immigration agents in the region. Six service members told the outlet that there's low morale among those stationed around LA, as well as concern that this mission could hurt future recruitment. Some said they believe Trump sent them to the city on a 'fake mission.' A National Guard official told The New York Times this mission could hurt morale in the long term. 'The moral injuries of this operation, I think, will be enduring,' the official said. 'This is not what the military of our country was designed to do, at all.' The Independent has contacted the White House for comment. The Trump administration ordered the release of 2,000 troops from the mission Tuesday, leaving half of them still in place. California Governor Gavin Newsom accused Trump of 'exploiting' troops as 'political pawns.' 'Thousands of members are still federalized in Los Angeles for no reason and unable to carry out their critical duties across the state,' Newsom wrote on X Tuesday. 'End this theater and send everyone home.' Trump deployed the troops last month after demonstrations swelled against widespread ICE raids across California, including in LA's Fashion District and the nearby city of Paramount. The protests stretched on for days and footage showed clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement, particularly after the National Guard arrived, with police in riot gear using tear gas to disperse people. Some demonstrators threw fireworks and other projectiles at officers, vehicles were set on fire, and 'f*** ICE' graffiti sprayed throughout the city. Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the Trump administration arguing that federal officials must end the 'illegal and unnecessary takeover' of California's National Guard. A district judge initially sided with Newsom and Bonta, issuing a temporary restraining order that would have returned control of the troops to the state. However, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals paused the judge's order shortly afterward and allowed the troops to stay in LA. Democratic lawmakers slammed Trump for the deployment. Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Democratic New Jersey Senator Corey Booker backed Newsom's lawsuit, with Booker describing the president's actions as 'hypocritical at best.' Democrats were also outraged when California Senator Alex Padilla was forcibly removed and handcuffed after asking a question at a June 12 press conference led by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Veterans similarly decried the move. Marine veteran Janessa Goldbeck told The Independent last month that Trump is using the military as a 'political prop.' Goldbeck is the CEO of the nonpartisan advocacy group Vet Voice Foundation. 'When I joined the Marine Corps, I swore an oath — not to a person, not to a party, but to the Constitution,' Goldbeck said. 'That's not just just politicizing the military — it's crossing a dangerous line,' she added.
